Help needed with online ticketing service

Bananna man

Hey,

Im doing a website for a coach service in Ireland. They want to sell tickets online but im not sure how to go about it. The tickets can be used whenever the clients wants but i dont know how i can set it up that they will not be able to reuse the tickets.

If i set it up that they can just print off a ticket they will be easily copied and if i do it by code numbers i will also have a problem as the bus drivers would need a list of all tickets sold so they can mark them off a list. The problem with this approach is that the drivers start very early in the morning and their wouldnt be anyone around at that time to print off the latest ticket list to give to them.

Has anyone any ideas on how to go about this? They want to use paypal for the online payment system as it would be cheaper than setting up something like realex.

Thanks

Gordon

Did you tell them that you weren't sure how to do this when you took the job?

Bananna man

Yes, we had a discussion about how best to do it and it ended with them asking me to see if i could come up with anything.

Rollo Tamasi

Bananna man wrote:

Hey,

Im doing a website for a coach service in Ireland. They want to sell tickets online but im not sure how to go about it. The tickets can be used whenever the clients wants but i dont know how i can set it up that they will not be able to reuse the tickets.

Am i missing something? Can you not just print off the ticket and the bus driver punches a little hole in it thus making it invalid?

Cantab.

Bananna man wrote:

Hey,

Im doing a website for a coach service in Ireland. They want to sell tickets online but im not sure how to go about it. The tickets can be used whenever the clients wants but i dont know how i can set it up that they will not be able to reuse the tickets.

If i set it up that they can just print off a ticket they will be easily copied and if i do it by code numbers i will also have a problem as the bus drivers would need a list of all tickets sold so they can mark them off a list. The problem with this approach is that the drivers start very early in the morning and their wouldnt be anyone around at that time to print off the latest ticket list to give to them.

Has anyone any ideas on how to go about this? They want to use paypal for the online payment system as it would be cheaper than setting up something like realex.

Thanks

First off, oh dear...

This kind of application is crying out for PHP/MySQL with https: security - been done before all over the world many a time...

RE: copying tickets - why not print a journey date and journey time on each ticket? Seems the simplest solution to me.

I would also implement a barcode system. See http://www.ashberg.de/php-barcode/ for an open source barcode generator written in PHP which I have used and is fantastic! You can issue ticket inspectors/bus drivers with portable barcode readers which ideally should be networked in real-time.

So basically, write some sort of code that inputs journey date, journey time and seat number and outputs a unique barcode pattern that the inspectors reader can only read.

Now, the reader could be networked in real-time, but a cheaper solution would be to just have a finite set of barcode patterns stored on this (perhaps time-synchronised) device.

axer

You could have a txt message automatically sent to the bus driver with a list of valid codes for his route 30mins before departure time. Wouldnt be much of a job to set up.

Arch-Stanton

To expand on Cantab suggestion above;

Another way to approach this solution would be to forget about tickets all together and to invest in a swipe card system (similar to the loyalty card system used in Tesco or Superquinn)

A client could sign up to the service online get the card in the post and then top up their credit online with PayPal. The card reader in the coach can link to the main database on a daily basis.

The infrastructure costs may be slightly higher at the start (buying card readers for each coach etc.) and cards with the magnet strip are reasonable cheap to have made, but the efficiency would win out in the end. Really it’s down to economies of scale.

evilhomer

This is not as easy as it seems, As Cantab mentions above you would have to use something like barcodes and a realtime link to a central database.

There is a large expense involved in kitting out buses with
1) Barcode readers
2) Some form of internet/intranet access
3) Probably either a small computer or add more expense to your barcode readers to allow them network access.

If you look at other companys that sell tickets online (i.e. Aerlingus, Ryanair, British rail, etc...) they all require the buyer at some stage to validate the ticket at a computer terminal (wether that be by a ticket agent or a standalone machine in a terminal)

It's a very big job to allow realtime ticketing.

SAP, Siebel and other ERP companies make a lot of money from this kind of thing.

axer

to the OP: approximately how many bookings per journey do they expect to recieve via the web?

Gosh

Have a look at the process here that Bus Eireann use.

Whatever, process you go for issuing tickets you'll still have to consider the administatrive side of what happens if (for example):

a) Passenger turns up with a pre-paid ticket but the bus is full

b) Unused ticket refunds

I really think you should ask the company what the budget is and how far are they prepared to go in really automating the process.

Bananna man

I was hoping for someone to come up with an ingenious idea and then i'd say "why didnt i think of that"

It looks as if its as complicated as first anticipated. I may look into the barcode idea but i reckon it will be out of their budget.

