Rail passengers traveling in the UK now have more options to use smart tickets, rather than the standard orange paper tickets.
The Rail Delivery Group (RDG) have announced that several major stations have been upgraded to facilitate a digital smart ticketing system.
The RDG have said that: “Passengers travelling from all major stations across Britain including Waterloo, Brighton, Gatwick Airport, Edinburgh Waverley and Glasgow Central are now able to go paperless, buying smart tickets more quickly and easily online or via their smartphones to store on their handset or a smartcard.”
“We expect nine in 10 tickets to be available for sale to customers as smart tickets.”
Smart ticket uptake is steadily increasing as consumers move away from traditional paper methods, some for environmental reasons, others for the convenience of holding your travel ticket within a personal smart device.
Digital Train Tickets On the Rise
From January this year over 14.1 million smart tickets were sold to customers using UK rail infrastructure. The department of transport has been working with national and regional transport authorities to increase the spread of digital tickets. To facilitate smart tickets theses agencies have upgraded and installed gates and ticket readers in over 890 stations across the UK.
The rail industry plans to continue to upgrade their ticketing infrastructure in the coming months, as plans are in place to install new readers into Blackfriars, Watford Junction, City Thameslink, London Bridge, East Croydon and Shenfield stations.
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Robert Nisbet, Regional Director at the Rail Delivery Group commented that: “Together, rail companies are going full steam ahead with smart ticketing, with passengers increasingly able to use their phones or smartcards thanks to station upgrades across the network.”
“Of course, we want to go further, but realising the full benefits of new ticketing technology requires regulatory reform of the wider fares system. That’s why train companies are working with government to update the rules that underpin our rail fares.”
