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> The tram system didn’t require any faffing around - tap your debit/credit card. There’s a maximum charge per day. It’s probably cheaper if you purchase someth
by seabass-labrax 3y ago
> The tram system didn’t require any faffing around - tap your debit/credit card. There’s a maximum charge per day. It’s probably cheaper if you purchase something in advance but didn’t seem worth it.
Nope, that's the way to do it: it's more expensive if you buy the ticket in advance. There are also dozens of billboards declaring that 'your bank card is your ticket', yet, strangely, only perhaps 1% of people use them.
When paying by bank card, a single journey is €2.10, with a maximum daily price of €7.50.
When purchasing a paper ticket, a single journey is €2.60, but the day ticket is a flat €8.00. Thus, you can commit in advance to buying the day pass, but it's not cheaper than the maximum daily fare with a bank card.
With a 'Brupass', you additionally have access to the wider network operated by De Lijn and TEC, as well as regional trains by SNCB/NMBS; effectively, this the 'outer zone' ticket for Brussels. You probably won't need these, because the STIB/MVIB zone alone is very large. The standard Brupass is €2.40 for a single journey and €8.40 for a day ticket. You'll also need to purchase an electronic MOBIB card separately, costing an additional €5.00. Brupass tickets do have discounts for bulk purchases (for instance, purchasing 100 single tickets in advance), but these aren't particularly big savings.
In conclusion, you will only save money by buying in advance if:
- you intend to use the wider Brussels transport network for the majority of days that you are in Brussels, or
- you are eligible for a residents', concessionary or employment offer - although if so, don't you already know about this? :) - and you load tickets onto your personal MOBIB card, or
- you are going to make close to a hundred journeys, either on STIB/MVIB or with a Brupass.
I think the message they are very strongly trying to make is: don't bother ;)
My funny story about that: the police and STIB/MIVB did a spot ticket inspection whilst I was on the tram after FOSDEM. When I showed the officer my VISA bank card, he stared at it for a second, then excitedly called down the tram to his colleague, saying something along the lines of "Pierre, come here! Quickly! We have a bank card!" - upon which, the one person carrying the special bank card validator came to check my fare. So there we have it - despite being the cheaper and less complicated option, a passenger paying by bank card is unusual enough to be the highlight of a Belgian police officer's day!
- em-bee 3y agoso i have to pay extra if i want anonymity?
- slyall 3y agoYou have to pay extra because it costs more. It costs money to handle cash. At minimum you have to maintain and empty machines. If you have people like bus drivers accepting cash manually hen it slows down boarding and you have additional security risks.
- Am4TIfIsER0ppos 3y agoWhere can I get tickets tor the MIVB/STIB network and pay in cash? It was my impression that that they have gone more cashless than even the Amsterdam network.
- seabass-labrax 3y agoThey are really pushing the cashless option, but I believe it is still possible to purchase disposable, temporary and somewhat anonymous MOBIB tickets at the red-painted vending machines (available at certain tram stops and metro stations). There is a slot to enter cash on these machines, although I have never used this myself so can't personally verify that it works. The older, blue vending machines don't have a cash option, if I recall correctly.
- em-bee 3y agodo they offer stored-value cards that work instead of credit cards?
- seabass-labrax 3y agoNo, unfortunately not. The closest thing to a stored-value card is how you can store multiple individual tickets on a personal or 'anonymous' MOBIB card. To do this, you insert both your cash and your MOBIB card into the vending machine when you purchase a ticket. If you're asking from a privacy perspective, it's not a great situation :( - Bank cards and personal MOBIB cards (registered with your postal address) can obviously be used to track your movements - Anonymous MOBIB cards aren't specifically linked to your identity, but they could still be used to track you as an individual as you use the tickets you have stored on it - Paper tickets are actually just disposable MOBIB cards which can't be reloaded. The only saving grace privacy-wise is that the longest validity ticket is one day, so you can't be tracked across different days - as long as you purchase the ticket with cash! If you use a smartphone with Google Pay or Apple Pay, there might be an option to use a temporary VISA/Mastercard number. That probably throws STIB/MIVB off the scent, but then you have Google or Apple tracking you instead.
- leejo 3y agoInteresting stuff, thanks. I guess it's all the infrastructure around that pushing up the costs.
- zvr 3y agoActually, having a STIB/MVIB re-loadable card allows you to add 10 single-trip tickets for €16.80, which is cheaper. You consume how many you want going to FOSDEM, fringe events, restaurants and back, and you leave and remember to bring the card (which still has a couple of tickets left inside) next year and repeat. Every 10+ years or so, the card expires and you get a new one. This has served me well all these years (the first times, 24 years ago, there were no cards and we had to buy paper tickets).
- seabass-labrax 3y agoI stand corrected :) I didn't notice that the 10-trip Brupass does indeed work out cheaper than 10 separate single fares by contactless bank card, despite being valid for the wider network as well as the STIB/MIVB lines.