m-ticketing hits the UK Bus route with m-blox and Arriva

Customers across Arriva’s regional bus businesses in England, Scotland and Wales, will be able to buy daily, weekly and four-weekly tickets via their mobile phones following the national launch of Arriva’s m-ticketing service on Tuesday, 17 November. This spans 1,000 routes and 4,500 buses.

How?
1) Customers can register online now at http://www.arrivabus.co.uk/m-ticket . Once registered, the m-ticket application will be sent - free of charge - to their phone.

2) Select and purchase their ticket. Either by credit/debit card or by cash for people who prefer or don’t have a credit/debit card. For cash top-ups, customers will need to add Arriva credit to their phone, using the m-ticket application’s ‘Add-cash’ option at a PayPoint outlet or Arriva Travel shop.

3) Activate the ticket on the day and time of travel. Their ticket will be displayed on the mobile phone screen and simply needs to be shown it to driver. The ticket runs from the date of first use, not purchase.

mBlox
The service is from Concept Data Technologies and mBlox. The application for the bus service is free to download. Once downloaded tickets are purchased via the app. But the data charge is eaten see here: http://mblox.com/zerodatacharge  

What we think?
Travel in the UK is overpriced. M-ticketing is simple and saver tickets offer a 10% discount which is a bonus. I need to understand the zero rate data charge from mBlox but if the data and app are free then this should rock.

I wonder if any additional scanning of the phone is needed?

I am only talking out loud as I am sure there is thick protection glass between the driver and the customer. How long does it take to view the code and the date and all sorts of thing? I love m-ticketing but I hope this won’t be an issue with fraud or mobile yoof gone wild or something…