Amtrak Conductors Adopting iPhones to Verify Tickets

[Reason077]

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.

Err, the innovation here is that Amtrak are doing it with off-the-shelf iPhone hardware - not custom devices designed specifically for the rail industry.

Amtrak is a pretty small operation compared with DB and some of the other European rail operators, so they don't enjoy the same economies of scale when it comes to rolling out new tech. They're probably saving a LOT of money by using iPhones.

 

[adildacoolset]

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).

My internet connection goes to speeds up to 0.013KB/s (13 bytes/s). In my standards, 10KB/s is actually quite good and 60KB/s is remarkable.

 

[flynndean]

Or...do what the rest of the civilised world does and leave the notion of conductors in the mid-20th Century.

Buy your tickets online, or at the station via NFC-enabled ticketing machines. Implement an NFC system with barriers or on-platform validators (Like what TfL has in the UK with the Oyster system) to replace station staff and then save the conductor's salary by substituting him with the occasional ticket inspector (complete with an inexpensive, manufacturer-independent NFC Reader to deter stowaways).

London has had RFID Chips in Credit-card sized ticketing for 9-years now on it's Tube Network, (the same system now also being accepted on buses and mainline railway routes) and will shortly support Direct Payment at the Barrier/Validator via Wireless Debit/Credit Cards/Phones. It's seamless! You pay for the infrastructure by making buying cards via the NFC System around 1/3 cheaper than buying a paper ticket for a few years, and people soon wake-up to the benefits.

Stop trying to over-engineer a problem that isn't there and look at broad infrastructure-led simplification. Using iPhones as ticket-scanners/transaction enablers is like strapping a V12 Engine to a Horse & Cart.

 

[orthorim]

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.

sour grapes?

iOS 4 is on the vast majority of iPhones out there, FWIW. In fact even 5.x has something like 90%.

"Apple sucks because iOS 2.0 sucked" is a bit silly IMO...

As an app dev it's most likely not that you couldn't make this app run on earlier versions, it's that it's a pain in the behind, and there's no need for it. Even if it's just one new API call, and a workaround would cost maybe 8 hours of work - why do it if you don't need to?

----------

Stop trying to over-engineer a problem that isn't there and look at broad infrastructure-led simplification. Using iPhones as ticket-scanners/transaction enablers is like strapping a V12 Engine to a Horse & Cart.

While you have a point, I am guessing that AMTRAK just isn't ready to fire all their conductors. So why not make their life easier.

What's surprising is that they can't just use the iPhone's built in camera to scan the barcodes. Might be a battery issue of course...

 

[macmikey2]

i agree, but...

The iPhone can do many things, but it cannot save Amtrak.

I agree with this but it is not Amtrak's fault. They are not a corporation per se, but a supported, fend for yourself, government business. They try to make the dollars work each year, but it is accidents, breakdowns, and old equipment (goes way back to the 70's in some cases) that causes this. And why? Because the gov wants to keep slashing its support while at the same time touting its advantages.

I am an Amtrak and train fan. Have been for many years. Amtrak is not Amtrak's fault. It is ours for not using public transit more. It is the government not supporting it while still supporting train travel. We need to ditch the cars we drive when the train makes sense. We need to take a trip by train on a vacation.

We need to stop being selfish about our cars and let go. We say everyday we can't afford them anymore, but still go on and use them anyway. Me included.

Take the train when you can. It's fun. And the scenery is amazing on almost every route. I ride somewhere every year. I have an Amtrak CC that gives me points and I use them as well. a couple days on a train round trip and you are good to go. Especially in a room or bedroom.

As far as the iPhone... don't care whose tech they use, just as long as the experience for both conductor and passenger is positive. I'm all for it.

 

[marmotte]

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.

How can you compare the train system in the US to another outside the US? Everyone knows that the US train system is at least several decades behind in every aspect: technology, customer service, performance (e.g., the definition of "speed" train in the US), etc.

Obviously there are other better systems out there. They all are...

Example: the New York subway system has rolled out last year a system that tells you how far away the next train is. Such a system has existed in France (for example) since the 80s. So the MTA is about 30 years behind (a full generation....) another's developed country's subway system built by a heavily unionized workforce in a not so entrepreneurial country.

Imagine that.

And I could on and on (airports, highways, electrical grid, internet, etc...)

 

[macmikey2]

Because the Iphone requires very complex procedures to test or download software on Iphones without downloading it from Itunes or jailbreaking. It's simply not practical and not even very serious.

Are the amtrack people going to download upgrades from the App Store? Required to give a password each time and agree to the new service terms once in a while? Android would be a better choice. And cheaper too.

No. they will use the built-in corporate managing software apple provides and use over the air updates.

I don't even use my Mac for my iPad/iPhone anymore. No need.

 

[NOV]

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.

