More eTicket readers help rail passengers breeze through Great Northern and Thameslink stations

Rail passengers with smartphone eTickets will find it easier to travel with Great Northern and Thameslink now that more barcode readers have been installed at stations.

Additional barcode readers – that allow passengers to scan eTickets on their smartphones – have now been added to ticket gates to achieve 100% coverage and cut queues of waiting passengers at the following stations:

• Flitwick, Harpenden, Hitchin, Huntingdon, Kings Lynn, Letchworth Garden City, St Neots and Stevenage.

It’s estimated that 50% of tickets now sold in the UK are digital, which includes tickets sold on smartcards. eTickets are convenient and popular because they can be bought instantly on the train firms’ OnTrack apps or websites.

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

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.”

Jacqueline Starr, Chief Executive Officer at the Rail Delivery Group, said: “We’re making it easier for people to buy train tickets with people rapidly switching to buying online and now using digital tickets for half of all journeys. Investment in smart ticketing across the network has made train travel quicker and easier as people can get their ticket straight to their phone.”

Ends

Editor’s notes

Barcode readers had already been fitted to some of the ticket gates at Flitwick, Kings Lynn, Letchworth Garden City, Harpenden, Hitchin, Huntingdon, St Neots and Stevenage but with the rising popularity of the convenient eTicket, queues sometimes formed of people waiting to scan their eTickets. Now every ticket gate at these stations has a barcode reader

eTickets 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 eTicket if they are available on the route they want to travel. These are: Great Northern OnTrack app, Thameslink OnTrack app, Southern On Track app Gatwick Express OnTrack app and online at greatnorthernrail.com, thameslinkrailway.com, southernrailway.com or gatwickexpress.com.