Published on: Friday, 17 June 2016
Last updated: Wednesday, 5 October 2016
Abellio Greater Anglia has moved a step closer toeliminating paper tickets following a £3m investment in barcode readers at theticket gates.
Passengers travelling on Abellio Greater Anglia’s networkare now able to buy and receive most of the train operator’s tickets (via themobile app) straight to their mobile phones and now scan them through therecently installed barcode readers at the ticket barriers.
The investment will help to reduce the use of paper ticketsand also reduce queues at ticket machines and ticket gates.
Up to eight m-tickets can be purchased in one transactionusing the Abellio Greater Anglia or Trainline apps. Once the tickets have beenpurchased, passengers simply need to scan the barcode at the ticket barrierswhen they travel.
Customers can buy tickets including advanced purchase andwalk-up fares for any journey across the operator’s network (this includes peakjourneys into London Liverpool Street but these must be collected from thestation ticket machine prior to travel).
This enhancement will provide increased flexibility forpassengers who can purchase tickets via their mobile phones, wherever they are.
The project represents an investment of more than £3m andincludes the replacement of ticket barriers at Norwich and other stationsacross the network featuring barcode readers. The investment includes theintroduction of a new Ticket Validation database and Inspection app provided byMasabi for capturing and validating barcodes.
Andy Camp, Commercial Director, Abellio Greater Anglia,said: “We are very pleased to be one of the first operators to introduce mobileticketing. The introduction of mobile tickets provides a wealth of benefits topassengers, and will make travelling simpler and more convenient by eliminatingqueues and paper tickets.”
“Mobile Ticketing is revolutionising the passengerexperience, making queuing at ticket machines a thing of the past. This newservice allows passengers to buy tickets anytime, anyplace allowing them tosimply arrive at the station and board the train,” said Ben Whitaker,Co-Founder of Masabi. “We are delighted to be working with Abellio GreaterAnglia to provide mobile ticketing apps, validation software and our TicketValidation Database.”
John Davies, Retail Director at Trainline said; “We’ve beenworking closely with Abellio Greater Anglia for about a year to implement athree phase test of mobile tickets across the network. In that time we’ve seenmobile tickets steadily growing month on month and as of the end of May, 1 in 3tickets (34%) purchased on our App has been a mobile ticket. There’s definiteappetite for mobile in Greater Anglia!
“Now with full availability across the network, morepassengers will be able to enjoy the benefits of mobile tickets. It is a creditto Andy and the AGA team on getting to this stage – we’ve workedcollaboratively throughout and they’re an example that I hope the rest of theindustry will stand up and follow.”