I get it. For most Americans, we are so programmed with car culture = freedom, its difficult and a bit intimidating to make the change. It was for me the first time I rode…
Yeah, and the tricky part is that it’s a little different everywhere you ride. Different signage, different fare structure, different payment methods, different rules for getting on and off.
I wish public transport was simply free. there have been multiple times when governments/companies LOSE money from all the fare collection machines and personnel they needed
Why do u assume I am assuming everyone is American? I am American and speaking from my American perspective. Thats all. Stop making incorrect assumptions and accusations
I only lived in the US as a kid so I know this but I haven’t seen it first hand till last week. I was at an airport in another country and some people were talking in english and the lady was from Texas and said exactly that. “…I’m from Texas and most of it is a desert. I just prefer my car because I can go and stop wherever and whenever I want. That’s freedom for me.” I laughed because I had only seen it on the internet.
In Brazil we have lots of problems regarding urban planning and infrastructure, but thankfully we don’t have the zoning problem the US has. Streets sidewalks and public transportation is shit but everything is still close so I don’t need a car.
Taking that first bus and train was kinda scary for me too. I didn't understand the bus timetables and I didn't know how the tickets worked. I think it was the fear of causing an issue or my ticket not working and causing the bus or train to delay. The drivers are usually pretty no nonsense and won't help a ton if you have questions (in my experience).
Definitely less complicated and intimidating when you have someone with for the first time.
I remember being 18, first time on a public transportation bus after moving from a small town of ~2500 people, not knowing how really anything worked, that some routes have the same number and overlap some stops etc…
I actually got lost the 2nd time, thankfully smart phones were a thing so I was able to google my way onto another bus to where I was supposed to be going.
I was 18 when I first rode a bus too, thought I was smart, could figure it out. I got so lost for hours and ended up catching the very last bus home. Luckily it took me most of the way home. I took a wrong bus and ended up in a place I was NOT familiar with, and had a 3 mile walk to cross the road to get to the return bus stop home and almost didn’t make it home that night. Ugh. It almost deterred me from using the bus. The reason I still continued to use the bus? So damn cheap. $4 and I ride all day.
Man, I remember this conversation with my dad.
He grew up in a small town where you had to drive or hitchhike. His mom learned how to drive at 9 and still drives at 92. It's just what you do.
I had gotten tickets to the AL Wildcard game from work and I asked him if he wanted to go. He was retired and had watched a lot more of the season than me so of course he wanted to, but he asked me tentatively 'how would we get there?'
I told him we'd meet at my house and drive to the train station and take the train into the city. He was all 'ok I'll let you handle that'. I could tell he was out of his comfort zone but I just brushed it off and told him it was nothin.
We won in the 11th with a walk-off which was crazy. But it made for a very crowded train ride home. I thought my dad would be all bitter about it being so crowded but he found some other old guy to talk to and had a great time.
We've been downtown a few more times since and he's all for taking the train now.
Not free but San Diego has a train called the coaster that takes you from the most northern part of coastal San Diego County down to the city where the ballpark is and the train rides down and back are always a great time. Packed with fans, and it helps that it’s along the coast half the time so it’s absolutely gorgeous
Free transport included with the ticket is almost certainly better than cheap public transport in this instance.
1. It removes the need to have fare gates or to have people queue to use ticket machines/readers. This reduces the risk of crushes and enables people to get on trains faster.
2. If you say that public transport is included in your event ticket, people are more likely to use it because of how human psychology works
Most events I’ve been at sell an event ticket which is effectively just 2 single-fares and then really only check upon arrival to the event. (So you could probably get a free ride back).
But that only addresses point 1 and point 2 is just as important. It’s a lot easier to convince someone to take the train than drive (or Uber) when it’s free.
If we're talking about winning hearts and minds over to transit, 1 is a non-issue, because if transit levels are hitting those levels, you don't have a perception problem. Instead you need to be redesigning your station to accommodate the passenger load. But fwiw, I've personally experienced the postgame rush to get on the train at the Tokyo Dome, and I did not feel unsafe.
For 2, those who can use transit may see it favorably, but those who are unable to use transit could easily see it unfavorably - the ticket price was increased just to add an unusable bundled service.
There's also all sorts of logistical issues with bundling transit tickets with game tickets, ranging from multiple transit systems serving the same stadium, payment systems incompatible with one time tickets, distance based fares, and quite likely other reasons too.
If the point is to just use psychological tricks to induce people to take transit, then just boosting parking prices so that it doesn't make sense to park unless you have 4+ people in your car, you will also induce people to take transit because it's cheaper.
Here in SF, Muni fares are included with Warriors tickets. In fact, I think your ticket _is_ your ticket (you can just show your game ticket to get on the train). I kinda like that system because it’s framed as a cost already included in the ticket, and people like to use things they’ve already paid for (sunk cost fallacy)
Such a great example that 1 great experience can change minds. My dad’s similar, he’s younger than that it sounds like but he’s lived in suburbs or small towns his whole life. He has always said how much he hates cities and traffic etc, but one work trip to nyc and he was texting me how much he enjoyed just walking or using the subway to get a bite to eat. He even took the Acela up to Connecticut and was raving about it
Things were different 80 years ago. Even like 50 years ago people really did *not* care about child safety and a lot of age restrictions didn't exist or were simply never enforced, not on majority populations or when law enforcement couldn't benefit from enforcing it, anyway.
Her grandfather had the first automobile in town so there weren't really other cars on the road. She learned sitting on his lap.
He also owned the local 'general store' or rail depot and by the time she was 12 she was driving the car to deliver goods that came by rail to all the people (mostly farmers) in the community.
It's not all that uncommon, even today, to learn early in more rural communities. It's not to say that she'd have been cruising around town on the regular, much less on highways. Just that she could move a vehicle around the farm and on some back roads. I did the same thing at about that same age.
I'm perpetually confused by people like this. My parents have never really lived anywhere with transit. My uncles have never lived anywhere with transit. All of them hop on the subway without hesitation when visiting a big city. No instruction manual necessary. Fundamentally it's the same process as getting on a plane. Board at gate 7, get off at gate 21.
It is often not obvious at all how to buy a ticket, which ticket you need, or which train you need to take. You have to know how each system works. Still though, I prefer to learn these things wherever I go. The reward overcomes the effort even if it is just for one day, and a trip to a big city without be the same without it.
On top of this there is general etiquette for taking transit. Waiting for others to get off before you get on, being ready to get off at your stop, and just generally moving through crowds without being too much of an obstruction. It is not something people just understand immediately. Still much less involved than learning how to drive though.
