Technical Centre

The YourRail system consists of ticket retailing, e-ticket creation, ticket delivery, and ticket inspection.

Ticket Retailing

A retail platform is required to afctually sell the tickets to the customer. This platform provides information on availability and fares, and potentially timetable information as well.

The YourRail system is able to work with a number of alternative retail platforms according to the requirements of the Train Operating Company. For example, with Chiltern Railways, we are working with ts.com to sell the advanced purchase e-day tickets.

YourRail has also worked with Masabi, a leading developer of Java solutions, to enable ticket purchases from a mobile phone application. This enabled YourRail to launch the World's first system enabling rail ticket purchase from a mobile phone, with the ticket delivered to the mobile phone.

E-Ticket Creation

The retail platforms send the booking information to YourRail, which creates an electronic ticket. This ticket consists of a unique ticket number, as well a fraud preventing message authentication code.

A record of the electronic ticket is stored in YourRail's Central Validation Database, which manages ticket distribution to travellers and information distribution to inspection staff and systems.

Ticket Delivery

A ticket with barcode is sent to the user's mobile phone or is made available for self printing. Tickets are sent to phones in one of the following formats:

• SMS (Nokia Picture Messaging) for Nokia phones
• SMS (Enhanced Message Service) for most other phones
• WAP Push (Mobile Internet) for smart phones that can download content from the Internet
• Plain text, for the few phones that can't receive barcodes

This means we can send a ticket to any mobile phone, and approximately 99% of these will be able to display a barcode.

Ticket Inspection

Train hosts and gate line staff are equipped with PDAs with built in barcode readers to enable fast and easy ticket scanning. In the event that the barcode cannot be scanned (for example, if the phone battery is dead), then the ticket information be searched for on the PDA.

Initially YourRail adapted validation software used for events management (for example, concerts) but since December the PDA's have been running software specifically designed for the inspection of rail tickets.

YourRail also worked with Cubic Transportation Systems to provide the experimental gates at Marylebone Station. As far as we are aware, these are the only rail gates in Europe that can read barcodes off mobile phones.

YourRail also offers end-to-end mobile rail ticketing. This uses the latest encryption technologies to ensure passengers can safely buy tickets from, and receive tickets to, their mobile phones.