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Reversing UK mobile rail tickets

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Re: Reversing UK mobile rail tickets

#191

Post by slavboj »

Symbiote wrote: post #85
fuzzfactor wrote: post #49

On the Florida Turnpike it was always too expensive for many students when they traveled up and down the state. It was bad enough having captive service stations and restaurants for overpriced products, but the toll was and still is ridiculous too, considering it was agreed there would be no toll after the construction was paid for, And it was well paid for decades ago. Anyway there were only very few exits and they…

There was a discussion on a different post pointing out that maintenance of a highway is still very costly. Charging only the users, rather than all taxpayers, appears very fair.

Infrastructure provides public benefits way in excess of the private benefit to the users, which is why roads have been public projects for millennia. People generally travel on roads to get somewhere and do something, and given increased state capacity, that thing is overwhelmingly likely to be taxable.

Toll roads are a holdover from times of reduced state capacity when the best and only way to tax something was to force it to go through a physical chokepoint.

Re: Reversing UK mobile rail tickets

#192

Post by astrange »

paganel wrote: post #93
reustle wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to live in the US and currently live in Japan. We pay around $95 to go about 5 hours on a highway from Tokyo to Kyoto, for example. 3~ hours north is about $35. I think this more accurately charges us drivers for the resources we consume.

It also adds to the price of food that gets transported from one place to another, and, as such, acts as a regressive tax on people who pay the biggest part of their income on their basic needs (like food). That's one of the main reasons why I don't get the "death to cars!" movement and why I regard it as mostly middle-class privileged discourse: no cars means fewer or worst roads, means food being a lot more expensi…

Wouldn't say food is especially expensive in Japan or that they don't have enough roads.

Re: Reversing UK mobile rail tickets

#193

Post by userabchn »

slavboj wrote: post #191
Symbiote wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was a discussion on a different post pointing out that maintenance of a highway is still very costly. Charging only the users, rather than all taxpayers, appears very fair.

Infrastructure provides public benefits way in excess of the private benefit to the users, which is why roads have been public projects for millennia. People generally travel on roads to get somewhere and do something, and given increased state capacity, that thing is overwhelmingly likely to be taxable. Toll roads are a holdover from times of reduced state capacity when the best and only way to tax something was to…

If the thing they use the infrastructure to do is actually valuable, then they can just add the cost of the toll to what they charge for doing it. Splitting the cost of building and maintaining infrastructure among users is, I believe, the fairest way, and helps to avoid market distortions.

Re: Reversing UK mobile rail tickets

#194

Post by astrange »

michaelt wrote: post #110

> they also gain the ability to more precisely track the ticket’s usage across the network and minimise fraud. Except mobile tickets make fraud trivial - getting off the train without a ticket, at a station with a ticket barrier? Just show them your powered off phone and say 'my phone died' and they'll let you out, no questions asked.

NFC works on phones even if the battery is dead, as long as it's set as an express card. (Doesn't work if it's /really/ dead, but just hit 0% that day is fine.)

Re: Reversing UK mobile rail tickets

#195

Post by Symbiote »

borski wrote: post #136
Symbiote wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was a discussion on a different post pointing out that maintenance of a highway is still very costly. Charging only the users, rather than all taxpayers, appears very fair.

So you never get anything delivered on a FedEx or ups truck? And you don’t receive mail?

Since I live on the Danish island of Zealand, everything transported from more than about 150km away has paid a toll of some kind -- either the bridge toll from the rest of Denmark (and thence Germany), the bridge/tunnel toll to Sweden, or the ferry to Germany.

I'm fine with that. FedEx's lorry will pay 960DKK (€130) to cross the bridge, and they will add that price to the price of delivery.

Re: Reversing UK mobile rail tickets

#196

Post by iggldiggl »

shortcake27 wrote: post #66
netsharc wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like an iPhone feature: https://www.techradar.com/news/apples-iphone-xs-has-a-game-c... The Pasmo/Suica cards are intriguing, they are NFC, but also store the last few transactions on the card itself, there are also mobile apps for scanning these cards to see how much credit you have left and list the above-mentioned transactions.

