Mobile tickets could come to the Long Island Rail Road in the near future after the majority people surveyed that used the technology during The Barclays PGA Tour event said they were “very satisfied” with their online ticketing experience.
The LIRR worked with Huntington-based technology company CooCoo, which provided mobile ticketing for the golf event. Customers were able to purchase the tickets online and received an email to print out their ticket or download it to their smartphone to be used as a digital ticket.
Nearly 6,000 of the 30,000 customers that used the LIRR to travel to and from Farmingdale station during the event at Bethpage State Park purchased tickets through CooCoo, the LIRR said.
“Our first-ever experiment with live mobile ticketing has been a huge success,” LIRR President Helena Williams said in a statement. “Sales far exceeded our expectations. Customers loved the convenience of it and the technology worked well. This experience will help us move forward to expand mobile ticketing options for our customers in the future.”
The LIRR surveyed 368 customers that purchased tickets online, and 100 percent of people said they would do so again in the future. Additionally, 99 percent of those surveyed said they were “very satisfied” with their online ticket experience.
CooCoo co-founder Ryan Thompson was also satisfied with the results, saying the company was “very pleased” with the technology’s performance, given the higher than expected volume of transactions over the course of the six days mobile ticketing was used.
“It was exciting to see our technology being used by riders and to see conductors successfully trying out a new way to service LIRR tickets,” he said in a statement.
The railroad hopes to add mobile ticketing sometime next year, Williams said. The LIRR expects to issue a Request for Proposals this fall to produce the devices and software needed to use the technology.