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Amtrak Conductors Adopting iPhones to Verify Tickets

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Apr 12, 2001
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The number of industries that Apple is disrupting with the iPhone and iPad is growing by the day. Amtrak, the government-owned American passenger railroad company, has adopted the iPhone as a ticket scanner for its 1,700 conductors, reports the New York Times.

The phones will be in a case equipped with a barcode scanner, similar to the Linea Pro cases that Apple uses at its retail stores. The phones will scan barcodes on paper tickets, as well as digital barcodes on smartphones. The MBTA commuter rail in Boston is adopting a similar system for smartphone ticketing.
By late summer, 1,700 conductors will be using the devices on Amtrak trains across the country, the company said.

With the new system, passengers will be able to print tickets or load a special bar code on their smartphone screens for conductors to scan, and conductors will be able to keep track of passengers on board, Amtrak said.

"You don't even need to print the document and bring it with you," said Matt Hardison, chief of sales distribution at Amtrak, who helped plan the iPhone program. "We've made a number of important improvements for both our customers and Amtrak, all in one fell swoop."
Click to expand...
The Times notes that Amtrak's ticketing system is long overdue for an upgrade. The prior ticketing process involved punching a hole in a paper ticket and physically transporting those tickets to a central location where the information was entered in a database. Among other things, conductors couldn't keep track of how many empty seats were on a train and customers needed to get their paper tickets cancelled and reissued if they wanted to change to a different train.

Amtrak does have an iPhone app that allows riders to book tickets, check train status and schedules, and more. Amtrak eTickets can currently be purchased within the app for 4 routes, with the entire Amtrak system rolling out the ticketing scheme during 2012.

Amtrak for iPhone is available free on the App Store. [Direct Link]

Article Link: Amtrak Conductors Adopting iPhones to Verify Tickets
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2012/05/07/amtrak-conductors-adopting-iphones-to-verify-tickets/
The fact that such a simple App requires iOS 4.0 or later is a fail in my book.

We're not talking about a game with a 3D engine or social networking requirements here.
 
interesting. as somebody that has spent a lot of time on the amtrak, but i wonder why they don't just use the ipad? too big i guess.
 
I wonder if an NFC enabled iPhone will be able to check Smart Card tickets.... I sure hope that iPhones will be able to work as Smart Cards, especially for TransPerth!
 
I think "disrupting" is the wrong word and unfair to Apple. They are not causing a disruption, the industries are using Apple's products by their own free choice. I think "pervading" is a better, more neutral word to describe what is happening.
 
Why iPhone

Why not iPod Touch? Do they really need the cellular connectivity?
 
Yvan256 said:
The fact that such a simple App requires iOS 4.0 or later is a fail in my book.

We're not talking about a game with a 3D engine or social networking requirements here.
Click to expand...

The front end is pretty simple, but the back end is probably not. It has to work with the Amtrak computer network after all, which is more than just a shopping cart, right? Isn't this thing designed to "keep track of passengers on board"?
 
Deutsche Bahn (German Rail) has online tickets with 3D barcode since May 2000 (!). They are using a device from Siemens that can print also tickets nationwide while you are in the train.

Ridiculous how they want to make you believe that this is an innovation.
 
Last edited:
Yvan256 said:
The fact that such a simple App requires iOS 4.0 or later is a fail in my book.

We're not talking about a game with a 3D engine or social networking requirements here.
Click to expand...

How do you figure? Every iOS device released from within 4 years onwards supports this: iPhone 3G, 3GS 4, and 4S.

Also, there are security features/enhancements in every version of iOS. Perhaps iOS 4 provides the bare minimum for Amtrak.
 
Amtrak WIFI?

Ever tries Amtrak WIFI?

0.00 Mb down and 0.01 Mb up.

ok, ok, it's not ALWAYS that bad. Sometimes you get almost
10KB down. :-/

Still can't tether on my new LTE ipad or my AT&T iphone.

Lovely.

Scott
ps: I've seen one of the iphone things being tested/use -- the
conductor didn't seem to like it, but perhaps it was just something
new and he wasn't use to it (or it wasn't working well).
 
camomac said:
interesting. as somebody that has spent a lot of time on the amtrak, but i wonder why they don't just use the ipad? too big i guess.
Click to expand...

Size (needs a special holster which costs money, doesn't fit in pocket, would need a special storage bin when not in use)
Battery life (an iPhone without the cell antenna turned on lasts forever)
Price
Awkward as hell to use for what they are doing

You really couldn't think of any reasons?
 
camomac said:
interesting. as somebody that has spent a lot of time on the amtrak, but i wonder why they don't just use the ipad? too big i guess.
Click to expand...

I believe they got discounts on the iPhone and it's easier to make the iPhone shock-resistant. Finally, they REALLY want to reduce the cr@p they make conductors carry

----------
Konrad9 said:
Size (needs a special holster which costs money, doesn't fit in pocket, would need a special storage bin when not in use)
Battery life (an iPhone without the cell antenna turned on lasts forever)
Price
Awkward as hell to use for what they are doing

You really couldn't think of any reasons?
Click to expand...

They still use the network. Each time a bar code is scanned, it verifies it with the res system. It'll queue for the times not within a cell or network link, but it tries to verify each scan
 
GSPice said:
The iPhone can do many things, but it cannot save Amtrak.
Click to expand...

Why does Amtrak need saving? From what?

If you're talking about the fact that Amtrak accepts a subsidy:

We subsidize federal highways to the tune of $40-$50 billion per year.
We subsidize aviation to the tune of around $10 billion per year.
We subsidize Amtrak around $1.5 billion per year.

The reality is that every form of transportation in this country is subsidized. There's a reason that you don't pay a toll when you pull a car out of your driveway - you are driving on subsidized infrastructure.

Whether this is a good thing or a bad thing is open to debate (and this isn't a political forum so I'm not going to go there), but we need to compare apples to apples. Greyhound couldn't generate a profit if it had to build the highways they run on or airlines wouldn't be in business if they had to build airports. But that's the standard people hold Amtrak to.

You'd never understand that, though, listening to a lot of pundits on TV. (If you want a good, informative read, try Anthony Pearl's New Departures: Rethinking passenger rail policy for the 21st century).
 
Konrad9 said:
Size (needs a special holster which costs money, doesn't fit in pocket, would need a special storage bin when not in use)
Battery life (an iPhone without the cell antenna turned on lasts forever)
Price
Awkward as hell to use for what they are doing

You really couldn't think of any reasons?
Click to expand...

well, thanks for the helpful post, really cleared that up. good work.
 
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