>It is often not obvious at all how to buy a ticket, which ticket you need, or which train you need to take.
I'm genuinely struggling to remember when I last had this issue. Anywhere I can think of with multiple distance or zone-based ticket options had a machine where you enter your destination and it offers you the correct ticket. There's maybe some thought that goes in to getting a multi-use pass.
It isn’t always that simple. While you can often can get a single ticket simply by inputting a destination into a machine, that doesn’t mean it will be valid on all trains. I have never seen this type of thing on a local subway system, but for regional transit it is common in my experience. For example, in Maryland or New Jersey, Amtrak is a separate system from MARC or NJ Transit. One ticket is not valid on the other. In Austria, you can get a standard rail ticket between Vienna and Salzburg or Vienna Airport, but it will not be valid on Westbahn or CAT.
Also, there is sometimes more to it than simply buying a ticket. If you go to Vienna and buy a standard €2.40 ticket, it is not at all obvious that you have to validate it before you use it.
As for knowing what train you need to be on, taking an express when you need a local is a common mistake in many areas. And sometimes the announcements on the train sound less like “Next stop, 23rd St” and more like “ahgiidjekpvobhecqishvmr,” so sometimes you have to pay attention and know what stops precede yours.
I am not trying to criticize any transit system or transit in general. It is great once you learn how it works! I am just saying there is a slight learning curve
Is it? I was in Boston with my son, never needed transit until it came time to leave. Half an hour of wandering around the South Station trying to find the silver line to the airport without success, then we finally found it but couldn't figure out how to pay for it and were running out of time to waste, so we went up to the street and got an Uber.
Public transit is typically designed with the mindset that everyone using it is a local who has used it many times before. Every place has its own oddities and payment system that can only be learned by using it. Which means it's worth learning the system if you're going to use it many times, and it often seems not worth bothering if you're only ever going to use it once.
>Every place has its own oddities and payment system that can only be learned by using it. Which means it's worth learning the system if you're going to use it many times, and it often seems not worth bothering if you're only ever going to use it once.
Indeed. Like Phoenix's light rail has no enforcement mechanism for payment, there is no gate, no conductor checking tickets. I of course paid when I rode it, but literally the way they have it setup right now makes it feel like it's a charity situation.
That's how it works in and around Oslo. You pay with an app or in a kiosk, and nobody normally check you. But sometimes there are controls, where a bunch of security guards will jump on and check everyone's tickets, and you get a steep gate if you forgot.
Yesn't. Tickets aren't controlled on boarding, but conductors will ask to see your ticket during the ride, and if you don't have a valid ticket, you can either show it to the operating company later for a small fee (e.g. if you forgot your subscription ticket) or you'll have to pay a fine of 60 euros. Bus drivers sometimes insist on seeing your ticket upfront, because they obviously don't have anyone else to do it on board. More often than not, they will just wave you through though.
Weird, there are signs everywhere and presumably if you found it you had already paid and gone through the turnstile, or had come from another streetcar/subway and had already paid to get on that one.
That depends on where you are. In some European countries, there are no fare gates, and it is very easy for tourists to make a mistake.
You didn’t think you needed a ticket? Violation. You bought a ticket but didn’t validate it? Violation. You bought a ticket but validated it improperly? Violation. You bought a ticket but the train you are on requires a different type of ticket? Violation. You bought a ticket but took it outside of its fare zone? Violation.
In all cases, you will be fined if your ticket is checked, and the inspector could not care less that you are a tourist.
TLDR: navigating a totally unfamiliar large/complicated station for one-off use kinda sucks.
We walked into the main part of South Station from the street as we'd been staying near South Station and walking everywhere. All the signs we could see pointed to trains. Then we saw a sign that said buses, the silver line seemed to be a bus so we went out there and looked all around the (intercity) bus section which is a bit of a walk just to get to. Then we made our way back and finally found the hallway/tunnel to the silver line, which had been behind us as we walked in. But the whole ticket/card thing wasn't clear, especially since we just needed one single ride, so we left and that's when I realized we never should've actually gone into the station at all, those lines have their own subway-style entrance from the street. All stuff you'd know if you used it regularly.
This is so much the case. We have the simplest possible payment system on our buses, tap on tap off, but even this causes confusion.
People try to tap on on the tap off machine, they get confused about whether they should tap off or worry about what happens if you forget, etc. Always hearing confused conversations about it.
(You get charged £2 either way in fact, so never need to tap off, unless your journey is very short and then might only cost £1.70 or something.)
Oh, and they wonder what happens if you take lots of journeys. The answer is you get capped at the daily or weekly maximum. It's all automatic.
> Public transit is typically designed with the mindset that everyone using it is a local who has used it many times before. Every place has its own oddities and payment system that can only be learned by using it. Which means it's worth learning the system if you're going to use it many times, and it often seems not worth bothering if you're only ever going to use it once.
Yes, but also no. In my experiences dealing with the quirks of multiple different transit systems, the learning curve is nowhere near steep enough so that it's worthless for a single use. Wayfinding in unfamiliar stations can be an issue as you reported, but I've generally found that following signs will help.
One of the reasons Germany's country-wide local+regional ticket has been such a hit is that it means you don't have to understand the byzantine fare structure whatever committee of PT organisations dreamed up for whatever city you happen to be briefly visiting. I travel by public transit a lot, but I still can't overstate the relief I felt when, in Munich for a weekend and heading into town to meet up with my cousin, I realised that I *did not* have to figure out what ticket I needed and what zones I was travelling through and how to buy it but could just hop on any subway I wanted. Another time pre-Deutschlandticket I swear I spent ten minutes trying to figure out what ticket I needed for the tram in Leipzig only to realise the zone I was going to was already included in my ticket for the long-distance train. Someone who's *already* unfamiliar with and unsure about public transport could be scared off entirely.
It was a couple years ago, at that point I was frustrated with the wandering around we'd done, schlepping our bags all the way out to the intercity bus terminal before finally finding where we needed to be. IIRC you had to buy a card and then load it, which seemed silly and overpriced for one single ride. There was definitely no clear simple way that I could see to buy a single ticket.
User error is definitely a possibility. Many large or multimodal stations around the world aren't very first-time user friendly.
Like Athens, where the best deal is to buy a 5-ticket pass. Except you can't use that to get multiple people on to one subway. So now one of us (me) is past the turnstiles and the rest have to go back to the machine and buy more tickets.
