Govia Thameslink is promising rail passengers with smartphone eTickets that they will find it easier to travel with Gatwick Express, Southern and Thameslink at Brighton.

These stations have had additional barcode readers added to their ticket gates, which allow passengers to scan barcode eTickets held on their smartphones or printed from an email. Barcode readers had already been fitted to some of the ticket gates, but passengers sometimes found themselves having to queue at those gates to scan their eTickets. Now every ticket gate has a barcode reader. With every ticket gate now using the technology, commuters, tourists and city day trippers will be less likely to have to queue to get on and off the platforms.

Govia Thameslink Railway – which runs Gatwick Express, Southern and Thameslink, as well as Great Northern – will continue to add barcode readers to ticket gates across its eleven-county network so that, by summertime, eTickets can open every ticket gate at all its stations.

The proportion of passengers buying barcode eTickets has more than doubled in the past three years (from 20% to 45%) while the percentage of those buying paper tickets has roughly halved (from 63% to 33%). eTickets are convenient and popular because they can be bought instantly on the train firm’s OnTrack app or website.

E-tickets are available for advance singles, peak and off-peak single tickets and peak and off-peak day returns, between any stations with a barcode reader on the ticket gates.

Passengers buy their ticket online and choose eTicket as their delivery option. They then get the eTicket in their email and can add it to a wallet app on their phone. On arrival at the station, they scan the eTicket on a reader at the ticket gates to travel.

The apps and websites will offer passengers an e-ticket if they are available on the route they want to travel. These are: Southern On Track and Thameslink On Track apps and online at southernrailway.com and thameslinkrailway.com

GTR Customer Services Director Jenny Saunders said: “Barcode eTickets are quick to buy and convenient to use so we’re steadily adding them to more and more ticket gates across our stations to make life easier for our customers.

“This will help reduce queuing in stations that previously had only a few barcode readers fitted to the ticket gates.

“We’ll then visit stations that don’t have any barcode readers at all and aim to put one on every single ticket gate by summertime.”