eTicket readers speed rail passengers through Brighton station

• Govia Thameslink Railway aims to equip all stations with barcode readers by summer

Rail passengers with smartphone eTickets will find it easier to travel with Gatwick Express, Southern and Thameslink at Brighton.

Additional barcode readers – that allow passengers to scan barcode eTickets held on their smartphones or printed out from an email – have just been added to ticket gates.

With every ticket gate now boasting the technology, commuter, tourists and city day trippers will be less likely to have to queue to get on and off the platforms.

Govia Thameslink Railway – which runs Gatwick Express, Southern and Thameslink, as well as Great Northern – will continue to add barcode readers to ticket gates across its vast 11-county network so that, by summertime, eTickets can open every single ticket gate at all its stations.

Popularity soaring

Smart ticketing has soared in popularity at the expense of old-school paper tickets. The proportion of passengers buying barcode eTickets has more than doubled in the past three years (from 20% to 45%) while the percentage of those buying paper tickets has halved (from 63% to 33%). eTickets are convenient and popular because they can be bought instantly on the train firm’s OnTrack app or website.

They are ideal for advanced singles, peak and off-peak singles, and peak and off-peak day return tickets.

GTR Customer Services Director Jenny Saunders said: “Barcode eTickets are quick to buy and convenient to use so we’re steadily adding them to more and more ticket gates across our stations to make life easier for our customers.

"This will help reduce queuing in stations that previously had only a few barcode readers fitted to the ticket gates.

"We’ll then visit stations that don’t have any barcode readers at all and aim to put one on every single ticket gate by summertime.”

Ends

Editor’s notes

Barcode readers had already been fitted to some of the ticket gates but with the rising popularity of the convenient eTicket, queues sometimes formed of people waiting to scan their eTickets. Now every ticket gate has a barcode reader

E-tickets are available for advanced singles, peak and off-peak single tickets and peak and off-peak day returns, between any stations with a barcode reader on the ticket gates.

How it works: Buy your ticket online and choose eTicket as your delivery option; get the eTicket in your email and add it to a wallet app on your phone; scan the eTicket on a reader at the ticket gates to travel.

The apps and websites will offer passengers an e-ticket if they are available on the route they want to travel. These are: Southern On Track and Thameslink On Track apps and online at southernrailway.com and thameslinkrailway.com