Self-service passenger ticketing system

Claim 1

An automated system for issuing airline tickets in response to purchases by credit card without the intervention of any ticket agent, the system being comprised of a plurality of electro-mechanical ticket terminals which communicate with a central computer adapted to determine whether a cardholder's credit is good or bad, wherein each of the ticket terminals includes: credit card reader means for reading data from a credit card inserted therein by a ticket purchaser; destination selection means for enabling the ticket purchaser to manually select a destination from a predetermined set of destinations, including a visual display for directing the ticket purchaser through a sequence of selection steps; means for performing a predetermined sequence of status checks based on the data read by the credit card reader means, the status checks being performed without communicating with the central computer, and including a parity check, a check on the type of card, a check as to whether the card has expired, and check on the number of purchases made with the card at the ticket terminal; modem means for transmitting signals identifying the credit card to the central computer conditional on the status checking means indicating passage of all of the status checks, and for receiving signals from the central computer indicating whether the cardholder's credit is good or bad; means for calculating a fare based on the selected destination; vending means for printing and dispensing a ticket to the selected destination conditional on the signals received from the central computer indicating good credit; and means for recording data representative of each ticket dispensing transaction on a removable storage medium.