Bus users get mobile with Arriva m-ticketing launch

Mobile phones will become the new tickets to ride for Arriva bus customers countrywide as the company becomes the first UK bus operator to introduce mobile phone ticketing for all its regional services.

Customers across Arriva’s regional bus businesses in England, Scotland and Wales, will be able to buy daily, weekly and four-weekly tickets via their mobile phones following the national launch of Arriva’s m-ticketing service on Tuesday, 17 November.

Arriva’s introduction of m-ticketing is believed to be the largest deployment of its kind in the world, covering approximately 1,000 routes served by Arriva’s regional fleet of 4,500 buses. It will enable passengers to use their mobile phones to purchase tickets and then display them to the driver.

Mike Cooper, managing director of Arriva UK Bus, said: “The mobile phone has become an increasingly essential part of modern life and m-tickets will give additional flexibility and convenience to our customers.

“The launch of m-ticketing across all our regions will mean millions of bus passengers will be able to use the technology and we believe this represents the largest introduction of its type in the world.

“Customers can buy tickets using their phone at anytime from wherever they happen to be. It saves them searching out the cash to buy a ticket and speeds up getting on the bus as they simply show the ticket on the phone display to the driver.”

Mike Cooper added: “This approach has great advantages over some other mobile ticketing systems as we can roll it out across our networks without any downtime for vehicles or costly on-board technology. We believe the convenience that having their ticket on their mobile will encourage more customers to take up our multi-journey tickets.”

Arriva has worked in partnership with Concept Data Technologies to create the m-ticketing service, which is a free application that is downloaded directly onto customers’ phones. Once downloaded it allows people to purchase a range of tickets. Tickets can be bought either directly through the application via a registered card or by purchasing credit from any PayPoint outlet either by cash or card.

People using the m-ticketing service can save 10 per cent off Arriva four-weekly saver tickets.

The m-ticketing technology can be operated on any GPRS (General Packet Radio Service) enabled phone and from early 2010 will be BlackBerry and iPhone compatible as well. Phones with green screens, which are typically four or more years old, cannot be used. Arriva’s m-ticketing service will work on all mobile networks.

How m-ticket works in 3 simple steps:

1) Customers can register online now at arrivabus.co.uk/m-ticket. Once registered, the m-ticket application will be sent - free of charge - to their phone.

2) Select and purchase their ticket.  Either by credit/debit card or by cash for people who prefer or don’t have a credit/debit card. For cash top-ups, customers will need to add Arriva credit to their phone, using the m-ticket application’s 'Add-cash' option at a PayPoint outlet or Arriva Travel shop.

3) Activate the ticket on the day and time of travel. Their ticket will be displayed on the mobile phone screen and simply needs to be shown to the driver.  The ticket runs from the date of first use, not purchase.