Bus Tickets in Cologne

Something innovative by the KVB in Cologne, who run the Metro and Busses and things in Cologne. You can now pay for your ticket with your mobile phone. You just call a free number and hang up after somebody wishes you a good journey. Your number needs to be transmitted, that’s all. You will then get an SMS confirmation. The very cool thing is that they will make you the best deal automatically. If you order 4 single tickets (2 EUR each), you get a bill for a FourWay Ticket (6,80 EUR). Now how cool is that.

Now comes the problem. You will have to register with Teltix or inside a KVB office to use this service. Then your bill will come once a month. This is still nicer than paying cash each time of course. But registering is annoying and I somehow feel it is useless if they were to bill the phone directly, but they don’t seem to be doing that.

The only people who will get around this, are people who are at T-Mobile and already have their Mobile Wallet enabled. I think I need a mobile wallet ;)

(Not that I don’t have a monthly subscription for KVB and don’t need a ticket but a geek is a geek.)

Source (German): KVB startet Handy-Ticket in Koeln (koeln.de).