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The Swiss are also quite civilized. Used to be (last I was there) that tickets were rarely checked on buses in Geneva. It was an honor system. That empty space

The Swiss are also quite civilized. Used to be (last I was there) that tickets were rarely checked on buses in Geneva. It was an honor system. That empty space would get jammed before you could say "this is not Switzerland, Dorothy".

Qwertystop 7y ago
An honor system on ticket-checking can work fine if there's high enough fines for being caught without a ticket. If there's a 1 in 10 chance they'll check your ticket, and the fine on riding without a ticket is at least ten times the cost of a ticket, the government comes out even as long as the cost of enforcing the fines isn't higher than the money saved by not having to hire as many ticket-checkers (or spend as much time waiting at the stop because of not needing to check everyone's ticket).
- sschueller 7y ago
  The fine in Zürich is "only" USD ~100 plus the ticket you where supposed to have. However, if you get caught again the price goes up. Your record doesn't get deleted for at least a year. If you get cought more than 4 times they may take you to criminal court. If you have a valid ticket on your name but not on you, they will issue the fine but you will get it reduced to USD ~10-25 if you show your pass at a station beuro.
- eternalban 7y ago
  Well I was there for a couple of years and iirc maybe saw it twice? So definitely not 1/10. But of course no doubt some sort of cost analysis informs the Swiss norms. But it's not just the buses, but fair disclosure, I did catch the famous "Swiss Bug". (I was going to say August is a great time to visit Geneva and catch Les Fêtes de Genève but apparently it is no more.)
bschne 7y ago
I don't know about exact policies on Swiss railway/local public transport networks, but I'm pretty sure by now fines and frequency of checks are calculated such that it ends up being cheaper for the transport company to only do random checking instead of check every ticket.
- sschueller 7y ago
  That is correct. There is a percentage of acceptable invalid ticket holders below which enforcment would cost more than the loss of ticket revenue. They realized a long time ago that 100% valid tickets in impossible. Everyone can forget to buy the right ticket at some point in their life. We are humans not machines.
- dsego 7y ago
  Where I live, the bus drivers will now only open the first door to inspect tickets, and then open all the back doors to let passengers out. I guess a lot of folks (especially kids) were not buying tickets. And the inspector doesn't have the authority to hold you or see your ID, so a lot of kids would just play dumb, ask to exit at the next stop or even argue with the inspector. I've even seen shoving and fights. Sometimes the bus driver would close all the doors and wait for the police to arrive. This of course aggravate everyone else on the bus. Other times they would have the police accompany the inspector. It's also common to hear someone come in at the front and ask the bus driver to only go one stop without a ticket. I always thought it was a local or regional thing. Then I heard the same in a Toronto streetcar, on the other side of the world. A very surreal moment, it made me smile.
Youden 7y ago
That's still the case on intracity transit throughout most of Switzerland. Intercity trains are nearly always checked though. I think it's able to work because the fines are seen as high (90, 130, 160 CHF for the 1st, 2nd and 3rd violations and at some point they can force you to buy an annual pass) and because not paying the fines isn't really a viable option in Switzerland (they'll go into a debt register which is checked for a variety of reasons, it's kinda like the replacement for a credit report).

Qwertystop 7y ago

An honor system on ticket-checking can work fine if there's high enough fines for being caught without a ticket. If there's a 1 in 10 chance they'll check your ticket, and the fine on riding without a ticket is at least ten times the cost of a ticket, the government comes out even as long as the cost of enforcing the fines isn't higher than the money saved by not having to hire as many ticket-checkers (or spend as much time waiting at the stop because of not needing to check everyone's ticket).

sschueller 7y ago
The fine in Zürich is "only" USD ~100 plus the ticket you where supposed to have. However, if you get caught again the price goes up. Your record doesn't get deleted for at least a year. If you get cought more than 4 times they may take you to criminal court. If you have a valid ticket on your name but not on you, they will issue the fine but you will get it reduced to USD ~10-25 if you show your pass at a station beuro.
eternalban 7y ago
Well I was there for a couple of years and iirc maybe saw it twice? So definitely not 1/10. But of course no doubt some sort of cost analysis informs the Swiss norms. But it's not just the buses, but fair disclosure, I did catch the famous "Swiss Bug". (I was going to say August is a great time to visit Geneva and catch Les Fêtes de Genève but apparently it is no more.)

bschne 7y ago

I don't know about exact policies on Swiss railway/local public transport networks, but I'm pretty sure by now fines and frequency of checks are calculated such that it ends up being cheaper for the transport company to only do random checking instead of check every ticket.

sschueller 7y ago
That is correct. There is a percentage of acceptable invalid ticket holders below which enforcment would cost more than the loss of ticket revenue. They realized a long time ago that 100% valid tickets in impossible. Everyone can forget to buy the right ticket at some point in their life. We are humans not machines.
dsego 7y ago
Where I live, the bus drivers will now only open the first door to inspect tickets, and then open all the back doors to let passengers out. I guess a lot of folks (especially kids) were not buying tickets. And the inspector doesn't have the authority to hold you or see your ID, so a lot of kids would just play dumb, ask to exit at the next stop or even argue with the inspector. I've even seen shoving and fights. Sometimes the bus driver would close all the doors and wait for the police to arrive. This of course aggravate everyone else on the bus. Other times they would have the police accompany the inspector. It's also common to hear someone come in at the front and ask the bus driver to only go one stop without a ticket. I always thought it was a local or regional thing. Then I heard the same in a Toronto streetcar, on the other side of the world. A very surreal moment, it made me smile.

Youden 7y ago

That's still the case on intracity transit throughout most of Switzerland. Intercity trains are nearly always checked though. I think it's able to work because the fines are seen as high (90, 130, 160 CHF for the 1st, 2nd and 3rd violations and at some point they can force you to buy an annual pass) and because not paying the fines isn't really a viable option in Switzerland (they'll go into a debt register which is checked for a variety of reasons, it's kinda like the replacement for a credit report).