Mobile Ticketing Systems: Public Transportation

Overview

In fact, because the adoption of mobile phones (especially smartphones) has become so widespread and mobile Internet access affordable to the masses, today’s public transportation providers have an opportunity to help enable citizens to purchase and carry electronic tickets for public transportation using their mobile phones, at the exact place and time at which transportation is needed.

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Background

Beyond potentially improving the ease with which these citizens can access public transportation, these new mobile ticketing systems are also designed to simplify and add efficiency to providers’ operations. With customers helping themselves to a greater extent and eliminating the need for paper tickets to be printed and distributed, the potential for cost savings for transportation agencies is obvious. However, such mobile ticketing systems are not yet in widespread use among public transportation providers because of three major concerns:

Providing a satisfactory return on taxpayers’ investments in such systems.
Avoiding investing funds in technology that will be outdated in a short period of time.
Preventing customers from finding ways to avoid paying for their tickets.

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Analysis

As such, mobile ticketing can reduce a public transportation provider’s infrastructure costs and the cost of sales by eliminating commissions paid to distributors. It also stands to reason that mobile ticketing can improve a public transportation provider’s environmental footprint by reducing the amount of material and energy required to do business. And for the most innovative transportation providers, mobile ticketing systems can allow the sale of seating upgrades and other high-profit ancillary services.

Launching a mobile ticketing capability can be a complex undertaking. It requires transportation providers to build new systems and infrastructure, train staff and, of course, use public funds as sparingly as possible and provide satisfactory returns on investment—all while keeping customers happy.

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Mobile Ticketing for Public Transportation: Convenience, Efficiency, and Revenue