Chiltern Railways has become the first train company in the UK to sell mobile phone tickets to their passengers.

Passengers can buy Chiltern’s £5 online Eday ticket for journeys between London Marylebone and Birmingham Moor Street or Stratford –upon-Avon via the website www.chilternrailways.co.uk. The Eday ticket is available only on certain off peak trains.

Passengers receive their ticket in the form of a barcode sent directly to their mobile phone by an MMS. Staff on board the train and at the station will be able to check the ‘mobile ticket’ with barcode scanners. If the phone can't display the barcode then the journey details can still be read in text only format.

Commercial Director for Chiltern Railways, Neil Micklethwaite said: “We are happy to be leading the industry as the first train company in the United Kingdom to sell this new format of mobile phone ticketing to our passengers. We have listened to our passengers and what they want is a simpler and easier way to purchase tickets for their travel. "

“The next step is to install new scanning gate technology at Marylebone station which will allow passengers with mobile phone tickets to scan their own ‘mobile tickets’ as they walk through the ticket gates,” Mr Micklethwaite said. Cubic Transportation Systems is supplying Chiltern Railways with the new gate technology, due for installation next month.

Mobile phone ticketing is now available for Chiltern passengers for the next three months with the aim of develop this as a service permanent. Ticket purchases on the move from mobile phones will be possible at a later stage, as well as through the internet .

For more mobile ticketing see txt4ever