I was thinking along the same lines. As much as I love the USA and its role as innovator in some fields they are strangely lagging behind. The banking system is another field (using cheques etc.).

 

[usptact]

This is nice. But all I fear about is what will happen in say 3-5 or 10 years when Apple will be not in top? Re-design everything again? Change all equipment to match the current leader? Frankly, I don't think this is the way to go. Equipment should be dedicated to a task and should work even if Apple cloud is down, Google is destroyed by Skynet etc

 

[Ping Guo]

So how do you think passenger miles per $billion spent works out? How about economic impact per $billion spent? Yeah, me too. Other than the eastern seaboard corridor, tell me where Amtrak even comes close to covering their costs.

Funny you should mention billions, because US spends ~$680 billion per year maintaining a military empire to secure our supplies of liquid hydrocarbons, and by extension our automobile-based lifestyle. This is not even addressing the cost in human lives.

This system may have worked when the US was a net exporter, but that hasn't been the case for 40 years. Trains are the most efficient mode of transportation aside from bicycles, on a cost-per-passenger-mile basis, and there are numerous secondary benefits. For example people get more exercise walking, therefore suffer less obesity, therefore the public health care burden is reduced. Ditto for pollution, quality-of-life, productivity (working on a train vs sitting in traffic), etc.

 

[macmikey2]

This is nice. But all I fear about is what will happen in say 3-5 or 10 years when Apple will be not in top? Re-design everything again? Change all equipment to match the current leader? Frankly, I don't think this is the way to go. Equipment should be dedicated to a task and should work even if Apple cloud is down, Google is destroyed by Skynet etc

I think you, and many others, are missing the point here. These ticket devices can be anything portable that scans and communicates. It does not have to be Apple, it could be MS or Android. that does not matter. What matters is what tech they use... barcodes, NFC, whatever. Future proofing is making sure the tech works, not the platform. I don't see anywhere in the article that says only an iPhone/iPad use can take advantage of this system. It says barcodes. That's not Apple.

 

[Reason077]

London has had RFID Chips in Credit-card sized ticketing for 9-years now on it's Tube Network, (the same system now also being accepted on buses and mainline railway routes) and will shortly support Direct Payment at the Barrier/Validator via Wireless Debit/Credit Cards/Phones. It's seamless!

TfL is a metro network. Amtrak is a regional and intercity rail operator. Not really a fair comparison for many reasons.

Oyster is indeed fantastic - in London. However, if you want to buy an intercity or regional train ticket to a destination outside of London you are pretty much stuck with old fashioned paper tickets that have to be printed at the station before your can travel.

So in the UK, for the most part, we are actually behind Amtrak when it comes to ticketing technology!

A few operators do offer print-at-home eTickets, but these are limited to certain routes. The vast majority of tickets sold are the old fashioned paper kind.

The UK government has been trying to push a national smart card standard called ITSO for several years now, but train operators have been slow and reluctant to roll it out. Part of the reason for that is that it might make more sense to just go directly to accepting RFID debit/credit cards, as TfL plans to do, rather than adopt ITSO.

 

[bogatyr]

Because the Iphone requires very complex procedures to test or download software on Iphones without downloading it from Itunes or jailbreaking. It's simply not practical and not even very serious.

Are the amtrack people going to download upgrades from the App Store? Required to give a password each time and agree to the new service terms once in a while? Android would be a better choice. And cheaper too.

There are corporate tools to manage iPhones, Androids and BBs. With these tools it is easy to deploy apps from a corporate server and not through Apple's system.

 

[knightlie]

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.

Amtrak users aren't really going to care what rail services in other countries can do. They can't exactly choose to use Deutsche Bahn because of all the cool gadgets they use. can they?

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There are corporate tools to manage iPhones, Androids and BBs. With these tools it is easy to deploy apps from a corporate server and not through Apple's system.

The trolls never take that into account. A software vendor I spoke to a few weeks ago claimed he wouldn't develop for iOS because of the lack of exactly this kind of device management.

 

[kdarling]

What's surprising is how long Amtrak took to come into the mobile age.

Since the turn of the century, this kind of thing was handled by Windows CE handhelds. Heck, we all remember that even Apple used Windows CE devices in their stores until relatively recently. I still see WinCE scanners at major ticket events.

Nowadays companies tend to pick other, more off-the-shelf platforms.

No doubt a bid was put out and this is what won.

 

[unlinked]

While you have a point, I am guessing that AMTRAK just isn't ready to fire all their conductors. So why not make their life easier.

The one piece of anecdotal experience reported in these comment seems to indicate it makes the conductors life harder not easier.

 

[mukade]

I can see the headlines now...

Amtrak Brought to its Knees by Angry Birds.

 

[pradeepgj]

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).

The whole american transport system is designed to benefit the car makers. Why do americans depend so much on cars? because there are hardly any buses or trains and even if there is, they are poorly connected. Most towns dont even have public transportation. This is because, the capitalists in car industry spent so much money in making sure that the lawmakers benefit them instead of the public.