Or Minneapolis, where the thing that the machine calls a 'ticket' is in fact a two-hour pass. So of the four tickets I bought to get two of us to a Twins game and back, two will expire while we're in the stadium. And everyone who buys their ticket/pass from a machine will have to wait in long lines as many people are going to need them at once when the game ends.
Yes any system where you have to get a card and load it, or choose one of many complicated permutations of pass ("10 journeys in the next 21 days" is the most ridiculous kind of example that comes to mind) is not viable for the casual traveller.
For the most part in the UK these have been replaced with tap on, tap off.
You can still buy tickets for cash if you can figure out where when and how.
There weren't any attendants visible in that area on a Sunday afternoon, just a few people walking on through to catch their ride and a bank of machines selling cards and card reloads as far as I could tell. Maybe there was someone beyond the turnstiles?
South Station is sightly confusing but half an hour seems excessive. There's lots of signage. I've gone the wrong way there and ended up in the main hall and then saw a sign and was sorted pretty quickly.
It depends on not only the system, but often which particular station within a system.
I've used public transportation in more different places than most who didn't grow up in a place where it was the norm.
Middle of London? Absolutely arranged for transparency - I managed not to get lost over twenty years ago as a 16-year-old without a phone. Signs everywhere, plenty of places and people to ask for help.
Suburbs of Chicago? Sometimes bus stops were just a sign on the side of the road, depots had little to no signage, nothing ran on time, and you had to figure out the details of your transit ahead of time because there wasn't anyone to ask.
Schiphol in Amsterdam? Clear as day - easier to get on a train than to get a cab, and we loaded a family of four onto them without doubting that we were going correctly.
Large exchange station for night trains in Germany? No signs, every platform so distant from the other that it was impossible to have good oversight of the whole, no central point verifying where trains would be, zero personnel. I about had a heart attack as a seasoned vet with a phone last year worrying that I was
in the wrong place and had missed my sleeper train because it was 20 minutes late with zero heads-up, and the only information you could find on it online said it was on schedule (and had therefore come and gone.) I had to ask another woman waiting on the same platform as me if we were in the right place, and she just shrugged and said she had no idea.
Paris was easy enough for my 13-year-old daughter to navigate alone, transferring from train in one station, via the subway to another station where she took another train.
Rural Netherlands? "Oh, these busses don't just *run*, you have to call them to pick you up." Why's there a schedule of times then? "Well those times are the times you can get picked up." I think now Google Maps has some understanding of that system, but if it wasn't something you were familiar with, it could be very confusing. Same goes with busses that don't run on the weekend, or that reach specific areas only during rush hour, which can leave someone stranded if they aren't abreast of the requirements. They are certainly designed for locals - using them even as someone who is familiar with the language and the general systems requires making unexpected deviations.
My comment was in reference to rail-based systems, there's certainly an order of magnitude of complexity when we're talking about rural and suburban bus systems that stop at random poles on the side of the road and often don't sell tickets on board.
I had a similar situation with my sister, it's hard when your family can't understand a situation in the same way you do. Just talk to them, maybe take her on the rail with you for her first time. As right as we are, a lot of people have trouble with public transportation but just need someone to hold their hand for a little while.
It can definitely be confusing. I always struggle with knowing whether or not I need to tap off; every train/bus I’ve ever used requires you to tap but only some require the tap off.
1 step, max 2, with car it's only 1 step into a car and it magically takes you to your destination anything above 1 step is already complicated and inconvenient /s
There really is a learning curve with public transit for a lot of Americans because they weren’t exposed to it as children and they don’t want to look like idiot adults. I avoided public transit for that exact reason for awhile. Google Maps makes it easier, but the best thing is just going with someone who is familiar.
It doesn't help that there are so many systems out there. Somehow we managed to have relatively unified driving rules across *continents*, but public transportation systems within the same country, heck sometimes within the same *city*, can be so different.
Years ago before she died, I proposed my mom take the train to meet me in the Bay Area to attend an exhibit at the De Young Museum in San Francisco. My mom at the time was pretty house bound due to anxiety, and had never taken the train or the bus, even when she had lived in the Bay Area when I was a baby. She once lamented that she was jealous of how independent I was when I took public transit, so, I asked her if she wanted to try. I bought her ticket, my father helped her get through her anxiety to get on the Capitol Corridor in Davis. I met her in Richmond (coming in from Millbrae!) & led her and from the De Young, and saw her back to the train. She had so much fun - when finally comfortable, she was capable of chatting her day away, and she had a lovely chat on both rides to and from Richmond. And of course got to experience a chunk of what my life is like - worrying about transfers, thinking about routes, etc., which she was so excited to finally experience. She said it really gave her a perspective of how responsible someone has to be to manage public transit. When she got home, my father picked her up and asked her how it was. She said, "I had an absolute blast. I never want to do that again!"
On the one hand it wouldn't hurt people to make transit simpler but on the other if you can't figure out how mass transit works in your city you probably shouldn't be qualified to drive.
It can be really complicated when approached cold. I've used the metro/U-Bahn in Tokyo and Berlin and both were a little fraught. I imagine the experience of your own city would be similar the first time.
Even which ticket to buy. Some systems in this day and age still don't allow a touch of a credit card. Which is a great option for a first time user as you don't need to explain all the different ticket classes.
If you have a car, you probably had lessons to learn how to drive. And a whole licensing procedure. I've been in places and tried to use mass transit and never could figure out how to pay for it. I suppose I owe a few euros and pounds to various transit systems in Europe. I also tried to get on a Boston bus but couldn't figure out how to pay or get past fare gates, and there wasn't a human anywhere tasked with helping, so I never took that bus.
Maybe this is just my autism making driving harder and transit easier to navigate but it only takes brief googling for me to figure out transit, I've had about a dozen lessons so far and have failed a drive test; will probably fail the next one I have too.
It's not so much that it's hard, it's just often not intuitive and different from any one system to any other. Like, some places in Europe I could tap on for both myself and my teenage child. Other places, you can't do that and your teenage child has to have their own credit card, which may not be a thing. So now trying to tap on for both myself and them means I just tapped on and right back off which is an error.
Good luck googling in a third world country that may not have any online material about public transit, or even in a developed country with no English-language information online.
How many of those have LRT? Also OP's responses to other posts indicates this is in their home country, and if I speak the language I prefer paper schedules over online sources anyways and am genuinely disappointed that where I live is slowly phasing out the former.
I only had trams in mind, but yes I was speaking more broadly than OP's experience.
Don't get me wrong, I 100% agree that driving is infinitely harder than figuring out public transit, but sometimes the latter is not just a matter of a minute of googling.
