Thread

1. hobo123 · 1791026169 · focus · HN ↗

   In Germany we used to have the Geldkarte (money card), which was similar to a credit card, but anonymous, it didn't require Internet, you could charge it with money at an ATM and use it for payments. You could also put bus tickets on it.

   Maybe 10 years ago the whole project was stopped, sadly, and now we have the plague that requires everyone including handicapped people and seniors to use (often old and insecure) smartphones.

   1. snottynose · 1791035747 · focus · HN ↗

      Recently took a bus from an airport in Nordrhein-Westfalen.

      Had to install an app, create an account with the bus agency, give way too many of my personal details including address and phone number. Needed a smartphone, internet connection, German-compatible digital payment method (2 out 3 payment methods did not work).

      This was a surreal experience. It literally took me about half an hour of struggling my way through a half-baked Germlish app to buy a single ticket, for a trip that I will probably make only once in my life. When the bus came, a very long line formed because, of course, most people assume you could just buy a ticket with the driver. I felt quite bad for this driver who probably had to deal with this every day. This particular bus only went once every two hours. It made me wonder whether any tourists had arrived there, waited 1½ hours for the bus, only to be rejected because they did not have a ticket and could not bribe the driver with physical euros. The airport apparently had no exchange offices.

      Compare: when I took the bus in Montenegro, I gave the bus driver a 2 euro coin and stepped inside the bus and it went.

      In most countries we had functional paper ticketing systems which were cheap, easy to understand and provided privacy. But they had to be replaced because . . . apps are cool???

      1. rsync · 1791054691 · focus · HN ↗

         "Recently took a bus from an airport in Nordrhein-Westfalen ..."

         Can anyone (Germans ?) confirm that this was, indeed, the only possible mechanism to pay for this single bus trip ?

         I'm genuinely curious as my experiences in Switzerland - as late as last November - were that many different durations and service levels of paper ticket were able to be purchased, with cash or bank card, from a ticket machine.

         Is the experience really that divergent in Germany ?

         1. hobo123 · 1791106025 · focus · HN ↗

            Yes, in many buses you cannot buy tickets at all (anymore), the ones who had like vending machines inside removed them, so you can often only get tickets via app, printing out at home, or at major bus stations.

            1. snottynose · 1791135688 · focus · HN ↗

               The old ticket stamp machine still stood in the bus but it was taped over. The driver did seem to accept cash from some people and it seemed like random amounts (pay whatever you have?), and he did not give out tickets, hence my remark about bribing.

               The app is called DB NRWay and has 1.6* on Google Play, so... See for yourself. I was surprised as well. Like I said: it was a surreal experience.

               And yes: all bundesländer are _so_ different! NRW has another spiffy (creepy) app that uses geolocation from your phone to determine the amount of kilometers you have ridden on the bus, but it specifically only works within the bound of NRW.

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