Mobile computing for ticket inspection: the SNCF (French railway company) is currently innovating on an industrial scale with its Accelio project, involving a business application designed by Unilog Management, a LogicaCMG company, Psion Teklogix’s communicating PDA WORKABOUT PRO and an ultra-light portable printer in Bluetooth mode.

By June 2007, the SNCF’s 10,000 ticket inspectors will all have been trained and will be able to check travellers’ tickets on all lines using 3 systems:

• "contactless” ticketing: this will mainly be season tickets bearing an RFID tag, like the 'orange’ card in Ile-de-France,
• Web-purchased, home-printed tickets, having a special barcode called Aztec,
• conventional main line tickets purchased at the counter or from a ticket machine and having a 2D barcode.

What’s more, the WORKABOUT PRO and its portable printer mean fines can be issued to offenders, tickets can be purchased on board with a bank card, cash or cheque, and travellers can obviously be given all information about connecting trains, timetables and even urban routes in major cities.

SNCF inspector: a job on the move