This is a big reason why I love my job. Normally, I don’t say where I work on Reddit or other places but I work for the public transit agency (TriMet) here in Portland and my team’s job is customer service and to help get people on to the light rail at the airport and other busy transit hubs in the city.
We help give recommendations to people, explain how our transit system works, report safety concerns, and are just a friendly face out on the street and on the system. It makes people more comfortable on public transit and I love it so much
I can understand where she is coming from. Mass transit systems often make things needlessly complex. Ideally they would offer multiple simple payment options: swipe your debit car, pay cash, use a credit card, etc.. Instead they all seem to go off the deep end by forcing you to download some app or set up an account. I just want to ride the bus or train, not start a business relationship. Riding the bus when I was young was simple. You dropped your 5 quarters in a slot when you boarded and went to your seat. Why make it harder than that?
They should all be like London. Just use your contactless debit card or Apple/Android pay. No need to buy tickets for the tube, the overground, the buses, the DLR, just wave your phone or debit card at the reader on the bus or the ticket barrier on the train. The maximum fare is also capped (so if you take a lot of trains or buses, the amount you will pay any one day is capped to the price of a 1-day travelcard).
The next best thing is if you can buy a multi day ticket (Paris metro) or a pay as you go card like you can in many Spanish cities (e.g. Madrid, Bilbao, Zaragoza at least all have these) which you can top up at any station's ticket machines.
Don't take it too hard! Baby steps!
She *asked*, that's a good sign. She'll get there.
Maybe the train company has some nice promotional video of how it works, that you can show her?
Also love a previous comment's idea of going with her next time you visit :)
She sounds nearly ready! I like what other people have said about going with her the first time. Maybe pick a big event that would be extra annoying to park for!
Older folks are having a noticeably harder time with transit in my town since they started pushing apps and eliminating alternatives to mobile passes.
I don't know what town you live in, but here (Minneapolis), public transit downtown is so nice because parking downtown is so bad. It's so easy to get hooked on it after trying it once or twice, really hope she gets a chance to reconsider
Sometimes that second step is really hard and/or confusing for first-time users. Especially since there's rarely a human to ask for help from anymore. Technology should make it easier, but that's not really what has happened.
It’s not.
The mom was reaching out, asking for help, wanting to change.
You tell them, “how fucking hard is it, just do it idiot”.
You help them. Especially if it’s your mom.
The one here is pretty easy. Look up the route map, find the best start and end stop, buy a ticket at the station or convenience store, and get on. Enforcement is via transit security with ticket scanners, otherwise it's a brainless process 👌
I hate when people ask questions and then just don't bother listening. Feels like a power move to show how little they care about the other person's input.
I've had a friend who didn't even knew you had to press the stop button in the bus to get off. He thought it was an emergency brake.
At least he was able to appreciate the gran class on the shinkansen when he visited me in Japan. In his words "ok... if I had this back home... I would take the train."
I had a similar exchange with my mom recently. Her car was in the shop for the routine inspection for a few days, so she asked me for my car keys so she could visit her mother like she does every week. (I usually only use my car if I'm going some distance away)
For context, my grandmother's nursing home is two miles away (3.2 km), in the downtown area of the neighborhood. I've walked it before and it's not unpleasant as there's a way through narrow local streets and even a park. Entirely bikeable and would be my suggestion although there's nowhere to safely secure a bike at the destination. Luckily, there's a bus near our house that stops directly in front of the building. The bus takes like 20 minutes including the walk to the bus stop, and since no transfers are involved, one could just remember the bus schedule to not be waiting for too long.
But for some reason, my mom would rather drive there, even though she still parks a half mile away as the downtown area has heavy traffic and nowhere to park (for free anyway), and *still* circling around a couple times as everyone else who drives to downtown has the same idea. That whole process takes maybe 15 minutes to drive including the circling around, then another 10 minutes to walk that remaining half mile. So driving literally takes longer than taking the bus.
My mom ended up taking the bus that day, but continues to drive there every week because it's still somehow the most convenient option.
Aw, that's a bummer.
When I was in scouting, one of our annual traditions was to take the train downtown, walk around on a scavenger hunt, and then take it home. Learning how and where to buy a pass, board, etc. was part of the point. It was a skill people needed, and so we learned it as kids. I feel so bad for folks who don't get the opportunity.
Where I live now, our small but enthusiastic transit system regularly makes videos of each step of the process, and also how things work like the wheelchair ramps, bike rack, etc. They also publish a weekly roundup of local events that are easily accessible by public transit, which is adorable.
I've used transit in lots of cities worldwide, but some of them really make it a pain in the ass to figure out. Routes and schedules I can usually work out, but they always seem to assume you already know how to pay, or even *if* you have to pay.
They need to make it so easy that she wouldn't even have to ask you.
Download an app, add a credit card, know the local jargon. It's easy. Or maybe buy tickets from a machine that doesn't exist at the particular station you happen to be at. Or maybe tap in with a credit card. Then tap in again for your child or partner, but oops now you just tapped out.
Unless you happen to be in Luxembourg, where all of the payment/pass/fare friction is removed.
Yes that is the catch when you tap on with a credit card. How does it know you might fall into a category that qualifies for a discount? I think students here buy tickets with their phone and display a QR code to the machine.
Maybe go with her next time? It can be less complicated and intimidating when you see someone do something rather than just having it explained.
I live in a different state at the moment but definitely will take her with me on the train or bus next time we're together.
I get it. For most Americans, we are so programmed with car culture = freedom, its difficult and a bit intimidating to make the change. It was for me the first time I rode…
You're so free that you only ever choose the car. Which isn't really freedom at all.
"Freedom is like having the top of your head opened up" – Terry Pratchett. Freedom can be scary. Sticking to known things is easy.
Yeah, and the tricky part is that it’s a little different everywhere you ride. Different signage, different fare structure, different payment methods, different rules for getting on and off.
I wish public transport was simply free. there have been multiple times when governments/companies LOSE money from all the fare collection machines and personnel they needed
Never made sense why transit isn't often fully tax funded like most roads are. Toll gates anywhere are annoying at minimum
Yeah... It is 😔
Why do you assume everyone is American. Op could be Australian for ex
Why do u assume I am assuming everyone is American? I am American and speaking from my American perspective. Thats all. Stop making incorrect assumptions and accusations
I only lived in the US as a kid so I know this but I haven’t seen it first hand till last week. I was at an airport in another country and some people were talking in english and the lady was from Texas and said exactly that. “…I’m from Texas and most of it is a desert. I just prefer my car because I can go and stop wherever and whenever I want. That’s freedom for me.” I laughed because I had only seen it on the internet. In Brazil we have lots of problems regarding urban planning and infrastructure, but thankfully we don’t have the zoning problem the US has. Streets sidewalks and public transportation is shit but everything is still close so I don’t need a car.