I’m a huge fan of the Pasmo/Suica cards. They’re easy to obtain and easy to accept payments, so uptake is huge (if memory serves me correctly, literally accepted everywhere?). You get most of the benefits of card payments (fast, no fiddling with change, no “do you have a smaller note”), but you also maintain anonymity which is a common argument I hear against cards in Germany and why card payments are so rare there (…

Something like that (for general payments, not for public transport) used to exist in Germany ("Geldkarte"), but it never became a big success and is now being discontinued. And personally speaking – not being able to easily look up how much money is stored on that card is somewhat annoying, so I'd rather continue carrying cash in that case.

Re: Reversing UK mobile rail tickets

#197

Post by HyperSane »

fuzzfactor wrote: post #49

On the Florida Turnpike it was always too expensive for many students when they traveled up and down the state. It was bad enough having captive service stations and restaurants for overpriced products, but the toll was and still is ridiculous too, considering it was agreed there would be no toll after the construction was paid for, And it was well paid for decades ago. Anyway there were only very few exits and they…

Toll roads are stupid.

Re: Reversing UK mobile rail tickets

#198

Post by NoZebra120vClip »

madeofpalk wrote: post #164
NoZebra120vClip wrote: post #21

During the COVID outbreak, my public transit provider began to neglect their fareboxes (partly because everyone was boarding in the rear and didn't bother to pay fares anyway.) I noticed that the boxes were still broken and unmaintained. I put 2 and 2 together and realized that a mobile "upgrade" was coming soon, so I kept my eyes out. And sure enough, I got myself invited to participate in the pilot project with the…

> Since the mobile passes are QR-based and not NFC, they absolutely require WAN connectivity on both sides in order to activate a pass. Why they rolling out QR-based public transit ticketing in 2023 when NFC (which all phone platforms support even with a flat battery) solutions are table-stakes now?

There is actually already a system of near-field passes that has been in place for several years and was supported by the old fare machines and bus boxes. The new QR scanners also appear to have an NFC scan icon on them. So I believe they're future-proof.

Re: Reversing UK mobile rail tickets

#199

Post by NoZebra120vClip »

nly wrote: post #28
nonrandomstring wrote: post #2

Nobody who cheers "mobile tickets" has ever watched a guard or ticket inspector do their job. In the UK, a guard with good eyesight and a sprightly, cheerful manner can almost run through the carriages shouting "tickets please!" and see, with a single glance, all s/he needs. Then she gets to the muppets with phones. They faff, fumble and fuss. They scowl at being interrupted watching videos, browsing social media and…

I feel the same way about people who use mobile phone NFC payment at ticket barriers on the tube instead of a plastic cards (again via NFC) Using your phone is much slower and there's a significant chance it'll just fail and hold up the person behind you (me).

Last week I was picked up by a bus that had technically already departed, so the operator told me to take a seat quickly. I really needed to test out the mobile fare for the pilot project, so I waited for the next opportunity to scan the QR at a safe, legal stop.

A dude was attempting to board, and I was hardly 10 seconds at the scanner when he urged me to get out of his way! It's bad enough when a magstripe pass doesn't scan on the first try... it's going to be murder if everyone's fumbling with their phones and apps and wireless connections.

Re: Reversing UK mobile rail tickets

#200

Post by LtWorf »

nkellenicki wrote: post #53
LtWorf wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If a mobile phone is now a prerequisite for living, governments should issue them to all citizens, and provide maintenance and replacement. Or just don't expect people who don't own a phone to own a ticket.

That's not what the OP claimed at all. Paper tickets still exist. A mobile phone is not requisite. People can choose the option that works for them.

Come here in Sweden.

The main station of the 2nd biggest city has TWO ticket machines.

The minor stations have none. You're expected to use the phone.

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