Information capability and value creation strategy: advancing revenue management through mobile ticketing technologies

Using the process-oriented view and resource-based theory, we investigate how mobile ticketing technologies can successfully enable revenue management. We collect data from 17 cases worldwide in which smart cards and mobile devices have been adopted in the public transport industry over the last decade. The use of these technologies allows service providers to capture real-time and complete information of customers' actual travel. This enables service providers to employ advanced price differentiation and service expansion strategies and achieve new ‘best practice’ in revenue management. The results demonstrate that service providers that use more sophisticated mobile ticketing technologies are more likely to adopt advanced strategies to create value. Further, they are more likely to achieve higher performance gains.