Mobile phones to carry electronic tickets

Britons will soon be able to have train tickets sent to their mobile phones.

Trials of a joint Your Rail and Chiltern Railways project, which started this week, is offering commuters the chance to put electronic versions of their tickets on their mobile phones.

Users buy tickets via the internet with a credit or debit card and a barcode is sent via SMS to their mobile phone. The phone is scanned either at the gates at Marylebone station, which are being fitted with scanners, or a guard using a handheld computer.

The programme will be fully launched on 12 March and Your Rail said the system is compatible with most mobile phones.

However,following his comments about MacDonalds this week, Prince Charles may be pleased to hear that neither MacDonalds nor Burger King in the UK have any plans to follow in the footsteps of the Japanese.

Visitors to fast food restaurants there will soon be able to pay for their burgers with their mobile phones.

The joint venture between McDonalds and Japanese mobile phone operator NTT DoCoMo w ill begin in restaurants in July. It will offer special promotions and new ways of payment to mobile phone users.