ts.com

Chiltern Railways launch first UK Rail Mobile Tickets

Wednesday 17th January 2007
For immediate release

ts.com is working with Chiltern Railways to provide the first service in the UK to deliver rail tickets through to their customers' mobile phones. Chiltern Railway’s online advance ticket sales solution, provided by ts.com, has been integrated with mobile ticketing technology from Mobiqa and services from YourRail and Cubic Transportation Systems to make mobile ticketing a reality.

A three month pilot is now launched where passengers can purchase Chiltern's £5 online Eday ticket for journeys between London Marylebone and Birmingham Moor Street or Stratford -upon-Avon, via the website www.chilternrailways.co.uk.

Passengers receive their ticket in the form of a barcode sent directly to their mobile phone by an SMS text message. Staff on board the train and at London Marylebone station will be able to check the 'mobile ticket' with special barcode scanners.

Commercial Director for Chiltern Railways, Neil Micklethwaite said: "We are happy to be leading the industry as the first train company in the United Kingdom to sell this new format of mobile phone ticketing to our passengers.

"We have listened to our passengers and what they want is a simpler and easier way to purchase tickets for their travel. Mobile ticketing will mean easy purchases, anywhere, any time. "There are many benefits to mobile phone ticketing but the most important to mention is that it's simple and convenient providing lower cost tickets for our passengers giving the customer even greater value for money. "The next step is to install new scanning gate technology at Marylebone station which will allow passengers with mobile phone tickets to scan their own 'mobile tickets' as they walk through the ticket gates," Mr Micklethwaite said.

Mobile phone ticketing is now available for Chiltern passengers for the next three months with the objective of making this service permanent. Ticket purchases on the move from mobile phones will be possible at a later stage, as well as via the internet and other retail channels.

E-Day is Chiltern Railway's cheapest ticket from Birmingham and Stratford-upon-Avon to London (and vice versa), costing a flat rate of £5. It can only be bought from the Chiltern Railways website 24 hours in advance of travel.

Birmingham to London for a fiver!

• Get your ticket sent direct to your mobile phone!
• Prices held at just £5 single
• Hundreds more seats now available on up to 28 trains a day
• Bookings close just 24 hours before departure
• Only available from the Chiltern Railways website

ts.com Sales and Marketing Director David Oates said: "We are delighted to be working with Chiltern Railways on this mobile ticketing innovation. We are continuously working with our clients to provide them with innovative ticketing solutions that meet the needs of their business and improve the service they can offer their own customers.”



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For further information please contact ts.com on 01865 856000, email info@ts.com or visit www.ts.com.
Note to Editors
ts.com Limited (http://www.ts.com) provides Internet browser delivered software solutions  specialising in delivering ticket sales, distribution and marketing solutions to a range of organisations in the sports, entertainment, travel and car parking markets.  This enables their customers to offer a simple and cost effective way to market and sell tickets and merchandise directly from their own websites, via call centres and face-to-face.  Customers include Cornbury Festival, Badminton Horse Trials, Cardiff Blues Rugby Union, Arriva Group, Newbury Racecourse and the National Trust. 

The solutions provide customers with the every aspect of their ticketing and marketing needs, from the capture of customer data, the execution of marketing campaigns, support for third party sales channels, the printing and fulfilment of tickets, through to the provision of integrated access control solutions. 

The company was founded in 1996, is based in Oxford and is a subsidiary of Community Internet Europe Ltd.

Chiltern Railways can be contacted on 0207 3333125, www.chilternrailways.co.uk or email Naomi.simmons@chilternrailways.co.uk