In the last year, I've been through over a dozen cities and used public transport in all of them. It is wild just how confusing and complex buying a ticket can be. While some cities obviously take a user-centred approach to ticketing, others appear to take a Kafkaesque delight in a bureaucratic maze of zones, apps, and intricate restrictions. One of the seminal texts in computer systems design…
I had the same experience in Belfort, France. I had to download an app, create an account, buy tickets, and scan a qr code when boarding the bus. It was super awkward and for clueless tourists like me (even though I used to live there, where are my beloved paper tickets!!) it’s pretty frustrating to try to figure it out while people are getting grumbly because they can’t board the bus because I’m in the way with my massive suitcase.
Oh and the delicious irony, I got an email yesterday from the bus company saying that the developers went bankrupt and the app is no longer maintained. What a bloody joke!
So I guess for places that force an app on public transport users, one can only hope that app developers go bankrupt.
I don’t get why cities can’t just use a standard app. Every city needs it. Just make one and open source it
Better yet, fund public transit 100% through taxes and make it free to board
According to what happened in Tallinn it didn’t decrease the car usage. It increased the number of people taking the public transport, but the people who started to ride more was the people that were walking. And after this initial bump, it flat out. Car usage kept around the same levels.
I like having the option of an app because it gives clear information about the tickets available and the tarif zones.
I also find it convenient to have the ticket on my phone, as I can’t lose it there.
I don’t think this should replace paper tickets though. It should be available on top of paper tickets.
You have a good point, apps will be convenient for the locals who need to buy weekly/monthly tickets.
But for a tourist hopping from city to city, it’s a bit annoying. In my case I went from Basel/Weil Am Rhein where I had to have an app for the local (and excellent I may add) 3-cities ticket, then I went to Mulhouse, that’s another app, then Belfort. Good thing I didn’t push to Besançon or it would have been a 4-apps trip!
The developers bankruptcy forced Belfort to adopt the region’s app apparently, that should have been the case from the start.
It can give clear information about tickets and tariffs, but not all do! The region or operator can also give clear info on their website, but not all do. If they don’t put it on the website, why would they put it on the app ?
If the app has tickets it often includes information about these tickets. Not all do but most of them
About those tickets. I’ve been bitten at least once by an app not even mentioning a paper ticket that was cheaper for my journey. And once by an app not mentioning that the needed ticket not available on the app could not be bought from the driver either, but was on a different app, but there we 're getting into Paris levels of silliness !
If there is an app, it should be a single app for all public transport in the whole country.
Switzerland does this well with SBB app, Austria with ÖBB “Scotty” App. Comparatively France and the UK are confusing messes.
Omg can you imagine how seamless it would make hopping from one city to another? Don’t get me started on the UK multiple bus operators in the same city, it took me years to get my head round it 😅