Tickets at the push of a button

Since April passengers in Karlsruhe and on the Hamburg to Sylt route have had it easy. Thanks to their mobile phones they always have a ticket counter in their pocket.

Customers will now be able to conveniently purchase their tickets for the Karlsruhe Verkehrsverbund (KVV) (Karlsruhe Integrated Public Transport System) and the Nord-Ostsee-Bahn (NOB) using their mobile phone. Those who opt for this mobile ticket service now can take advantage of free tickets in Karlsruhe and heavy discounts on the Hamburg to Westerland route. KVV and NOB are among the pioneers in the mobile phone ticket area in Germany. Mobile ticket purchasing is also very convenient. Customers register once on the Internet, download the required software to their phone and then use this phone to purchase their ticket for every trip. They pay for their tickets once per month by means of direct debit or credit card. The mobile ticket is also available for mobile phone users who have prepaid cards. Providers register each ticket purchase and its price in a personal customer account for control purposes.

En passant

The technical infrastructure for mobile freedom with bus and rail is courtesy of T-Systems, which has already enhanced the mobile phone ticket solution. In the next phase it will be even easier for passengers to obtain their tickets – pretty much in passing. To achieve this, T-Systems is using Near Field Communication (NFC), a transmission standard for "contactless" exchange of data. In the Rhein-Main-Verkehrsverbund (RMV) (Rhein-Main Integrated Public Transport System) owners of an NFC-capable mobile phone are already using the magic ticket. They simply swipe their mobile phone past a scanner before they board. The ticket program opens, displays the stop and all the passenger has to do is select the appropriate fare. In the T-City Friedrichshafen passengers on the Lake Constance catamarans are also benefiting from NFC.