9According to data from personalized retargeting firm Criteo, the vast majority of mobile hotel bookings were ordered via smartphone in Q1 2016 and even mobile airline bookings tend more and more toward mobile devices. In fact, although mobile is beginning to reach a saturation in the market, bookings are anticipated to make up almost half of total digital travel sales by 2020.

The international public transport company Abellio decided to take advantage of this trend, therefore started to deliver rail and bus services to its more than one million daily passengers in an innovative way that eliminates paper tickets.

Proud of being one of the first operators to introduce mobile ticketing, Abellio is convinced that the introduction of mobile tickets provides a wealth of benefits to passengers, and will make travelling simpler and more convenient by eliminating queues and paper tickets.

Most of the train operator’s tickets can be bought and received now via the mobile app ‘Trainline”. Once the tickets have been purchased, passengers simply need to scan the barcode at the ticket barriers when they travel. This enhancement provides increased flexibility for passengers who can purchase tickets via their mobile phones, wherever they are.

“Mobile Ticketing is revolutionizing the passenger experience, making queuing at ticket machines a thing of the past. This new service allows passengers to buy tickets anytime, anyplace allowing them to simply arrive at the station and board the train,” said Ben Whitaker, Co-Founder of Masabi the company that provides the mobile ticketing apps, validation software and their Ticket Validation Database.

According to John Davies, Retail Director at Trainline, the appetite for mobile tickets is steadily growing month on month. As of the end of May, 1 in 3 tickets (34%) purchased on the app has been a mobile ticket, so you might want to consider making use of mobile ticketing in one or the other way sometime, or just downloading the free app from the app store.

By Daniela La Marca