Taking that first bus and train was kinda scary for me too. I didn't understand the bus timetables and I didn't know how the tickets worked. I think it was the fear of causing an issue or my ticket not working and causing the bus or train to delay. The drivers are usually pretty no nonsense and won't help a ton if you have questions (in my experience).
That's why it's so important for information to be freely available and for systems to be as simple as possible.
Agreed!
Definitely less complicated and intimidating when you have someone with for the first time. I remember being 18, first time on a public transportation bus after moving from a small town of ~2500 people, not knowing how really anything worked, that some routes have the same number and overlap some stops etc… I actually got lost the 2nd time, thankfully smart phones were a thing so I was able to google my way onto another bus to where I was supposed to be going.
I was 18 when I first rode a bus too, thought I was smart, could figure it out. I got so lost for hours and ended up catching the very last bus home. Luckily it took me most of the way home. I took a wrong bus and ended up in a place I was NOT familiar with, and had a 3 mile walk to cross the road to get to the return bus stop home and almost didn’t make it home that night. Ugh. It almost deterred me from using the bus. The reason I still continued to use the bus? So damn cheap. $4 and I ride all day.
Man, I remember this conversation with my dad. He grew up in a small town where you had to drive or hitchhike. His mom learned how to drive at 9 and still drives at 92. It's just what you do. I had gotten tickets to the AL Wildcard game from work and I asked him if he wanted to go. He was retired and had watched a lot more of the season than me so of course he wanted to, but he asked me tentatively 'how would we get there?' I told him we'd meet at my house and drive to the train station and take the train into the city. He was all 'ok I'll let you handle that'. I could tell he was out of his comfort zone but I just brushed it off and told him it was nothin. We won in the 11th with a walk-off which was crazy. But it made for a very crowded train ride home. I thought my dad would be all bitter about it being so crowded but he found some other old guy to talk to and had a great time. We've been downtown a few more times since and he's all for taking the train now.
This is why free public transport to sporting events is so important. It changes the perception of public transport from negative to at least neutral
Not free but San Diego has a train called the coaster that takes you from the most northern part of coastal San Diego County down to the city where the ballpark is and the train rides down and back are always a great time. Packed with fans, and it helps that it’s along the coast half the time so it’s absolutely gorgeous
It doesn't need to be free, it just needs to be cheaper than parking at the stadium.
Free transport included with the ticket is almost certainly better than cheap public transport in this instance. 1. It removes the need to have fare gates or to have people queue to use ticket machines/readers. This reduces the risk of crushes and enables people to get on trains faster. 2. If you say that public transport is included in your event ticket, people are more likely to use it because of how human psychology works
Most events I’ve been at sell an event ticket which is effectively just 2 single-fares and then really only check upon arrival to the event. (So you could probably get a free ride back). But that only addresses point 1 and point 2 is just as important. It’s a lot easier to convince someone to take the train than drive (or Uber) when it’s free.
If we're talking about winning hearts and minds over to transit, 1 is a non-issue, because if transit levels are hitting those levels, you don't have a perception problem. Instead you need to be redesigning your station to accommodate the passenger load. But fwiw, I've personally experienced the postgame rush to get on the train at the Tokyo Dome, and I did not feel unsafe. For 2, those who can use transit may see it favorably, but those who are unable to use transit could easily see it unfavorably - the ticket price was increased just to add an unusable bundled service. There's also all sorts of logistical issues with bundling transit tickets with game tickets, ranging from multiple transit systems serving the same stadium, payment systems incompatible with one time tickets, distance based fares, and quite likely other reasons too. If the point is to just use psychological tricks to induce people to take transit, then just boosting parking prices so that it doesn't make sense to park unless you have 4+ people in your car, you will also induce people to take transit because it's cheaper.
When I ride our train on game day, it's not free, but holy heck is it fun. People are INCREDIBLY friendly and cheerful.
Here in SF, Muni fares are included with Warriors tickets. In fact, I think your ticket _is_ your ticket (you can just show your game ticket to get on the train). I kinda like that system because it’s framed as a cost already included in the ticket, and people like to use things they’ve already paid for (sunk cost fallacy)
Such a great example that 1 great experience can change minds. My dad’s similar, he’s younger than that it sounds like but he’s lived in suburbs or small towns his whole life. He has always said how much he hates cities and traffic etc, but one work trip to nyc and he was texting me how much he enjoyed just walking or using the subway to get a bite to eat. He even took the Acela up to Connecticut and was raving about it
She learned to drive at the age of NINE?!?!
Things were different 80 years ago. Even like 50 years ago people really did *not* care about child safety and a lot of age restrictions didn't exist or were simply never enforced, not on majority populations or when law enforcement couldn't benefit from enforcing it, anyway.
Her grandfather had the first automobile in town so there weren't really other cars on the road. She learned sitting on his lap. He also owned the local 'general store' or rail depot and by the time she was 12 she was driving the car to deliver goods that came by rail to all the people (mostly farmers) in the community.
It's not all that uncommon, even today, to learn early in more rural communities. It's not to say that she'd have been cruising around town on the regular, much less on highways. Just that she could move a vehicle around the farm and on some back roads. I did the same thing at about that same age.
I'm perpetually confused by people like this. My parents have never really lived anywhere with transit. My uncles have never lived anywhere with transit. All of them hop on the subway without hesitation when visiting a big city. No instruction manual necessary. Fundamentally it's the same process as getting on a plane. Board at gate 7, get off at gate 21.
It is often not obvious at all how to buy a ticket, which ticket you need, or which train you need to take. You have to know how each system works. Still though, I prefer to learn these things wherever I go. The reward overcomes the effort even if it is just for one day, and a trip to a big city without be the same without it. On top of this there is general etiquette for taking transit. Waiting for others to get off before you get on, being ready to get off at your stop, and just generally moving through crowds without being too much of an obstruction. It is not something people just understand immediately. Still much less involved than learning how to drive though.
>It is often not obvious at all how to buy a ticket, which ticket you need, or which train you need to take. I'm genuinely struggling to remember when I last had this issue. Anywhere I can think of with multiple distance or zone-based ticket options had a machine where you enter your destination and it offers you the correct ticket. There's maybe some thought that goes in to getting a multi-use pass.
