System Will Allow Net Users Download Tickets

Plenty of companies sell tickets over the Internet, but buyers still have to wait for the passes to arrive in the mail. But two engineers at UC San Diego have devised a system to let customers print the actual tickets themselves.

Ticket buyers using the system, dubbed Triton, will need only a PC, a Web browser and a laser or inkjet printer with resolution of at least 300 dots per inch. The system prints a bar code that identifies the type of ticket that was purchased, along with a digital signature to confirm that the ticket was paid for, said Bennett Yee, the UCSD professor who designed Triton with Noriya Kobayashi, a visiting scholar from NEC Japan.

Ticket takers would read the bar codes using hand-held scanners similar to those used in grocery and department stores. The scanners would be networked to computers with special software to make sure the bar codes are authentic and that patrons don’t use duplicate tickets. The bar codes also include error-correction data so they can be read by scanners even if they are wrinkled or otherwise damaged.

The technology is similar to that used by Internet postage firms such as Stamps.com and E-Stamp, whose systems print bar codes onto envelopes or mailing labels.

UCSD and NEC said they are interested in commercializing the technology. In the meantime, UCSD will test the system this week at Scripps Institution of Oceanography’s Birch Aquarium in La Jolla.