TICKETING & FARE COLLECTION
Lesley Gray, retail product manager for Atos UK, says that we are entering an exciting era for ticketing and fare collection – for both passengers and operators.
N
ews that researchers at the University of California Berkeley can decode
thoughts may mean that in the future passengers won’t need tickets: revenue inspectors will be able to pinpoint the passengers who haven’t paid the proper fare by telepathy. I don’t expect I will see the end of the ticket in my lifetime, but it does help to remind us that tickets are in many ways just a means to prevent fraud (by passengers and staff) rather than a valued part of the journey experience.
However, the automation of ticketing and the growth of machine readable tickets enables improvements in the processes of buying, collecting and using tickets that can add real value to the customer experience.
Have you experienced the search for the working pay and display machine and end- ed up buying from the rail ticket machines on the concourse, facing a long walk back to the car to display the ticket? Now you can go straight for the train and pay for parking by entering your registration number when
36 | rail technology magazine Feb/Mar 12
you buy or collect your rail ticket. Your reg- istration number is printed by the car park enforcement team or can even be collected onto their mobile device. The next step will be to enter your registration when you buy your ticket online. Similar registration cap- ture could also be applicable to barrier car parks through the use of ANPR technology
Ticket collection will soon be expanded to seasons so that the most frequent travellers can buy or renew on the web and collect quickly at the station. Conversely a signifi cant problem for infrequent passengers collecting tickets is not being sure they have got all their tickets. It is now possible to store tickets in an escrow on Ticket Vending Machines (TVMs) until printing is complete so they can all be collected in one operation, reducing the risk of the passenger starting their journey without all their tickets.
Another innovation on vending machines is providing real time information. Put- ting an information display on the top of a
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