A ticket machine is a device that issues or checks the validity of tickets for the use of facilities such as public transportation, entertainments events, and parking lots, for example. They help speed access to such facilities while keeping running costs low and helping to prevent fraudulent use.
Issuing mechanism
Ticket-issuing machines came into use in the early 20th century, when they became standard features of the ticket offices of establishments such as railroad stations. Early machines were operated by cashiers who would take cash, give change, and select the appropriate value of ticket to return to the customer. Some machines of this type are still in use, particularly in movie theaters, but an increasing number of ticket machines are automated to take ticket requests and cash or credit card payments directly from customers. This type of machine is frequently used in conjunction with automatic barriers operated by machines that check ticket validity.
Tickets fall into three categories: preprinted, partially preprinted, and custom printed at the time of issue. In addition to the value and period of validity of the ticket, printed details often include information about the date, place, and time of issue. The same information may also be carried on the ticket in machine-readable form, such as a bar code or magnetic strip.
Preprinted. Fully preprinted tickets are produced as reels with feed holes punched in their margins and sometimes with perforations separating adjacent tickets. The ticket-issuing machine in this case is purely a dispenser—it has no printing function. Tickets issue through a slot under the action of feed wheels whose peripheries have pins that engage with the punched holes in the tickets. A ratchet mechanism advances the feed wheel through an arc that corresponds to the length of one ticket with each action and also prevents the feed wheel from slipping back. In some machines, a guillotine knife snaps forward to sever issued tickets; in others, the ticket is torn off at the perforation.
Partially preprinted. Partially preprinted tickets are widely used by transportation companies. The preprinted blanks carry general information, such as the company details and legal conditions. Finely detailed graphics and holograms are sometimes included as measures against counterfeiting.
A customer or cashier initiates the issuing process by selecting the ticket details on a keypad or using a touch screen. Details specific to each ticket purchase—time, location, destination, and so on—are printed onto the blanks. The obvious advantage in this approach is that one set of blanks serves for various types of transactions.
Early printing mechanisms used engraved type and sequential-number punches that typed through inked ribbons. Modern ticket printers use techniques developed for fax and computer printing, such as dot-matrix, ink-jet, and laser printing. These techniques allow much more flexibility in the details that can be printed, as well as smoother, faster operation. In a typical printer of this type, a preprinted blank card the approximate size of a credit card is fed from a stack into a frame for printing. Before or after printing, the ticket might pass across a magnetic head that records the ticketing information in a magnetic strip on the back of the card for machine reading.
Cash-operated machines require extra equipment to examine the coins and notes for value and validity. If the machine gives change, the coins are stored in hoppers or storage tubes separated by value and released as necessary. The coins taken in payment are stored within the machine in a security vault, which automatically locks to prevent theft when it is removed from the machine. Machines that take credit or debit cards also have telephone links to the clearing agencies that authorize transactions on such cards. In all cases, ticket-issuing machines keep computerized records of the cash and credit card transactions they perform. Most also store information on the types of tickets issued, information that is useful in planning changes to the fares and schedules of transportation systems, for example.
Custom-printed. More basic tickets, such as those for single, short bus trips, for example, are produced by on-the-spot printers fitted at access points or carried on shoulder straps by conductors. These devices print basic trip details onto a roll of plain paper that is cut after each issue.
