Bus passengers across Shropshire are having their tickets sent to their mobile phones in a scheme said to be the biggest of its kind in the world.

About 1,000 routes operated by Arriva’s 4,500 buses in the region will enable passengers to use their mobile phones to buy tickets and then display them to the driver.

Arriva is the first UK bus operator to introduce the form of ticketing for all regional services.

Customers will be able to buy daily, weekly and four-weekly tickets via their mobile phones. The company has worked in partnership with Concept Data Technologies to create the “m-ticketing” service, which is a free application that is downloaded directly onto customers’ phones.

Once downloaded it allows people to purchase a range of tickets either directly through the application via a registered card or by purchasing credit from PayPoint outlets.

Bob Hind, managing director of Arriva Midlands, said: “The mobile phone is an essential part of modern life and m-tickets will give additional flexibility and convenience to our customers.

“Customers can buy tickets using their phone at anytime from wherever they happen to be. It saves them searching out the cash to buy a ticket and speeds up getting on the bus as they simply show the ticket on the phone display.”

The m-ticketing technology can be operated on any GPRS enabled phone. The service will soon work on Blackberry smartphones and from early 2010 will be compatible with the iPhone.

Mr Hind said: “We can roll it out across our networks without any downtime for vehicles or costly on-board technology.”