QR Codes for Public Transportation

One code per stop, and it changes everything

A stop-specific code removes the hardest step in every journey planner: telling the system where you are standing.

• Live departures for this stop, opened in two seconds from the pole
• Disruption and diversion notices, which is when passengers need information most and printed timetables are least able to give it
• The next three services rather than a full timetable nobody reads standing up
• Onward connections from this specific stop

Because it is a dynamic code, one printed pole sticker survives route renumbering, timetable changes and long-term diversions without a single site visit.

Ticketing

• Buy for this journey from the stop, which is faster than an app install for a visitor
• Validate on board, which needs to work with no connectivity, since vehicles move through tunnels and dead zones. Signed codes verified offline are the only reliable design
• Season and concession renewal from a code on the pass itself
• Interchange transfers, where the code carries the entitlement rather than the passenger explaining it

Accessibility information, which is chronically hard to find

• Step-free access at this station, updated when a lift is out of service, which is the single most requested piece of live transport information
• Ramp and boarding assistance requests made from the stop rather than by phone
• Audio timetables for passengers who cannot read a printed one
• Codes placed at 1.2 to 1.4 m, reachable from a wheelchair, with a short URL and a phone number printed alongside for anyone who cannot scan

Printing for the street

• Weatherproof, matte, tamper-evident vinyl, replaced on a maintenance schedule
• 10 to 15 cm on a pole, since it is scanned from about a metre but often in rain, at night, by someone in a hurry
• Position it on the shelter panel or the pole face at standing eye level, not on the timetable case where reflections gather
• Assume vandalism and stickering, and inspect as part of the normal cleaning round

The fraud problem is real here

Fake payment codes stuck over official ones at parking and ticket machines are one of the most common QR scams. Publish the domains your codes resolve to, print them beside the code, and use tamper-evident material everywhere a payment is involved.

What the data gives an operator

Scans by stop, by hour, tell you where passengers are waiting and when, which is a demand signal independent of ticketing data. It shows demand at stops where nobody boarded because the service was full or late, which is precisely the information that ticketing cannot produce.