More e-ticket readers installed at Sussex railway stations

Extra barcode readers – that allow passengers to scan tickets on their smartphones – have just been added to ticket gates to achieve 100 per cent coverage and cut queues of waiting Southern train passengers at the following Sussex stations: Angmering, Barnham, Bexhill, Bognor Regis, East Grinstead, Haywards Heath, Lancing, Littlehampton and Polegate.

It is estimated that around half of rail tickets now sold in the UK are digital. E-tickets are seen as convenient because they can be bought instantly on Southern’s OnTrack app or website.

Chris Fowler, Southern’s customer services director, said: “Barcode eTickets are quick to buy and convenient to use so we’re steadily adding them to more and more ticket gates across our stations to make life easier for our customers.”

Jacqueline Starr, chief executive officer at the Rail Delivery Group, said: “We’re making it easier for people to buy train tickets with people rapidly switching to buying online and now using digital tickets for half of all journeys. Investment in smart ticketing across the network has made train travel quicker and easier as people can get their ticket straight to their phone.”

Barcode readers had already been fitted to some of the ticket gates at these stations but with the rising popularity of e-tickets, queues sometimes formed at the barriers. Now every ticket gate at these stations has a barcode reader.

E-tickets are available for advanced singles, peak and off-peak single tickets and peak and off-peak day returns, between any stations with a barcode reader on the ticket gates.