Revamping Ticket Sales - Meepass

In the report there are references to vouchers and B2C. We make the comment that ticket sale, distribution and admission could be changed significantly. This is based in fact and one French company is make inroads into this model.

The consumer locks into their onboard code generator with their PIN number. This allows personal iormation to be encoded and solves the security/fraudulent use issue.



Next the user generates the code and presents the phone to the reader on the entrance gate.





The reader scans the barcode from the handset screen, one of the key benefits of the technology is the flexibility of media that can be used.



Success!! the reader identifies the consumer as a paying guest and allows access to the venue.



This could be used for all venue events. I could have a barcode set with my Wellington Rugby Football Union season ticket number. I could then present my phone to the reader when I go to watch the Hurricanes or Lions down at the cake tin.

txtBus 2.0

Metlink currently provide the txtBus service.

The basic premise is that a passenger can text the bus stop number to an SMS gateway run by Metlink. The passenger then gets an SMS by return that provides the next three services to run from that bus stop.

Problem 1: the number, although easy, is not displayed on all bus stops. That means I have to remember it :(

Problem 2: the bus stop already has a static timetable showing all of the [planned] service times departing from that bus stop, this is the same information used by Metlink. The problem is that buses never actually run on time.

GoWellington buses are running a smartcard system similar to London's Oyster, Hong Kong's Octopus and Singapore's EZLink cards. The Wellington Snapper service uses GPS tracking to determine the passengers boarding bus stop and their alighting bus stop. This provides the basis for fare calculation.

It should then be possible to use this information to provide a more accurate estimated arrival time for services approaching your bus stop. If this information was then made available through the SMS gateway and supplied to customers then service actually becomes useful.

Where th QR Code fits in is that each bus stop would then have a QR Code with the bus stop number encoded in the message and the txtBus phone number encoded in the recipient. Now a passenger has two click access to real time bus service data.

QR Codes used in Libraries

The University of Bath have a very active 2D barcode programme.

One use is embedding a QR Code into the Library information system where the QR code containing the books information (Title, Author, Location) is generated and presented to the searcher.

The benefit to me is the quick retrieval directly onto my handset, no more bits of paper (there is never a pen nearby anyway) the information is in my hand and with me as I start my search through the library.

Take this idea to another level....

More and more handsets also have GPS on them. One of the useful data sets to encode in 2D barcode is geocode information. Typically this is longitude and latitude. If you were to make this a triplet and include altitiude you have some very powerful tools at hand.

Map the book shelf location as a triplet:

• How far left or right
• How far ahead or behind
• How far above or below

is the book's location from where I currently am. The shelf location can be inserted automatically as a waypoint and then I simply follow the directions that my phone gives me. Gets me to the right shelf stack more easily than trying to interpret one of the those maps like you get in Wellington Central Library and much easier than what is currently offered in the Rankine-Brown Library at Vic Uni.

Conclusion

The industries and uses discussed in this report suggest that 2D barcode technology can be used in a wide range of scenarios. However, it is apparent that the most natural use would be in business-to-consumer transactions.

Such technology is extremely useful for marketers and creates a bridge between the physical and online worlds that they can exploit to their benefit.

This does not however limit or constrain the technhology's potential. The scenarios presented within this report for other transaction types (B2B, C2B, C2C and eGov) highlight that the flexibility, size, data capacity and ease of adoption can prove to be useful outside of B2C transactions.

It is envisaged that the increasing influence of user generated content and convergence of the physical and virtual domains will only create more opportunities for 2D barcodes to be deployed in innovative ways.

The number of camera equipped mobile phones in-use today has created a market waiting to be tapped. 2D barcodes could prove to be one way to unlock this market's potential.

B2C

The largest opportunity for the adoption of 2D barcodes will be within the B2C segment through the distribution of tickets and promotional coupons, generically referred to as vouchers.

Vouchers

These can be earned through paying for a service or by receiving a coupon for a free item, for example a coffee from your nearest Starbucks.

Air New Zealand has already adopted the use of 2D barcodes, specifically the PDF417 format, as a key enabler of their self service check-in solution. This approach could easily be transcribed to adjunct service providers as a means of distributing tickets to customers.

By applying a different format that can be easily presented from a mobile phone screen to an appropriate barcode reader, TicketMaster could transform the purchase, distribution and admission process for venue events for example; concerts, sporting events, trade shows and cinemas.


Similarly businesses that wish to reward customers with free products or merchandise through a promotion, typically be sending coupons, could utilise 2D barcodes to revolutionise this form of marketing campaign.

A coffee franchise could adopt 2D barcodes in the following process. First, send the coupon in the form of a matrix code to a known customer as an SMS or MMS. On receiving the electronic message, the customer can then present the coupon on their mobile handset. The square, compact nature of matrix codes such as QR Code or DataMatrix, lends itself to the size and proportiions of the average mobile phone screen. This is not the case for traditional linear barcodes. The data capacity of 2D barcodes gives the franchisee greater flexibility in tailoring coupon content. It is therefore possible to achieve personalised coupons that contain coffee choice, member information and location data in a very compact and portable coupon form.

Another example: Dynamic Advertisement