After a recent trip to London Marylebone, where Chiltern Railways have barcode ticket gates installed, we thought we'd share a video showing the speed on scan you're able to achieve on the turnstiles.
The tickets used were a same day return ticket from London Marylebone to Warwick Parkway and also a single ticket for the same journey. The tickets were flexible tickets that the rider could use at any time that day.
The purchase was made with a credit card using the Chiltern Railways mobile ticket application approximately two minutes before we took this video going through the gates. As there is no synchronization required between purchase and gate use, the purchase could have been made right up to the moment of arriving at the gate, there is no delay required, and even works if the station or conductors are off-line to make it robust and responsive even at rush hour.
The phone used was an iPhone 4.
The app is available for available for iPhone, Android, Windows Phone, Blackberry, Nokia and many feature phones. Other UK and US train operator mobile ticketing applications are also available from Masabi. Further, the gates also accept paper tickets that customers print at home that have barcodes printed on them.
The station shown in the video is London Marylebone operated by Chiltern Railways, and the gates shown in the video are by Cubic Transportation Systems.
Barcode capable gates can also be found at the following UK stations run by other Train Operating Companies:
London Marylebone
London Kings Cross
London Victoria
Gatwick Airport
Beaconsfield
Aylesbury
Gerrads Cross
Cambridge
Kings Lynn
(more stations will be barcode enabled soon making mobile tickets more widely available)
Please get in touch if you want to find out more about mobile ticketing.