iBeacon - Bluetooth LE the future of ticketing

In the past we have talked about how NFC enabled smartphones might be used as tickets on public transport, but now a much more useful and potentially revolutionary technology iBeacon is emerging.

The problem with NFC enabled smart phones as tickets is:
- Do you really want to be taking your expensive smart phone out of your pocket in a busy train station/street where it might be stolen?
- Or how you might drop it and break it while taking it out?
- Or how you might bash it accidentally against the reader?

And then you still have the issue of time wasted rooting the phone out of a handbag, etc. No this seems to be far from ideal.

But it looks like Apple now has a much better solution to this called iBeacon. iBeacon is just Apples brand name for it, it is actually Bluetooth 4.0 LE and it is also available on Android and Windows phones.

It works by using an always on, but very low energy bluetooth chip in your phone to connect to other devices at distances up to 150 feet.

The advantage over NFC is distance, generally with NFC you have the hold the phone/card right next to the reader. Also iBeacons can tell when you enter and exit their radius and how far away you are.

So how does this apply to public transport?

Well imagine you enter the DART station, your iPhone communicates with the iBeacon in the gate, the gate automatically opens and you are charged, all without taking the phone out of your pocket, you just stroll through

Or on a bus, you simply board, no need to talk to the driver, the phone in your pocket connects to the iBeacon and charges the ticket price. As you get off, it registers this too and tags you off, refunding the difference for the distance travelled, just like leap.

All with speedy boarding times, no driver interaction and no need to pull your expensive smart phone out of your pocket.

While it is already available in all iPhones from the 4s up and many Android models, it will probably be a few years before it is widespread. But it looks like it could be the prefect solution to our public transport ticketing needs in lets say about 5 years. In particular on Dublin Bus.