Post #3959028
2026-07-20 11:35 UTC
Replies (8)
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@joepie91@fedi.slightly.tech 2026-07-20 13:17
@Edent@mastodon.social Wait. Does Paris not have the little "one ticket equals one metro trip or N minutes on bus" tickets anymore? Those were great!
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@HaTetsu@mastodon.com.pl 2026-07-20 13:56
@Edent@mastodon.social Good piece. No ticket needed, contactless and "simple ticket you can buy physically or online, for cash or by card" are, I think, complementary strategies that work best together, when each can address different needs and the various weak points of the others. Zone and mode divisions are the worst, and even crazier to me is the concept of having a separate "inner city" zone, or even two, when surely one ought to encourage suburb-dwellers to commute into the inner city by public transport. Especially if they've already chosen to live in the city limits!
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@muddle@infosec.exchange 2026-07-21 01:15
@Edent@mastodon.social I had a different experience in Paris. I think I went for a weeklong ticket even though I wasn't going to be there for the full duration. It might have been more expensive than other options but worth it for convenience. You do have to bring passport-style photos to the ticket booth, but once you get the card and it's charged up you can take bus/metro/funicular (Montmartre) regardless of zone? This was only a couple of years ago at most. Definitely no need for apps then. The most difficult part was navigating inside the main train stations to find the correct platform when it was time to leave. London is a mixed bag because of zones, but it's still reasonably priced if you get day tickets for the tube. It's the first tube/metro system I encountered, though, so I'm probably slightly biased in favour of it. The Oyster Card system is pretty good, too.
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@Edent@mastodon.social 2026-07-20 13:58
Thanks for all the interesting comments. I've just updated the post with my experiences in Japan (brilliant) and Melbourne (shite).
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@theolodian@mastodon.social 2026-07-20 14:07
@Edent@mastodon.social I hear that HK is quite bad for foreigners. You have to get the app and top it up BEFORE you travel. You can’t top up the app locally without a local credit card. Risk is not having enough credit to get back to the airport! 😵💫🤦♂️
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@alefunguju@mastodon.social 2026-07-20 13:51
@Edent@mastodon.social I visited Bologna, Italy last week, and it had the same system as you describe for Milano. One problem with it was that when I was researching the fares, I was not able to easily find official sources saying it worked like that there. I was only able to figure it out thanks to some discussions on Reddit and Facebook my search engine spit out.
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@theolodian@mastodon.social 2026-07-20 11:48
@Edent@mastodon.social London is quite good for locals, or for adult tourists. Falls down for tourist families. We try to avoid the Tube if we do go to London. Might start going to London again when the kids are older.
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@Edent@mastodon.social 2026-08-01 15:58
Re the above. The buses in Margate / Ramsgate are wild. Single door so you have to wait for people to get off before anyone can get on. Most people need to buy a specific ticket - that requires chatting to the driver and then handing over cash (or card), getting a paper ticket, and possibly change. It makes the dwell times at each stop so much longer than, say, London buses. The ticket selection isn't too confusing, but it significantly slows down the bus departures.