See europe or asian countries. People rely on public transport more than cars. Lose the cars, and you will not have to fight for oil with other countries.

Well ofcourse, thats not what US oil companies want, do they? They want americans to spend money on cars and oil to go buy groceries from a shop two blocks away.

 

[nozebleed]

Amtrack wouldnt be around without taxpayer subsidies. Will this help? Probably insignificantly. what i have an issue with is paying a couple hundred dollars for a one way ticket that gets me to my destination a day later with numerous stops, when i can buy round trip airfare for less than $200 on many occasions and be there in an hour or two.

 

[Boisv]

Ahh yes, Amtrak, always at the forefront of technology.

 

[Elijen]

Am I the only one who is asking "why iPhone"? They need just simple bar code readers. Any cheap Android would do the same job.

 

[macmikey2]

... They want americans to spend money on cars and oil to go buy groceries from a shop two blocks away.

And that is why we need to step up our use of transit. the problem of going to the store 2 blocks away will not be solved by Amtrak, but by local/state gov getting behind transit more. In Philly we have SEPTA. they run busses, trollies, trains and regional rail ( i separate them as the trains septa owns are both light rail, the route 100 for example, and heavy rail(?) like the local trains to suburbs and the airport.

SEPTA has been having money issues all along. Subsidies keep dropping and fares keep going up. But, they invest heavily in rail. Just deployed a huge group of brand new rail cars on regional rail, a few years back new light rail on route 100 and even have new trollies for the streets.

Amtrak however has been unable to secure enough funding to even replace their 70's manufactured cars instead opting to continually refurbish them. It is a double-standard here. Tout rail transit and freight movement by rail, but don't dare help.

I agree the oil/car companies have tons to gain from not using rail, but they also use rail to cut their costs in shipping products/parts. Again, a double-standard. There are so many things rail could help with like greenhouse gas reductions, shorter times between destinations, and more.

But also remember that Amtrak is for long haul routes and regional rail is for that trip to the store. There has to be a need for going from one city to another, far enough away for regional rail to be ineffective. There has to be a need for us to stop playing TSA's game at the airport and go by land instead. Someone once said it takes 3 hours to go from a to b by train, but only 30 minutes to fly. May be true, but how long did it take to get to the airport? go through security? wait to board? delays on the runway? and on and on.

I ramble, but trains are important to our future and because they were our heritage and helped us grow as a country, I for one want them around for a long time.

 

[Pyrrhic Victory]

I disagree. According to an online dictionary, an additional meaning of the word disrupt is


I do believe you would be hard pressed to convince us that the iPhone and its brethren have not drastically altered the structure of industries today. You may try if you desire.

That may be true, it's just that "disrupt" has a negative connotation and usually suggests causing harm or inconvenience, which is certainly not the case here, at least not directly.

 

[bogatyr]

Am I the only one who is asking "why iPhone"? They need just simple bar code readers. Any cheap Android would do the same job.

Is there an Android barcode scanner attachment like this? I know they have camera based ones - but when you actually use them to scan several hundred barcodes, you realize why camera scanners aren't great. I also know of bluetooth and USB based ones that work with Android but those require two hands.

When we looked into inventory scanners for our international plants that don't use EDI (our U.S. plants have an EDI system that includes scanning) we looked across a broad range of devices. This included photo scanners ($200 Android tablets), two piece scanners (Android tablet + USB scanner/bluetooth scanner), WindowsCE scanners, iPod Touch one piece scanners (same wrap used at Apple store). What we found was:

-Two piece scanners aren't easy to use in a working environment - two hands occupied all the time
-Photo scanners were balked at by operators who wanted to "scan, scan, scan, not scan, wait, wait, scan, wait, wait, scan"
-Photo scanners needed high light and good angles
-Laser scanners didn't require high light or good angles
-Laser scanners were near instant for results
-WindowsCE scanners were overpriced

This left us with the iPod Touch scanners. $170 for an iPod Touch (refurb) and $500 for the laser scanner wrap. Great scanner capability, wireless, CHEAP, fits in your pocket, durable and with enterprise software, very customizable.

My point is, you don't know what they looked at and why they chose what they did. What works for my company might not work for another just as what works for Amtrak might not work for another. Unless you're on the team that went through their options, you really can't say whether or not something else would have worked for them. We don't know everything they put into the system.

 

[AppleMark]

While you have a point, I am guessing that AMTRAK just isn't ready to fire all their conductors. So why not make their life easier.

Yes indeed.

However my life experiences have shown me that any technological system implemented to make human labour chores 'easier', usually ends up with somebody getting fired sooner or later....

As any increase in human productivity / efficiency, results in need for less humans to do the same job.

Not saying it is a good or bad thing, just a fact of life.