Transport mobile ticketing use to explode

A report from Juniper Research calculates that transport mobile ticketing will grow from 37.4 million transactions in 2007 to just over 1.8 billion by 2011.

The Far East and China will make up 73 per cent of the total number of transactions worldwide.

The report found strong activity in the mobile ticketing transport sector, especially in rail and air travel.

Rail in particular is one of the early success stories with strong activity in Western Europe, North America and the Far East and China regions.

The report finds that many of the early trials and pilots that were essentially marketing activities by the operators are now being replaced by real commercial deployments owned by the ticketing and coupon owners such as Ticketmaster and the travel organisations such as the IATA (International Air Travel Association).

An example of a successful mobile ticketing trial is that of Gavitec's m-ticketing work with Spanair Airlines in Spain where passengers received a 2D code on their mobile phones, which functioned both as ticket and boarding pass.

A reduction in the operating costs of the transport providers by way of reduced staff and building space, easing pressure on space within terminals for check-in desks is a key driver.

For the consumer Juniper Research sees one of the main drivers for mobile ticketing as being 'queue busting'.

Mobile ticketing allows the consumer to purchase and receive a ticket on the day of travel or the event.

This functionality can be linked to VIP entrance in a fast-track queue at an airport or check-in.

However, Juniper warns that there are still a number of major hurdles that need to be overcome in order for the mobile phone to be the major storage medium for tickets and coupons.

These hurdles include technology challanges in the area of the delivery and redemption of mobile barcodes and the use of NFC.

Savings for the airline industry are predicted to be $500 million each year by migrating to mobile boarding passes.

Far East and China region to become biggest region with a figure a little below 697 million.

Some 2.6 billion mobile tickets will be delivered by 2011 to 208 million mobile phone users.

Juniper Research illustrates the current and near-future status of mobile ticketing and coupons with analysis and interviews from representatives of some of the leading organisations in the growing mobile ticket and coupon industry.

white papers and further details of the study 'Mobile Ticketing and Coupons: Strategies and Markets 2007-2011' can be freely downloaded from the Juniper website.

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