Tracktwentynine
OBS Chief
According to NARP's blog, Amtrak conductors on the Downeaster will soon begin scanning tickets with electronic readers. This pilot project bodes well for bringing Amtrak ticketing fully into the 1990s. Records of who is actually on board will be transmitted to a central database. That should help solve the problem encountered during the California Zephyr crash of not knowing who was missing.
Excerpt:
Excerpt:
Read more: http://www.narprail....ice_field_test/...Currently, conductors collect paper tickets from customers and carry them in their shirt pockets—a system relatively unchanged since the days when locomotives were powered by steam. While it is true that there is a digital documentation of a passenger' reservation, the only record of who actually boarded the train resides in the conductor's paper tickets.
That's all about to change. Passengers on the Downeaster will be part of a mobile device field test beginning this week. For the time being, there will be nothing different about how customers purchase tickets. The only difference passengers will see is the portable ticket-scanning device conductors will be field-testing, which will be used to instantly send ticket information to a central database.
...
Last edited by a moderator: