Mobile handsets used in bus ticket trial
News brought to you by Skint Tariffs, providers of price comparison for cheap international calls. Already indispensible, the mobile phone could also come to replace the Oyster cards, if a government trial is successful.
The Department for Transport (DfT) has planned to start a trial to equip handsets with near-field communications to turn mobile phones into reusable tickets on buses.
It is set to test the hardware in the north of England, using a smartcard standard on mobile phones.
Bus operator Arriva has already started its own similar mobile ticketing project, in which passengers buy tickets before getting on the bus, receiving a barcode to their mobile phone which is then recognised by a reader on the bus.
"We already had the technology ready to go, so we started our own trials to save time," a spokesman for Arriva told Computing.
Transport for London has also launched a pilot already, with 500 handsets taking part in the scheme which is a partnership between Barclaycard, Nokia and O2.
Despite these technological improvements, the mobile phone is still most appreciated for enabling communication between people and facilitating cheap international calls.
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