An interesting piece of news I spotted this week is that the UK Chiltern Railways line has set-up a system where you can prebook tickets and have the barcode stored on your mobile device (and by that I mean PDA and not cellphone) removing the need for paper tickets. To my knowledge this is the first time I see this in the UK. However another company in the travelling sector, Continental Airlines in the US, is also trialing this. Could this be the latest trend in mobile device usage?
It's certainly an exciting concept and I will be curious to see what the outcomes are and indeed whether anybody else will be keen to adopt this... According to many, a number of organisations have in the past tried to use mobile devices as barcode scanners with not a lot of success, usually because of the challenges of lighting conditions.
This reversal however seems very useful as long as the passengers are using mobile devices capable of displaying a barcode. Also this could well be extended to commercial applications beyond travelling such as event tickets etc.
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