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Success Stories - Go-Ahead London

Go-Ahead London operate a wide range of bus and transport services on behalf of Transport for London (TfL) and have recently deployed a powerful new system to reduce queuing for tickets for major events in London.  The first event to benefit from the new system is the Wimbledon Tennis Championship starting on the 22nd June this year.

In addition to the speed of ticketing and queue busting, the new system can provide real time information back to Go-Ahead HQ via GPRS, so that the number and frequency of buses can be controlled to meet demand. Also a 2D barcode is printed on every ticket, which can be scanned on the return journey to see how many customers are still to return.  This will allow Go-Ahead London to adjust the volume of return transport to meet remaining demand, which is essential at events like Wimbledon where the finish time is not fixed.

"The Go-Ahead group is investing in new technology to give passengers a better experience and to speed up the whole system." says Nigel Holloway, Account Manager for the Go Ahead Group. "But the impact of the new systems have produced savings and improvements for the Go-Ahead Group far beyond the original scope of the projects."

Because Wimbledon is such an internationally prestigious event for London, Go-Ahead like to use some iconic Route Master buses to transport visitors. Recognised throughout the world as a "London Bus" the Route Masters don't have many of the modern ticketing technology on board to cope with the massive passenger numbers that Wimbledon generates. The new system allows the pavement conductor to take all the money and issue tickets before passengers board the transport, saving time and ensuring all passengers have a valid ticket.

Application Overview

The pavement conductor ticketing solution used by Go-Ahead London uses a combination of portable hardware and intelligent software to produce tickets efficiently. Honeywell Dolphin® 7600 GPRS hand held computers are used in conjunction with Datamax-O'Neil OC2 portable printers to produce 2D barcoded tickets for customers. The software driving this hardware was written using MCL in-house by The Go-Ahead team, with help and guidance provided by the software team at Barcode-IT. As the software is written in-house, this allows for instant changes and additions to be made, for example price changes, promotional deals, event tickets, etc.

A typical ticket produced by the system and operators log on receipt

The solution is currently being used for special events such as Wimbledon and the RHS Chelsea flower show. The pavement conductor simply chooses the correct location of departure on the Dolphin® 7600 and then follows simple steps to complete all the necessary information to produce the ticket using the Datamax-O'Neil OC2 printer. These steps include inputting the number of passengers, passenger class (adult, child, senior, etc.) and destination. A ticket is then issued for the correct amount with a 2D barcode containing all of the input information plus extra information on the journey, like the route, driver number, date & time, price, destination, etc.

MCL is a powerful development tool that allows customer and application designers to create customised mobile applications.  MCL runs on a wide variety of mobile terminals and portable PCs and allows the program designer to create a user interface to a remote system, which can be simple or complex, but provides a consistent menu driven interface to the mobile user.

How It Started

Another Go Ahead Group company, The Oxford Bus Company was referred to Barcode-IT when enquiring about mobile printing software solutions. After the successful implementation of the Oxford Bus Park and Ride ticketing system, other Go-Ahead Group companies were shown the project and Go Ahead London started development of the London Events ticketing system.

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