Paper-free train tickets on track

Travellers will be able to get paperless rail tickets from the end of this year.

One of the UK's largest train ticket retailers, TheTrainLine, is to pilot its secure smart ticketing system TrainLine Smart later in 2008, ahead of its full introduction next year.

It will allow rail passengers to link train tickets to smart cards or to Near Field Communication (NFC) enabled mobile phones, such as the Nokia 6131.

Passengers will touch either the cards or NFC phones to a mobile or fixed reader, similar to the Oyster system used on the London Underground.

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The smart ticketing system is expected to speed passengers' journey through stations and can be blocked to prevent fraudulent use if they are lost.

South West Trains will start running a smart ticketing system from February next year, followed by CrossCountry trains and London Midland, Intercity and East Midlands Trains in 2010.

Travellers will be able to buy smart tickets online using their mobile phone or PC and then download them onto a smartcard at home via a plug-in reader or at a station.

Jeremy Acklam, business development director at TheTrainLine, said: "All the big operators have a smart card introduction policy and that is why we have developed the capability to sell tickets into smart media. We are in discussions with a number of companies for start dates for pilots - it is likely to be later this year, with the smart cards introduced in early 2009."

TheTrainLine will initially introduce smart ticketing for season tickets with individual operators, with individual trips and routes across operator networks to follow later.

Smart tickets are expected to begin to move onto mobile phones from 2011, when the large-scale take up of NFC-enabled phones is anticipated.

The Department for Transport is demanding train operators adopt the smart ticketing system as they renew their rail franchise but operators such as Virgin and FirstGroup are already voluntarily looking to adopt the system.

First Ondemand will provide a mobile-phone security solution for TrainLine Smart.