DigiPurchase
Disadvantages of paper-based tickets:
- In almost all cases, they end up polluting the environment as non-recycled garbage.
- Usually it’s hard or not even possible to keep track of customer’s shopping habits.
- It’s expensive and can’t even ensure 100% secure production.
- In some cases they can even be easily forged.
- Sale of tickets requires human intervention.
Benefits of the DigiPurchase:
- The technology is given. Statistically it can be proved that every single person owns the needed electronic devices for the usage of the system.
- The creation and deletion of electronic tickets can be done in a blink, and compared to the paper-based tickets, except the current used by the electronic device, it does not need anything else.
- Accurately trackable statistical data.
- Options for data collection enabling the elaboration of marketing- and development strategies.
- Theoretically tamper-proof. Any attempt to use a forged ticket can be immediately noticed by the system.
- Both the sale and the control can be partly or entirely automated.
- The system can be extended with sale and management interfaces to the internet.
- Variable-length, public key encryptions is being used by the system.
- All the SMS messages to initiate the process of purchase, and the response generated by the server can be easily customized.
Fields of application:
The DigiPurchase system can be deployed anywhere, where paper – or plastic – based tickets should be replaced by modern, electronic-format based tickets.
- Tickets of the public transportation companies
- Tickets for different sport game events like soccer
- Theater and concert tickets
- PParking tickets
- etc.
Control technology:
Digital image processing procedures using camera system are ensuring the smooth control of the two-dimensional barcode based tickets. Whether it's a control software running on a mobile phone or a fully automated entry control system, control of the tickets can be executed without any problems.
Realized example system:
Within the confines of the DigiPurchase project a complete system has been developed for an imaginary public transportation company realizing the purchase and the control of the electronic tickets. From one side the tickets can be bought using mobile phones. That means people need to write an SMS message in the length of a couple of characters and send it. From the other side there is an option for purchasing the tickets through the internet. The arrival of the SMS messages is processed by an application, which is using a GSM device connected to a notebook through USB port. Furthermore it validates the sender of the SMS, the content of the message, and checks other details. If everything seems to be fine, the application generates a response message from the received parameters. This generated response message is being encrypted by a private key. Then the encrypted message is being converted into a two-dimensional Datamatrix barcode. Then the barcode is being converted into a text message using adaptive coding, and as a result the application sends back the response to the customer.
The response SMS message, which is received by the user, can be visualized then using a Java based mobile application, which browses through the stored SMS messages and collects those that are found to comply with the given format. These are given back in a list sorted by the arrival date. The customer can then select the one, which needs to be showed up for control, and the mobile application draws a two-dimensional Datamatrix barcode to the display from the content of the selected message.
The control is executed by using optical image processing procedures. The steps are: the detection and segmentation of the barcode image from the picture, the decoding of the two-dimensional barcode, the decryption of the message using the public key, and the presentation of the decrypted content of the server response for the controller or for the controlling system. The whole process can be executed in a couple of seconds.
Current state of the project:
The project has been completed within the confines of a diploma work. A detailed explanation can be found of the existing one-dimensional barcodes, about their benefits and disadvantages, and an explanation why we need to use two-dimensional barcodes in electronic commerce. The used two-dimensional Datamatrix barcode was compared to other existing two-dimensional barcode formats. Their different has been analyzed and studied. Although thanks to the modular structure of the system the used barcodes can be easily swapped. The difficulties and the needed steps for recognizing a barcode from an image has been examined well too, and a robust algorithm performing this task has been developed. A comprehensive case- and feasibility study has been worked out how to secure the electronic tickets. Furthermore many coding techniques have been mentioned how to send a barcode using only one single SMS message containing ASCII characters.
We are looking for investors, who can see the possibilities in using electronic tickets. Moreover they believe that the SMS-based e-commerce can cover a wider user area with proper security then the nowadays trendy solutions using web browsers in smartphones. In addition they would like to invest money to cover the business costs of the construction of a marketable solution of this project.