M-Ticket

There has been a rapid change in the way tickets have been issued - from pre-printed tickets, to mobile tickets where tickets are delivered to the personal mobile phones instantaneously. In the period of Global warming, Mobile ticketing is becoming more popular which reduces the usage of Paper as well as the printing & distribution costs, the time, etc.
There is always a bar code that is issued along with the tickets, which could be instantaneously read and validated directly from the mobile phone.

A Sample Bar Code Image

Various means of ticketing has been implemented since ages such as pre-printed tickets, tickets printed at a ticket window at the time of purchase, online ticketing where customers print their own bar-coded tickets. In this electronic world, online ticketing is becoming increasingly popular, since it allows ticket buyers to avoid long lines and enables ticket sellers to eliminate printing and distribution costs, and provide better service to their customers.

A Typical Bar Code Scanner

The next step in the evolution of ticketing has been replacement of home-printed and preprinted paper tickets with a mobile ticket that can be sent to a mobile phone or PDA via short message service (SMS). This mobile ticket (m-ticket) consists of a bar code that can be quickly read and validated directly from the mobile device’s display screen.

The below picture depicts the working of a m-ticket