smart Vending & Ticketing machines

Like many stand-alone or unattended devices, products such as vending machines and ticket machines can suffer adverse environmental conditions, misuse and vandalism. This can be more extreme if located outdoors or if they take payment from users, but do not deliver the service or product. Some also seek to defraud or capture coins or notes from unsuspecting users by blocking channels. For these reasons, many intelligent systems utilise sensors to detect blockages, excessive vibration, tilting or lack of delivery. Some even use cameras to enable remote viewing of the device for greater intelligence. Machines themselves will have a number or alarm or warning codes which provide management systems with an ability to notify managers and field engineers of problems and the ability to schedule site visits. The profitability and brand reputation of these operations will not only depend upon the demand and usability of the services, but also the ability to take payments and maintain inventory and machine uptimes. The nature of their unattended status can mean they become a problem for the site owners, who will be approached by disgruntled consumers. If this becomes too much of a problem, they might ask for the machine to be removed from their premises.