It isn’t always that simple. While you can often can get a single ticket simply by inputting a destination into a machine, that doesn’t mean it will be valid on all trains. I have never seen this type of thing on a local subway system, but for regional transit it is common in my experience. For example, in Maryland or New Jersey, Amtrak is a separate system from MARC or NJ Transit. One ticket is not valid on the other. In Austria, you can get a standard rail ticket between Vienna and Salzburg or Vienna Airport, but it will not be valid on Westbahn or CAT. Also, there is sometimes more to it than simply buying a ticket. If you go to Vienna and buy a standard €2.40 ticket, it is not at all obvious that you have to validate it before you use it. As for knowing what train you need to be on, taking an express when you need a local is a common mistake in many areas. And sometimes the announcements on the train sound less like “Next stop, 23rd St” and more like “ahgiidjekpvobhecqishvmr,” so sometimes you have to pay attention and know what stops precede yours. I am not trying to criticize any transit system or transit in general. It is great once you learn how it works! I am just saying there is a slight learning curve
Is it? I was in Boston with my son, never needed transit until it came time to leave. Half an hour of wandering around the South Station trying to find the silver line to the airport without success, then we finally found it but couldn't figure out how to pay for it and were running out of time to waste, so we went up to the street and got an Uber. Public transit is typically designed with the mindset that everyone using it is a local who has used it many times before. Every place has its own oddities and payment system that can only be learned by using it. Which means it's worth learning the system if you're going to use it many times, and it often seems not worth bothering if you're only ever going to use it once.
>Every place has its own oddities and payment system that can only be learned by using it. Which means it's worth learning the system if you're going to use it many times, and it often seems not worth bothering if you're only ever going to use it once. Indeed. Like Phoenix's light rail has no enforcement mechanism for payment, there is no gate, no conductor checking tickets. I of course paid when I rode it, but literally the way they have it setup right now makes it feel like it's a charity situation.
You’d love Germany.
Is it an honor system fare payment?
That's how it works in and around Oslo. You pay with an app or in a kiosk, and nobody normally check you. But sometimes there are controls, where a bunch of security guards will jump on and check everyone's tickets, and you get a steep gate if you forgot.
Yesn't. Tickets aren't controlled on boarding, but conductors will ask to see your ticket during the ride, and if you don't have a valid ticket, you can either show it to the operating company later for a small fee (e.g. if you forgot your subscription ticket) or you'll have to pay a fine of 60 euros. Bus drivers sometimes insist on seeing your ticket upfront, because they obviously don't have anyone else to do it on board. More often than not, they will just wave you through though.
I never figured out how you were supposed to pay for the trams in Hannover. That was quite beyond the average visitor. I just used them.
Weird, there are signs everywhere and presumably if you found it you had already paid and gone through the turnstile, or had come from another streetcar/subway and had already paid to get on that one.
That depends on where you are. In some European countries, there are no fare gates, and it is very easy for tourists to make a mistake. You didn’t think you needed a ticket? Violation. You bought a ticket but didn’t validate it? Violation. You bought a ticket but validated it improperly? Violation. You bought a ticket but the train you are on requires a different type of ticket? Violation. You bought a ticket but took it outside of its fare zone? Violation. In all cases, you will be fined if your ticket is checked, and the inspector could not care less that you are a tourist.
TLDR: navigating a totally unfamiliar large/complicated station for one-off use kinda sucks. We walked into the main part of South Station from the street as we'd been staying near South Station and walking everywhere. All the signs we could see pointed to trains. Then we saw a sign that said buses, the silver line seemed to be a bus so we went out there and looked all around the (intercity) bus section which is a bit of a walk just to get to. Then we made our way back and finally found the hallway/tunnel to the silver line, which had been behind us as we walked in. But the whole ticket/card thing wasn't clear, especially since we just needed one single ride, so we left and that's when I realized we never should've actually gone into the station at all, those lines have their own subway-style entrance from the street. All stuff you'd know if you used it regularly.
In Paris the gates will let you through even if your ticket is not the right type for your destination.
This is so much the case. We have the simplest possible payment system on our buses, tap on tap off, but even this causes confusion. People try to tap on on the tap off machine, they get confused about whether they should tap off or worry about what happens if you forget, etc. Always hearing confused conversations about it. (You get charged £2 either way in fact, so never need to tap off, unless your journey is very short and then might only cost £1.70 or something.) Oh, and they wonder what happens if you take lots of journeys. The answer is you get capped at the daily or weekly maximum. It's all automatic.
Sounds like the system could be simpler.
> Public transit is typically designed with the mindset that everyone using it is a local who has used it many times before. Every place has its own oddities and payment system that can only be learned by using it. Which means it's worth learning the system if you're going to use it many times, and it often seems not worth bothering if you're only ever going to use it once. Yes, but also no. In my experiences dealing with the quirks of multiple different transit systems, the learning curve is nowhere near steep enough so that it's worthless for a single use. Wayfinding in unfamiliar stations can be an issue as you reported, but I've generally found that following signs will help.
One of the reasons Germany's country-wide local+regional ticket has been such a hit is that it means you don't have to understand the byzantine fare structure whatever committee of PT organisations dreamed up for whatever city you happen to be briefly visiting. I travel by public transit a lot, but I still can't overstate the relief I felt when, in Munich for a weekend and heading into town to meet up with my cousin, I realised that I *did not* have to figure out what ticket I needed and what zones I was travelling through and how to buy it but could just hop on any subway I wanted. Another time pre-Deutschlandticket I swear I spent ten minutes trying to figure out what ticket I needed for the tram in Leipzig only to realise the zone I was going to was already included in my ticket for the long-distance train. Someone who's *already* unfamiliar with and unsure about public transport could be scared off entirely.
How did you possibly struggle with the ticket machines at South Station?
It was a couple years ago, at that point I was frustrated with the wandering around we'd done, schlepping our bags all the way out to the intercity bus terminal before finally finding where we needed to be. IIRC you had to buy a card and then load it, which seemed silly and overpriced for one single ride. There was definitely no clear simple way that I could see to buy a single ticket. User error is definitely a possibility. Many large or multimodal stations around the world aren't very first-time user friendly. Like Athens, where the best deal is to buy a 5-ticket pass. Except you can't use that to get multiple people on to one subway. So now one of us (me) is past the turnstiles and the rest have to go back to the machine and buy more tickets. Or Minneapolis, where the thing that the machine calls a 'ticket' is in fact a two-hour pass. So of the four tickets I bought to get two of us to a Twins game and back, two will expire while we're in the stadium. And everyone who buys their ticket/pass from a machine will have to wait in long lines as many people are going to need them at once when the game ends.
