Mobile - tickets

Transport-Based Mobile Ticketing Usage to Grow from over 37 Million Transactions in 2007 to Just over 1.8 Billion by 2011

A recent report from industry analysts Juniper Research, calculates that transport based mobile ticketing will grow from 37.4 million transactions in 2007 to just over 1.8 billion by 2011, with the Far East and China making up 73% 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 mticketing work with Spanair Airlines in Spain where passengers received a 2D code on their mobile phones, which functioned both as ticket and boarding pass.

Key Drivers:

* 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 solutions allow 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.

Hurdles to Adoption

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.

Other key findings

* Savings for the airline industry to be $500million 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
* 2.6billion mobile tickets will be delivered by 2011 to 208million mobile phone users