Conductors scanning tickets with iPhone camera?

JamesJi

On my two most recent Acela trips this past month I noticed instead of scanning my ticket with the typical contraption / barcode scanner device (that has a red laser/light) the conductor used a regular iPhone camera to read the barcode instead — any idea if this is some newfangled technology that’s going to be rolled out at some point?

Doesn't really bother me if the conductors are switching to regular iPhones as opposed to a scanner just that I’ve noticed it takes meaningfully longer for my tickets to scan — which probably isn’t great on a full train. And fwiw the conductor on my NE Regional yesterday still had the regular handhelds so I’m wondering if this is an Acela-specific thing.

ElaiNetgil

They're just using an app that makes their job easier and faster. Plus, it's way more eco-friendly than printing out physical tickets. Now, about that story you mentioned... 100 tickets?? Damn, that's some dedication right there. But honestly, I can't hate on the hustle! And who knows, maybe that person really wanted that Select Executive status. Anyway, if you're interested in automatic and eco-friendly document scanning, you should check out https://smartengines.com/. They're a company that uses AI to scan and process documents.

ReinaldSherper

All iPhones can scan QR codes. I’m pretty sure tickets are just QR codes. Maybe it’s more complex than that though.

they’ve been scanning tickets on the Acela with iPhones for at least the past 3 years.