Mobile ticketing to explode

With the continuing desire to save the planet individuals and companies are working toward going greener in the next decade. Because if you haven’t already heard, green is gold in our industry.

Paperless ticketing will become even more popular, not only from an ecological standpoint, but creates an ability to avoid long lines, eliminates printing and reduces distribution costs. The newest technology in paperless ticketing will be mobile ticketing, where consumer is given a barcode via email or SMS to be scanned at the venue with their mobile.

Tickets on mobile phones for rail, air and bus travel are set to explode over the next three years, according to Juniper Research, which predicts that by 2014, 15 billion tickets will be delivered via a mobile phone around the world. As well as transport tickets, this will also include cinema and sports tickets. Juniper predicts that around 2 billion mobile tickets will be issued this year.

The airlines lead mobile ticketing where paperless boarding using email or iPhone apps has experienced considerable growth in the past year. In December 2009, US airline Continental became the first carrier to implement paperless boarding on a transatlantic flight from Frankfurt airport. Air Canada and American Airlines also offer apps with similar technology for North American flights, whilst Air France and KLM expanded its mobile boarding service to most European destinations last autumn.