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Amtrak Conductors Adopting iPhones to Verify Tickets

Monday May 7, 2012 12:53 pm PDT by Jordan Golson

The number of industries that Apple is disrupting with the iPhone and iPad is growing by the day. Amtrak, the government-owned American passenger railroad company, has adopted the iPhone as a ticket scanner for its 1,700 conductors, reports the New York Times.

The phones will be in a case equipped with a barcode scanner, similar to the Linea Pro cases that Apple uses at its retail stores. The phones will scan barcodes on paper tickets, as well as digital barcodes on smartphones. The MBTA commuter rail in Boston is adopting a similar system for smartphone ticketing.

By late summer, 1,700 conductors will be using the devices on Amtrak trains across the country, the company said.

With the new system, passengers will be able to print tickets or load a special bar code on their smartphone screens for conductors to scan, and conductors will be able to keep track of passengers on board, Amtrak said.

“You don’t even need to print the document and bring it with you,” said Matt Hardison, chief of sales distribution at Amtrak, who helped plan the iPhone program. “We’ve made a number of important improvements for both our customers and Amtrak, all in one fell swoop.”

The Times notes that Amtrak's ticketing system is long overdue for an upgrade. The prior ticketing process involved punching a hole in a paper ticket and physically transporting those tickets to a central location where the information was entered in a database. Among other things, conductors couldn't keep track of how many empty seats were on a train and customers needed to get their paper tickets cancelled and reissued if they wanted to change to a different train.

Amtrak does have an iPhone app that allows riders to book tickets, check train status and schedules, and more. Amtrak eTickets can currently be purchased within the app for 4 routes, with the entire Amtrak system rolling out the ticketing scheme during 2012.

Amtrak for iPhone is available free on the App Store. [Direct Link]

Top Rated Comments

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Yvan256

29 months ago

The fact that such a simple App requires iOS 4.0 or later is a fail in my book.

We're not talking about a game with a 3D engine or social networking requirements here.

Rating: 22 Votes

rnizlek

29 months ago

The iPhone can do many things, but it cannot save Amtrak.

Why does Amtrak need saving? From what?

If you're talking about the fact that Amtrak accepts a subsidy:

We subsidize federal highways to the tune of $40-$50 billion per year.
We subsidize aviation to the tune of around $10 billion per year.
We subsidize Amtrak around $1.5 billion per year.

The reality is that every form of transportation in this country is subsidized. There's a reason that you don't pay a toll when you pull a car out of your driveway - you are driving on subsidized infrastructure.

Whether this is a good thing or a bad thing is open to debate (and this isn't a political forum so I'm not going to go there), but we need to compare apples to apples. Greyhound couldn't generate a profit if it had to build the highways they run on or airlines wouldn't be in business if they had to build airports. But that's the standard people hold Amtrak to.

You'd never understand that, though, listening to a lot of pundits on TV. (If you want a good, informative read, try Anthony Pearl's New Departures: Rethinking passenger rail policy for the 21st century).

Rating: 11 Votes

bananas

29 months ago

Why not iPod Touch? Do they really need the cellular connectivity?

Rating: 10 Votes

Pyrrhic Victory

29 months ago

I think "disrupting" is the wrong word and unfair to Apple. They are not causing a disruption, the industries are using Apple's products by their own free choice. I think "pervading" is a better, more neutral word to describe what is happening.

Rating: 10 Votes

ubersoldat

29 months ago

Deutsche Bahn (German Rail) has online tickets with 3D barcode since May 2000 (!). They are using a device from Siemens that can print also tickets nationwide while you are in the train.

Ridiculous how they want to make you believe that this is an innovation.

Rating: 10 Votes

scoobydoo99

29 months ago

The number of industries that Apple is disrupting with the iPhone and iPad is growing by the day.

Might I recommend a dictionary or just a basic high school English class?

You didn't mean "disrupting".

Rating: 7 Votes