Arriva UK Bus, UK
"“We can roll it out across our networks without any downtime for vehicles or costly on-board technology. We believe the convenience of having their ticket on their mobile will encourage more customers to take up our multijourney tickets.”
Mike Cooper, Managing Director, Arriva UK Bus
"
Ticketing on the Mobile phone
Winner of the 2011 Innovation Award for the Arriva M-Ticket (UK Bus Awards) and the 2010 Effective Use of Mobile Ticketing Award (Global Messaging Congress Gala Awards Dinner in Westminster, London)
SNAPSHOT
4,500 buses 1,000 routes
40,000 subscribers Over 1 million tickets sold
The challenge
Encouraging ticket sales, and particularly multi-journey tickets, and at the same time speeding boarding times without incurring the expense of extra on-board systems.
The solution
Arriva has worked in partnership with Trapeze Group to create the m-ticketing service, which is a free application downloaded directly onto customers’ phones. It allows people to buy tickets either directly through the application via a registered card or by purchasing credit from any PayPoint outlet either by cash or card.
The change
Arriva’s introduction of m-ticketing is believed to be the largest deployment of its kind in the world, covering approximately 1,000 routes served by 4,500 buses. It enables passengers to use their mobile phones to purchase tickets and display them to the driver. The company became the first UK bus operator to introduce mobile phone ticketing for all its regional services in November 2009.
“Customers can buy tickets using their phone at anytime from wherever they happen to be. It saves them searching out the cash to buy a ticket and speeds up getting on the bus as they simply show the ticket on the phone display to the driver.”
The results
How m-ticket works in three simple steps:
- Customers can register online now at arrivabus.co.uk/m-ticket. Once registered, the m-ticket application will be sent - free of charge - to their phone.
- Select and purchase their ticket. Either by credit/debit card or by cash. For cash top-ups, customers will need to add Arriva credit to their phone, using the m-ticket application’s ‘Add-cash’ option at a PayPoint outlet or Arriva Travel shop.
- Activate the ticket on the day and time of travel. Their ticket will be displayed on the mobile phone screen and simply needs to be shown to the driver. The ticket runs from the date of first use, not purchase.
Since the launch of its mobile ticketing service in 2009, Arriva has issued over one million tickets to users of mobile handsets, with a registered user base of over 40,000 subscribers.
The future
There are now specific smartphone applications available for the service, including apps for Android phones and the Apple iPhone. The system can use barcode or Near Field Communication (NFC) as ticket redemption channels. As more phones become NFC enabled, alternative methods of redemption will further speed boarding times.
Mike Woodhouse, Marketing Manager at Arriva Bus UK: “The rate at which customers are adapting to the new technology is incredible. In the first 12 months, we saw 500,000 trips made on m-tickets. In the next six months, we saw a further 500,000 journeys.”
Services like m-ticketing appear to be popular with customers. They certainly help operators and are set to become even more common place as more transport organizations plan the move to a totally electronic ticketing setup.
