Innovative Technology Booths Are The Future for Rapid Mass Transit

The thing to consider is precisely what are the benefits of NextAgent, it is certainly a pricey improvement, is it worth the cost and will it work?

Urban cities world wide for example London, Paris, Bangkok and [http://www.smrt.com.sg/AboutSMRT/BoardofDirectors.aspx Singapore MRT] could benefit from the advancement of this technology reducing over-crowding at travel centres in busy periods.

It typically takes some time for new plans to come to fruition in the rail industry. They are very established and not good with new development according to their historical past. With the earth's premier public transport systems moving an enormous number of passengers each day, there is certainly precious little breathing space to try out radical ideas or unproven concepts.

Transport companies do still aim to make the systems run better, swifter and cheaper however, so big scale improvements do take place at occasion.

Ticketing in particular has seen rapid change in the last 10 years, with smartcard-based systems (just like Transport for Londons Oyster card or SMRT's Standard Ticket and Concession smartcards) quickly absorbing traditional paper tickets on a lot of the planet's top transport networks.

At this year's UITP World Congress & Mobility and City Transport Exhibition in May, transportation IT and services specialist Cubic Transportation Systems unveiled a ticketing concept that it hopes will lead a new wave of high-tech innovation for the transport sector. The software program includes three areas of business, which is ticket office, vending machine and call centre, CTS calls the product a 'virtual ticket office'.

The software is equipped to take into consideration every one of the key points with the typical manned ticket office, but innovating it together with the more efficient good things about ticket machines. The NextAgent vending machine is equipped with a high-definition video panel that delivers a video connection between the ticket purchaser and a remote ticket agent.

Some individuals prefer to make use of the counter compared to the vending machine, the net or their phone. If you don't use the transport network on a daily basis and aren't very familiar with the vending machines then they may not feel confident using them.

What the designers are trying to achieve with this project is to keep the human touch but streamline it with technology. They wish to offer customers an opportunity to consult with staff should they want, but still try to automate much of the process and make things faster and more efficient for both parties.

Since the march of automated technology persists through our train stations, food markets and airports, it's not hard to forget that people are reassured by the presence of another human being when making a purchase. A little bit of well-placed advice goes a long way, which is certainly something Cubic was determined to consider when designing its next-generation ticketing system.

Cubic compiled data from the Association of Train Operating Companies and noticed that more or less 1 / 2 of all purchases at National Rail are carried out at a window.

Maybe they have got a costly season ticket that they wish to buy and they are not terribly comfortable putting their debit card inside a machine and purchasing a ticket worth a few thousand pounds.