WASHINGTON – Checking your email or favorite website while commuting could get easier.

Virginia Railway Express is once again looking to add wireless Internet service after going back and forth on the issue for more than a year because of cost and reliability concerns. But new safety technologies could make WiFi mandatory on commuter trains.

The measures, which will be required for all train by 2015, could help the agency diagnose problems and give commuters arrival and departure information in real time, reports the Washington Examiner.

Riders could eventually pay fares using smartphones.

VRE says the service would cost about $1.4 million to install, and then about $230,000 a year to maintain.

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