A few years back I did an Eurotrip visiting 11 countries and eventually realized that each city as it’s own quirky machinery for dispencing and accepting subway tickets. IIRC Paris has a funky wheel scrolling bearing bar for navigating the menu.
At some point I realizes I should’ve been taking pictures and documenting it for curiosity’s sake but it was too late.
And since I don’t know if I’ll get to do the trip again I’m asking here about noteworthy subway ticket interfaces across the continent.
16 comments
still can’t believe venice was using Windows 2000 on their ticket terminals not too long ago…based on one that was in an error state
Not a subway system, but I found the trams in Amsterdam really odd. Like, from what I remember, they had different doors marked as entrances and exits and you had to tap your ticket when entering/leaving the tram. Just felt odd seeing something like that in a tram, instead of proof of payment. It’s the only city I have been to so far that does it like that.
So, I guess that’s a weird ticketing system for me.
Edit: Because some people don’t quite understand what I mean, let me add some details:
* You have to tap in/out to enter/exit the tram. You can’t even board the tram without doing that.
* They have designated entrances and exits. You can only enter at doors that are marked as entranced and only leave at doors that are marked as exits.
* They have ticket booths inside the trams. There is a person sitting inside the tram, helping you, or in my case judging you, if you can’t figure out how the system works.
German/Austrian tickets require that the metro tickets are stamped before entering, which makes sense for buying tickets in advance, but is a famous way for tourists to get unexpected fines. This can be weird at first but is a very simple system once you know what to look out for.
For northern Italy (Turin, Milan, Brescia), the tickets for the metro can be used interchangeably for bus tickets, which can be bought from local tobaccanists, which I think is a bizarre and stereotypically confusing Italian way of doing something. There’s usually no way to buy a ticket on a bus, which gives the subway tickets an unusual purpose, and can send tourists on a weird mission to try and get somewhere:
Get to bus stop -> Find out there’s no ticket machine -> Get on bus, but can’t buy tickets -> Find out that tickets can be bought from a tobaccanists -> Leave bus to buy tickets -> Struggle with non-English speaking vendor and get tickets -> Try to resume journey
Is Rome weird with the timed ticket? Basically you can go anywhere you like on multiple journeys but you’ve got 60 minutes (I think?) to do it.
It might be a common way of doing it but I’ve not come across it before.
Edit: Judging from the replies it looks like this system is extremely common, it did work well.
I don’t know if Denmark’s system is weird. Rather it is good. You use one card Rejsekort (Travel card) for all types of public transport in Denmark, excluding ferries.
The only thing that can be difficult to remember is that you have to both check in, check in when you change mode of transport, and check out again.
Tourists in Prague are often confused that they need to validate (= stamp) the ticket right after boarding the bus/tram or metro paid area. The ticket is not valid if not stamped. Also, there’s a validity period so there’s no need to stamp it again which in fact invalidates the ticket…
Barcelona has got to have the worst one ever conceived, especially if we’re including trains as well.
At some point it asked me to input the specific station I wanted to go to without a search function, I went to where it should be, realized it wasn’t ordered alphabetically and just selected a random one. In a later attempt we realized it’s ordered first by zone (which is a hidden value in that screen) and only then alphabetically.
The city came up with this t-mobilitat card which I was hyped for because I figured they were finally going to fix the mess, but instead they just added some useless bullshit on top of everything else.
The subway network is fantastic, but goddamn if the ticketing system isn’t ass-backwards.
The little town I grew up in, somewhere in east Germany, at some point switched from selling
Single
Two way
Four way
Eight way
Tickets to
One way
Three way
Seven way
And we all thought WHYYYYY it should be an even number in case you wanna come back?
Also, reading through th comments here, you all make it sound like Germany has ONE system, its not! Every “Verkehrsverbund” does their own thing with ticketing zones, day tickets that only are valid after 09:00 o clock, short trip tickets,
I am so glad I left to the Netherlands now 🙂
I guess what you consider weird depends on what you’re used to. As a Viennese I find subway systems that have entry barriers and/or require you to tap some card or device weird, same with buses where you’re supposed to enter at the front door and show your ticket to the driver. In Vienna, you simply board the subway/tram/bus using whatever door you wish.
If you want weird you should go to china. Riding the subway is done by scanning a QR code on your phone while entering/exiting, you then get charged on the payment app some hours later.
Edinburgh Trams has a really annoying ticket buying system.
If you’re using a terminal to buy a physical ticket at the top (as opposed to one of the 3 different apps) you have to select what stop you’re going from, and what stop you’re getting off at. This would be fine except the cost of a ticket is identical whether you’re travelling one stop or 20. The only exception is the airport stop at the end of the line is triple the cost, but that’s it, it’s a flat fee.
So instead of having 2 buttons, one for a regular ticket and one for an airport ticket, you have to mess around finding your stops.
Locals who still want paper tickets know this and know you can select any two stops to get through the process quickly, but tourists don’t and slows the entire thing down.
Not subway, but the old trams in the historic center of budapest use a manual ticket punch instead of an automatic/stamp one. The times I saw tourists insterting, waiting, looking at the underside, inserting again at an angle, waiting, moving around a little, then got up to help and pulled the punch with brute force. Unexpected.
There’s some weird token system going on in St Petersburg. I can’t fully explain it because my Russian classmates handed it for me, but we gave some money to take a token, used the token to get access to the escalators and go down to the platform. So it was valid for one trip in the entire system so long as we didn’t go out of the station/section of station that’s behind a new gate.
It was a bit like a Zelda water temple, the whole experience.
Okay not quite the subway, but for me it’s how the entire system in London is covered by tap to pay, but this is not valid for all destinations.
You see lots of unfortunate tourists tapping their debit/credit cards to get through the barrier to take a train to Stanstead airport, only to be fined at Stanstead airport for not having a valid ticket.
I think for lots of tourists this would be confusing given it’s ostensibly a London airport and they’ve used a payment system to get through the barriers.
I didn’t find the German validation systems bad because there are mostly just apps you can buy virtual tickets and passes on which make the whole thing incredibly simple.
Not subway specifically but this happened to me in my home town in Italy
Mid-August – no shops open to sell tickets, but as of recently you can pay with the card on board of the bus, as the website said
Jump on the bus, use Apple Pay – nothing
Use real credit card – nothing
My friend tries with a credit card from another bank – nothing
Bus driver: you can’t just use the credit card to buy the ticket on board
Me: but the bus company website said it was possible
Bus driver: yeah the website is wrong and still hasn’t implemented but I can sell tickets too
Me: perfect, two tickets then
Bus driver, looking around: ah no sorry today I forgot to bring the tickets with me so I can’t do that
Me: then… how do we get the ticket?
Bus driver: just give me 3€ (in black) and we’re ok
German cities always have many pages of options in the ticket vending machine. I remember struggling in Düsseldorf. They have a zone system that is difficult to navigate as a tourist. I could find for a short visit the applicable ticket types are:
single trip x short, A1/A2, A3, B, C, D,
4 trips x short, A1/A2, A3, B, C, D,
10 trips short, A1/A2, A3, B, C, D,
“SchöneFahrt”,
24 hours x 1-5 person x A, B, C, D,
4 hours,
”HappyHour”,
”SchönerTag”,
”SchönerTag” for 5 persons,
48 hours x 1-5 person x A, B, C, D,
DüsseldorfCard 24/48/72/96 hours, and
DüsseldorfCard Familie 24/48/72/96 hours.
Strong contender for the public transport ticketing system to be used in hell.