At the moment Japan leads the mobile ticketing market with other countries mainly using SMS or bar code systems.

“Whilst SMS ticketing has been in operation for several years in large cities in Scandinavia and Central & Eastern Europe such as Stockholm and Prague, Juniper believes that recent momentum in Near Field Communications (NFC) will only add to market growth. As metro authorities begin the transition to open contactless payment systems, NFC ticket usage is forecast to grow significantly beginning in 2013”, says the report.

And it is safe to say that airport expresses are the pioneers to open the market with Aeroexpress, Moscow’s dedicated high speed train to three major airports, NFC payment trials, introduced late last year for the Belorussky Railway Station – Sheremetyevo Airport line.

"Whether by expansion of SMS and bar code delivery or by NFC, at Juniper we see convenience and choice for users as key advantages of mobile ticketing. It will be 2013 before large numbers of NFC enabled devices are in peoples’ pockets and our new report forecasts the impact on transaction volumes," said the Mobile Ticketing for Transport Markets report author Howard Wilcox.

Furthermore, Juniper believes that mobile ticketing also has potential across train and air travel, the latter driven by mobile delivered bar coded boarding passes.

Airport expresses are already actively working with airlines to offer integrated air-rail tickets for seamless travel. Malaysian KLIA Ekspres rail link between Kuala Lumpur International Airport and city centre formed a partnership with Malaysian Airlines selling 2D barcode based rail tickets online and going mobile is just another step further to expand this partnership.

Russian S7 Airlines has recently introduced a new service for its passengers allowing them to buy tickets for Aeroexpress trains. Airline’s passengers can now purchase Aeroexpress tickets via the S7 mobile website or using the S7 iPhone App.

Heathrow Express, dedicated high speed train to London, was also the first UK train company to launch a mobile ticketing app.

However, Juniper points out that poor user experience, such as bar code reading issues, might slow things down in the world of mobile ticketing.

The topic of integrated air-rail ticketing including mobile technologies will be discussed in the our international conference The Future of AirRail – Innovations and Modern Technologies taking place in Riga, Latvia on 18-19 May. If you are interested to learn more about the above mentioned case studies, please visit our Global AirRail Awards Finalists’ page.

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