Juniper Research: Transport based mobile ticketing to surpass 1.8 billion transactions by 2011

A recent report from Juniper Research calculates that transport based mobile ticketing will grow from 37.4 million transactions in 2007 to just over 1.8 billion by 2011, with Far East and China making up 73% of the total number of transactions worldwide.

The report found strong activity in the mobile ticketing transport sector, especially in rail and air travel. In addition, despite the fact that initial pilot programs were essentially marketing activities performed by transport operators, now are being replaced by real commercial deployments owned by the ticketing and coupon owners like Ticketmaster and travel organisations such as the IATA (International Air Travel Association).

Juniper identified key drivers of the further growth:

• A reduction in the operating costs and easing pressure on space within terminals
• The so called “queue busting,” which allows consumers to purchase and receive tickets on the day of travel or the event.

However, Juniper also warned about a number of major hurdles that need to be overcome in order for the mobile phone to be the major storage medium for tickets and coupons. These hurdles include technology challenges in the area of the delivery and redemption of mobile barcodes and the use of NFC.

Other findings:

• Airline industry can save $500 million each year by migrating to mobile boarding passes
• Far East and China region will become biggest region with a figure a little below 697 million
• 2.6 billion mobile tickets will be delivered by 2011 to 208 million mobile phone users

More information about Juniper’s research is available on their website.