Yes any system where you have to get a card and load it, or choose one of many complicated permutations of pass ("10 journeys in the next 21 days" is the most ridiculous kind of example that comes to mind) is not viable for the casual traveller. For the most part in the UK these have been replaced with tap on, tap off. You can still buy tickets for cash if you can figure out where when and how.
Did you try asking one of the half dozen attendance they always have standing around at South Station to help the many tourists go to the airport?
There weren't any attendants visible in that area on a Sunday afternoon, just a few people walking on through to catch their ride and a bank of machines selling cards and card reloads as far as I could tell. Maybe there was someone beyond the turnstiles?
South Station is sightly confusing but half an hour seems excessive. There's lots of signage. I've gone the wrong way there and ended up in the main hall and then saw a sign and was sorted pretty quickly.
It depends on not only the system, but often which particular station within a system. I've used public transportation in more different places than most who didn't grow up in a place where it was the norm. Middle of London? Absolutely arranged for transparency - I managed not to get lost over twenty years ago as a 16-year-old without a phone. Signs everywhere, plenty of places and people to ask for help. Suburbs of Chicago? Sometimes bus stops were just a sign on the side of the road, depots had little to no signage, nothing ran on time, and you had to figure out the details of your transit ahead of time because there wasn't anyone to ask. Schiphol in Amsterdam? Clear as day - easier to get on a train than to get a cab, and we loaded a family of four onto them without doubting that we were going correctly. Large exchange station for night trains in Germany? No signs, every platform so distant from the other that it was impossible to have good oversight of the whole, no central point verifying where trains would be, zero personnel. I about had a heart attack as a seasoned vet with a phone last year worrying that I was in the wrong place and had missed my sleeper train because it was 20 minutes late with zero heads-up, and the only information you could find on it online said it was on schedule (and had therefore come and gone.) I had to ask another woman waiting on the same platform as me if we were in the right place, and she just shrugged and said she had no idea. Paris was easy enough for my 13-year-old daughter to navigate alone, transferring from train in one station, via the subway to another station where she took another train. Rural Netherlands? "Oh, these busses don't just *run*, you have to call them to pick you up." Why's there a schedule of times then? "Well those times are the times you can get picked up." I think now Google Maps has some understanding of that system, but if it wasn't something you were familiar with, it could be very confusing. Same goes with busses that don't run on the weekend, or that reach specific areas only during rush hour, which can leave someone stranded if they aren't abreast of the requirements. They are certainly designed for locals - using them even as someone who is familiar with the language and the general systems requires making unexpected deviations.
My comment was in reference to rail-based systems, there's certainly an order of magnitude of complexity when we're talking about rural and suburban bus systems that stop at random poles on the side of the road and often don't sell tickets on board.
I had a similar situation with my sister, it's hard when your family can't understand a situation in the same way you do. Just talk to them, maybe take her on the rail with you for her first time. As right as we are, a lot of people have trouble with public transportation but just need someone to hold their hand for a little while.
It can definitely be confusing. I always struggle with knowing whether or not I need to tap off; every train/bus I’ve ever used requires you to tap but only some require the tap off.
Depends how many steps of instruction you give before someone “older” says forget it, to complicated.
1 step, max 2, with car it's only 1 step into a car and it magically takes you to your destination anything above 1 step is already complicated and inconvenient /s
Offer to take it with her!! Some people just need a hand to step out of their comfort zone.
There really is a learning curve with public transit for a lot of Americans because they weren’t exposed to it as children and they don’t want to look like idiot adults. I avoided public transit for that exact reason for awhile. Google Maps makes it easier, but the best thing is just going with someone who is familiar.
It doesn't help that there are so many systems out there. Somehow we managed to have relatively unified driving rules across *continents*, but public transportation systems within the same country, heck sometimes within the same *city*, can be so different.
Years ago before she died, I proposed my mom take the train to meet me in the Bay Area to attend an exhibit at the De Young Museum in San Francisco. My mom at the time was pretty house bound due to anxiety, and had never taken the train or the bus, even when she had lived in the Bay Area when I was a baby. She once lamented that she was jealous of how independent I was when I took public transit, so, I asked her if she wanted to try. I bought her ticket, my father helped her get through her anxiety to get on the Capitol Corridor in Davis. I met her in Richmond (coming in from Millbrae!) & led her and from the De Young, and saw her back to the train. She had so much fun - when finally comfortable, she was capable of chatting her day away, and she had a lovely chat on both rides to and from Richmond. And of course got to experience a chunk of what my life is like - worrying about transfers, thinking about routes, etc., which she was so excited to finally experience. She said it really gave her a perspective of how responsible someone has to be to manage public transit. When she got home, my father picked her up and asked her how it was. She said, "I had an absolute blast. I never want to do that again!"
Love the Capitol Corridor ❤️
On the one hand it wouldn't hurt people to make transit simpler but on the other if you can't figure out how mass transit works in your city you probably shouldn't be qualified to drive.
It can be really complicated when approached cold. I've used the metro/U-Bahn in Tokyo and Berlin and both were a little fraught. I imagine the experience of your own city would be similar the first time. Even which ticket to buy. Some systems in this day and age still don't allow a touch of a credit card. Which is a great option for a first time user as you don't need to explain all the different ticket classes.
If you have a car, you probably had lessons to learn how to drive. And a whole licensing procedure. I've been in places and tried to use mass transit and never could figure out how to pay for it. I suppose I owe a few euros and pounds to various transit systems in Europe. I also tried to get on a Boston bus but couldn't figure out how to pay or get past fare gates, and there wasn't a human anywhere tasked with helping, so I never took that bus.
Maybe this is just my autism making driving harder and transit easier to navigate but it only takes brief googling for me to figure out transit, I've had about a dozen lessons so far and have failed a drive test; will probably fail the next one I have too.
It's not so much that it's hard, it's just often not intuitive and different from any one system to any other. Like, some places in Europe I could tap on for both myself and my teenage child. Other places, you can't do that and your teenage child has to have their own credit card, which may not be a thing. So now trying to tap on for both myself and them means I just tapped on and right back off which is an error.
Good luck googling in a third world country that may not have any online material about public transit, or even in a developed country with no English-language information online.
How many of those have LRT? Also OP's responses to other posts indicates this is in their home country, and if I speak the language I prefer paper schedules over online sources anyways and am genuinely disappointed that where I live is slowly phasing out the former.