The Corinthian

Gosh wrote:

Whatever, process you go for issuing tickets you'll still have to consider the administatrive side of what happens if (for example):

a) Passenger turns up with a pre-paid ticket but the bus is full

b) Unused ticket refunds

These are relevant to the client’s actual business than they are to the business logic of the application. My gut feeling would be that appropriate T&C’s would cover issues such as these, but I’m not in the coach service business - they are - and you’re not there to tell them their business any more than they should be telling you yours.

Bananna man wrote:

I was hoping for someone to come up with an ingenious idea and then i'd say "why didnt i think of that"

Three options come to mind, the first is that you stipulate that people must purchase by, for example, 5pm of the day preceding the travel date. There are various ways you can do this, from simply sating it in the T&C of purchase through to placing a time limit and date on the validity of the ticket (e.g. “this ticket is valid from the 21 May 2006 to the 21 June 2006, inclusive”).

The second is allowing the drivers to look up the ticket number using a handheld device (a WAP phone would be simplest). Too many lookups in this way would be impractical, however if the driver used such a lookup method in conjunction with a daily list, then this might limit the number of times they have to do a live lookup.

The third and simplest option is to train one or two of drivers to switch on a PC, log on and print it themselves.

It looks as if its as complicated as first anticipated. I may look into the barcode idea but i reckon it will be out of their budget.

It’s a lot more complicated. For example, there’s no way of knowing how often a ticket has been used unless the database and all associated lists given to drivers are also updated whenever someone boards a coach. Otherwise you can have a situation whereby the ‘same ticket’ is used by a number of people on different coaches.

Ideally a handheld device, such as a PDA, running a custom app that allows the driver to enter the ticket number (and/or read a barcode), validate and mark it as used, over GPRS or 3G would do the job. My guess is that your client comes from the “sure, didn’t Ryanair get a Web site for £20 and a bucket of Tayto?” school of business, so I wouldn’t hold my breath on that happening.

HTH

Gosh

Originally Posted by The Corinthian
These are relevant to the client’s actual business than they are to the business logic of the application. My gut feeling would be that appropriate T&C’s would cover issues such as these, but I’m not in the coach service business - they are - and you’re not there to tell them their business any more than they should be telling you yours.

I agree 100% with what you are saying but then if they're in the business they should be telling you what they want and not expecting you design something you know nothing about. You might be a brilliant website designer but if you don't know or understand the business they'll never be happy with what you provide. T&C's may cover it in words but there still might be a need to integrate something into the core system to handle it (how do you know until you ask your client, they may be sitting there thinking you're going to cover everything and not just the issuing of tickets online)

As to allowing open-ended tickets that a customer can use whenever they want - perhaps this is causing the sticking point. You have to ask WHY is this so important?

If a ticket is printed for a specific bus journey then it cannot be reused for another journey.

If the client would go for posting the tickets out to the customer or let the customer pick them up at a designated place (with appropriate ID) - this removes the need to print a valid ticket online.

That only leaves the question of validation of the ticket presented - that I don't know how to resolve without knowing what the company is prepared to pay for. I would present the options already given in this post together with likely costs and let them decide.

At the end of the day, the size of the business (and I assume we're not talking about something as big as Bus Eireann) will determine how far they are prepared to invest in this. How many buses, how many routes, how many passengers - and then how many of these would be likely to buy online anyway (isn't the norm for Irish consumers yet).

I don't suggest you should be telling them their business but your business is to help them make the decisions based on facts.

Gosh

On the subject of validation of the ticket by the driver. A simplistic apporach would be to only allow tickets to be bought online within 24 hours of departure (if the ticket is picked up) or 48 hours if posted. This is plenty of time to print a list of pre-paid passengers for the driver. He checks the pre-paid ticket against his list - if the ticket number and name on the ticket presented doesn't match his list then the ticket is probably not valid.

There's a lot of technology out there to go all the way on this but is it really needed and once you start introducing techonology (PDAs, WAP phones etc, etc) you need to have a fall-back when these things don't work (and that's your business to tell your client just in case they haven't considered it).

Cantab.

O2 do gprs only sim cards for €6.35 a month for 1 MB and €1.90 per MB afterwards.

It would not be too difficult to get a portable embedded computer with GPRS module (direct access to a MYSQL database) and touchscreen interface done up.

You could even add a GPS Module to the system and get vehicle tracking at marginal extra cost!

In fact, I can do this kind of stuff. Would you like to talk to me?