Hand Held Products, the global leader in image-based data collection solutions, and CASIO Europe, have teamed up to provide German Rail with a new imaging-based solution for processing e-tickets. German Rail, Europe's largest railway, has implemented a new ticket and mobile ticket system using Casio's IT-3000 mobile computer powered by Adaptus(tm) Imaging Technology 5.0.

Prior to deploying this new solution, German Rail conductors were forced to manually type in a 16-digit ticket number whenever a home-printed ticket (or e-ticket) was presented. Recently, the railway experienced exponential growth in e-ticketing, and currently processes over 50,000 e-tickets per day.

More than 12,000 CASIO IT-3000's are being delivered via Systemtechnik, a German company that helped develop the product. The project was won after an EU-wide public tender. A result of close cooperation between CASIO Europe and Siemens VDO, the new IT-3000's will handle the mobile ticket sales as well as provide an easy way to read and validate train tickets. Systemtechnik's built-in SmartCard technology enables the conductors to receive secure payment via credit cards, as well as quickly and easily read and validate the many different ticket varieties, including e-tickets, of its many thousands of daily passengers.

"We required a solution that enabled our conductors to sell and print tickets on the train, receive secure payments, and quickly read and validate train tickets with an Aztec barcode - home printed and at a later stage from an electronic display. This required not only an update to our existing hardware, but also an update to the technology behind the e-tickets we offer to our customers," said Patrick Neehuis, project manager of 'Mobile Terminal 2' at German Rail.

"Hand Held Products was an integral partner in providing German Rail with a solution optimized for their requirements," said Thomas Uppenkamp, sales manager of CASIO's Industrial Solutions Division. "Their expertise in applying imaging technology to data collection applications combined with our best-in-class mobile computing terminal enabled us to provide German Rail with a market-leading solution."

"German Rail is an excellent example of an enterprise that is in tune with the demands of its customers - they have revolutionized their passenger ticketing process in order to give the customer the best experience possible," said Roel Vreeburg, senior vice president international sales, marketing and services for Europe & Asia at Hand Held Products. "Together with CASIO, we provided a solution that allows German Rail meet the demands of the market today, and to adapt to future applications including reading mobile ticket bar codes from mobile phone or PDA displays."