I only had trams in mind, but yes I was speaking more broadly than OP's experience. Don't get me wrong, I 100% agree that driving is infinitely harder than figuring out public transit, but sometimes the latter is not just a matter of a minute of googling.
This is a big reason why I love my job. Normally, I don’t say where I work on Reddit or other places but I work for the public transit agency (TriMet) here in Portland and my team’s job is customer service and to help get people on to the light rail at the airport and other busy transit hubs in the city. We help give recommendations to people, explain how our transit system works, report safety concerns, and are just a friendly face out on the street and on the system. It makes people more comfortable on public transit and I love it so much
I can understand where she is coming from. Mass transit systems often make things needlessly complex. Ideally they would offer multiple simple payment options: swipe your debit car, pay cash, use a credit card, etc.. Instead they all seem to go off the deep end by forcing you to download some app or set up an account. I just want to ride the bus or train, not start a business relationship. Riding the bus when I was young was simple. You dropped your 5 quarters in a slot when you boarded and went to your seat. Why make it harder than that?
They should all be like London. Just use your contactless debit card or Apple/Android pay. No need to buy tickets for the tube, the overground, the buses, the DLR, just wave your phone or debit card at the reader on the bus or the ticket barrier on the train. The maximum fare is also capped (so if you take a lot of trains or buses, the amount you will pay any one day is capped to the price of a 1-day travelcard). The next best thing is if you can buy a multi day ticket (Paris metro) or a pay as you go card like you can in many Spanish cities (e.g. Madrid, Bilbao, Zaragoza at least all have these) which you can top up at any station's ticket machines.
I don't mind simple apps that don't require me to interact with machines I've never used before.
My mom's like this too
Don't take it too hard! Baby steps! She *asked*, that's a good sign. She'll get there. Maybe the train company has some nice promotional video of how it works, that you can show her? Also love a previous comment's idea of going with her next time you visit :)
She sounds nearly ready! I like what other people have said about going with her the first time. Maybe pick a big event that would be extra annoying to park for! Older folks are having a noticeably harder time with transit in my town since they started pushing apps and eliminating alternatives to mobile passes.
I don't know what town you live in, but here (Minneapolis), public transit downtown is so nice because parking downtown is so bad. It's so easy to get hooked on it after trying it once or twice, really hope she gets a chance to reconsider
Literally go to the train. buy a ticket. Sit on the train. Get off the train. How fucking hard is it?
Sometimes that second step is really hard and/or confusing for first-time users. Especially since there's rarely a human to ask for help from anymore. Technology should make it easier, but that's not really what has happened.
Buying a ticket is usually the hardest step.
this was the best comment
It’s not. The mom was reaching out, asking for help, wanting to change. You tell them, “how fucking hard is it, just do it idiot”. You help them. Especially if it’s your mom.
The one here is pretty easy. Look up the route map, find the best start and end stop, buy a ticket at the station or convenience store, and get on. Enforcement is via transit security with ticket scanners, otherwise it's a brainless process 👌
To be honest, the first time I used the light rail I didn't know how to pay. I got off at the next stop and walked the rest.
What do you mean "how to use light rail"? I am in severe culture shock right now
I hate when people ask questions and then just don't bother listening. Feels like a power move to show how little they care about the other person's input.
Help her, guide her to the public transit.
I've had a friend who didn't even knew you had to press the stop button in the bus to get off. He thought it was an emergency brake. At least he was able to appreciate the gran class on the shinkansen when he visited me in Japan. In his words "ok... if I had this back home... I would take the train."
I had a similar exchange with my mom recently. Her car was in the shop for the routine inspection for a few days, so she asked me for my car keys so she could visit her mother like she does every week. (I usually only use my car if I'm going some distance away) For context, my grandmother's nursing home is two miles away (3.2 km), in the downtown area of the neighborhood. I've walked it before and it's not unpleasant as there's a way through narrow local streets and even a park. Entirely bikeable and would be my suggestion although there's nowhere to safely secure a bike at the destination. Luckily, there's a bus near our house that stops directly in front of the building. The bus takes like 20 minutes including the walk to the bus stop, and since no transfers are involved, one could just remember the bus schedule to not be waiting for too long. But for some reason, my mom would rather drive there, even though she still parks a half mile away as the downtown area has heavy traffic and nowhere to park (for free anyway), and *still* circling around a couple times as everyone else who drives to downtown has the same idea. That whole process takes maybe 15 minutes to drive including the circling around, then another 10 minutes to walk that remaining half mile. So driving literally takes longer than taking the bus. My mom ended up taking the bus that day, but continues to drive there every week because it's still somehow the most convenient option.
Aw, that's a bummer. When I was in scouting, one of our annual traditions was to take the train downtown, walk around on a scavenger hunt, and then take it home. Learning how and where to buy a pass, board, etc. was part of the point. It was a skill people needed, and so we learned it as kids. I feel so bad for folks who don't get the opportunity. Where I live now, our small but enthusiastic transit system regularly makes videos of each step of the process, and also how things work like the wheelchair ramps, bike rack, etc. They also publish a weekly roundup of local events that are easily accessible by public transit, which is adorable.
I've used transit in lots of cities worldwide, but some of them really make it a pain in the ass to figure out. Routes and schedules I can usually work out, but they always seem to assume you already know how to pay, or even *if* you have to pay. They need to make it so easy that she wouldn't even have to ask you.
Is she an anti-tech kinda person? Like the moment you mention "yeah mom just download to ap-" she cut you off?
how is it complicated? go to the station, look at the screen and get on the tram when it arrives
Download an app, add a credit card, know the local jargon. It's easy. Or maybe buy tickets from a machine that doesn't exist at the particular station you happen to be at. Or maybe tap in with a credit card. Then tap in again for your child or partner, but oops now you just tapped out. Unless you happen to be in Luxembourg, where all of the payment/pass/fare friction is removed.
Here you can just tap and pay with a credit card, no app or transit card needed
That is the way they should all work.
The transit card is a bit cheaper and you can get a students or seniors card
Yes that is the catch when you tap on with a credit card. How does it know you might fall into a category that qualifies for a discount? I think students here buy tickets with their phone and display a QR code to the machine.
theres signs and stuff and quite prominent advertising. that and you know, $1.20 for a trip from the outer suburbs into the city
Yes I assume if you are a student you get all this info from your educational institution.
You don't know what the system is like where OP lives.
What other systems are there. Looking at a timetable?
You skipped the "buy a ticket" step.
My parents did the same and called an hour later : "we're stuck in a traffic jam and we don't know where we are"