Modern ticketing is somewhat different to traditional methods. Once there was a piece of paper for everything – bus tickets, train tickets and aircraft boarding passes. Now we either have a swipe card for regular travel or an internet style system (i.e.: on the smartphone) for the infrequent trips. Come August 2016 the paper ticketing system for Sydney busses and trains will be removed entirely, except for some trips outside the city. All passengers will be expected to have an Opal card. Planes, which obviously cannot use this system, are a different matter however.
Surveys at Chicago airport by Go airport express show that about two thirds of travellers prefer the physical paper ticket for a boarding pass. And even those who did use the electronic system tended to print a paper version of the ticket as a backup. Paper tickets remain valid even if technology fails, computers go off line or if the smartphone batteries run flat. There may also be some psychological benefit in physically holding the ticket in your hand- you don’t feel like you’ve left something behind.
As there are far fewer plane flights than train trips the paper ticket is probably not going to cause much environmental damage. And as the tickets can now be printed at home there isn’t really the issue of paying for sales people. We can book online, keep costs down, and print a ticket if we feel the need. And there is the great modern advantage of backup; if we lose the physical ticket we can access the online version as easily as we access our email. It’s never been easier.