National Express West Midlands is celebrating innovating – after selling a million tickets on mobile phones.
The operator started selling tickets via mobiles in September 2016 and has now made its millionth sale.
Customers are voting with their fingers – one in ten journeys are now using the app, and that figure is still growing. When surveyed, over half of the people using the app said it had encouraged them to use the bus more, so boosting local economies and improving air quality by cutting congestion.
Since single tickets were made available on mobiles in January, National Express West Midlands has sold nearly 100,000 of them.
Tom Stables, Managing Director of National Express West Midlands, said: “We’re always looking for new ways to use innovation and technology to make it easier, quicker and cheaper for our customers to travel.
“Customers can get all kinds of tickets on our phone app. So they can buy the best value option for them, then just show their phone to the driver as they get on the bus.
“It’s really easy to use – no need to worry about finding the right change or getting paper tickets. And it’s the cheapest way to buy our most popular products – using your mobile is always cheaper than using cash.”
Since launching the app, National Express West Midlands has been asking customers what they think of mobile ticketing:
They scored it over 80% for satisfaction and 55% said they were using the bus more since downloading the app.
They said that was because it’s a) easier and b) cheaper.
Tom Stables added: “We’re very grateful to our customers for their feedback. I was particularly pleased to see one quote, from a deaf user, telling us it made it much easier for them to buy a bus ticket.
“We’re now working on some of the customers’ suggestions for the next version of this mobile ticketing app.”
For more information go to http://nxbus.co.uk/mtickettravel