6 ms·

This is fascinating. We were just in Europe where we experienced these tickets for the first time. I had trouble with them; I was trying to figure out how to sc

This is fascinating. We were just in Europe where we experienced these tickets for the first time. I had trouble with them; I was trying to figure out how to scan them because it never occurred to me that they might contain an NFC chip. My wife, on the other hand, who is not at all technical, took it for granted that you would tap them and immediately figured it out intuitively.

hammock 2y ago
Where do you live? Chicago has had these contactless paper tickets since 2013
- cbhl 2y ago
  Atlanta has been using a form of these contactless paper tickets since 2006.
  - szundi 2y ago
    Romans have used tickets before AD, guy at the gate checked it without any contact
- justusthane 2y ago
  Thunder Bay, Ontario. Pop. 110k. We still have the sort of carnival-style paper tickets. I would guess that most smaller cities don’t have fancy NFC tickets.
  - hammock 2y ago
    I’m surprised you have a subway at all
    - justusthane 2y ago
      We don’t, we have a bus line.
      - bluGill 2y ago
        For small cities a bus is better than a subway. There is no traffic so a bus moves fast enough, and roads don't cost that much. You need those roads anyway for trucks, so may as well reuse them. When a city grows close to a million they should start installing metros - but cities have plenty of warning and so should start reserving space for the metro at 500k.
marssaxman 2y ago
That's funny - I'm sure I would have shared your confusion, as all tappable objects in my world are made of plastic. I wonder how your wife thought of it?
- TacticalCoder 2y ago
  > ... as all tappable objects in my world are made of plastic yup in mine plastic and metal but not paper.
  - lxgr 2y ago
    Probably a mix of plastic and metal: Full metal cards don’t actually support contactless interfaces! Two common ways of getting around that is to either sandwich a plastic part containing the antenna to a metal one, or to punch out a circular part in the middle of the metal card and put the antenna in there (and close it all up using more plastic). One card that doesn’t do either is the Apple Card – and as a result, you can’t tap it!
    - TacticalCoder 2y ago
      > Probably a mix of plastic and metal: Full metal cards don’t actually support contactless interfaces! Well it's really annoying: the "metal" card (maybe as you say a mix of metal and plastic) is harder to swipe, so I got use to present it face down instead of face up, for I noticed that that way I get a better percentage of success on the first try. I don't have the problem with my full plastic credit/debit cards.
      - lxgr 2y ago
        Yeah, the sandwich-type cards usually have one preferred side for contactless taps. That's one advantage of the cutout-style cards, I suppose, but I haven't seen many of these lately.
- selcuka 2y ago
  > I wonder how your wife thought of it? Probably because it's around the size of a credit card and has fake smart card contacts printed on it. That being said, I would probably get confused myself too.
markus_zhang 2y ago
I have found the same thing with my wife. I'm a technical person, but I'm extremely bad with tools and such, including the ticket thing. If no one shows me how to use it I'll probably figure out a way to insert it somewhere. My wife won't have any problem with this and other small tools. The same thing with IKEA: I always rely on the manual and just blindly follow the instructions, and gets very frustrated if the instructions miss one step.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- II2II 2y ago
  > The same thing with IKEA: I always rely on the manual and just blindly follow the instructions, and gets very frustrated if the instructions miss one step. Following instructions is a good thing. Plenty of people damage stuff when putting it together since it looks obvious, but they usually miss critical details. I would imagine that the people who designed the card scanners had to put a lot of thought into their design simply because they know many people won't read instructions and would do as you suggest: figure out a way to insert [the card] somewhere.
  - markus_zhang 2y ago
    Yeah...but apparently she is more handy than me. I always joked she should work as an engineer of some sort.
  - bluGill 2y ago
    For things like IKEA furniture there often is a good engineering reason to do things in a specific order that is not obvious. For furniture this is okay - nobody does it often (or if you do it is a few things that you memorize the instructions for). Transit has different considerations though. It is critical that doing the right thing is obvious without reading instructions. Someone might have an important meeting to make and the time to read the instructions (or wait for the person in from of them to read the instructions) means they are late. Or (worse?!?) that time spent in line is annoying enough that someone decides to buy a car. You can somewhat get around this with more fare machines - but they are expensive and take up a lot of space. Fortunately we have human-machine interaction specialists who can tell you how to make a fare machine that is easy to use correctly without needing any instructions.
TheJoeMan 2y ago
Does the card not have the three-arcs nfc symbol? Similar to the wifi symbol. To me the fake printed dip-chip is more confusing!
- kens 2y ago
  No, the card doesn't have any symbols like that. It does have a pictogram of the card getting tapped on a reader, along with the text "Apposez sur le lecteur".
- michaelt 2y ago
  Most metro stations have a much simpler way for travellers to figure out what to do: of loads people who do know how it works, ahead of and beside you.
  - ghaff 2y ago
    It's getting better but, in my experience, once metro systems got away from manned booths and tokens, the systems worked fine for commuters but led to lots of fumbling and long lines for tourists. Trains in the UK still have a certain amount of "Which of these tickets/receipts go where?" while a line of irritated locals is building up behind you. Fortunately, also being the UK, someone will help you if you're struggling with something sooner rather than later.
    - djbusby 2y ago
      With a requisite amount of Tsk-ing I hope.
      - ghaff 2y ago
        Not really. My last trip to the UK I ended up--because of a complicated trip--with more of a bag than I should really have had on public transit. I was actually a bit embarrassed but a few folks were super-helpful with tube stations that were, shall we say, not exactly mobility friendly.

hammock 2y ago

Where do you live? Chicago has had these contactless paper tickets since 2013

cbhl 2y ago
Atlanta has been using a form of these contactless paper tickets since 2006.
- szundi 2y ago
  Romans have used tickets before AD, guy at the gate checked it without any contact
justusthane 2y ago
Thunder Bay, Ontario. Pop. 110k. We still have the sort of carnival-style paper tickets. I would guess that most smaller cities don’t have fancy NFC tickets.
- hammock 2y ago
  I’m surprised you have a subway at all
  - justusthane 2y ago
    We don’t, we have a bus line.
    - bluGill 2y ago
      For small cities a bus is better than a subway. There is no traffic so a bus moves fast enough, and roads don't cost that much. You need those roads anyway for trucks, so may as well reuse them. When a city grows close to a million they should start installing metros - but cities have plenty of warning and so should start reserving space for the metro at 500k.

marssaxman 2y ago

That's funny - I'm sure I would have shared your confusion, as all tappable objects in my world are made of plastic. I wonder how your wife thought of it?

TacticalCoder 2y ago
> ... as all tappable objects in my world are made of plastic yup in mine plastic and metal but not paper.
- lxgr 2y ago
  Probably a mix of plastic and metal: Full metal cards don’t actually support contactless interfaces! Two common ways of getting around that is to either sandwich a plastic part containing the antenna to a metal one, or to punch out a circular part in the middle of the metal card and put the antenna in there (and close it all up using more plastic). One card that doesn’t do either is the Apple Card – and as a result, you can’t tap it!
  - TacticalCoder 2y ago
    > Probably a mix of plastic and metal: Full metal cards don’t actually support contactless interfaces! Well it's really annoying: the "metal" card (maybe as you say a mix of metal and plastic) is harder to swipe, so I got use to present it face down instead of face up, for I noticed that that way I get a better percentage of success on the first try. I don't have the problem with my full plastic credit/debit cards.
    - lxgr 2y ago
      Yeah, the sandwich-type cards usually have one preferred side for contactless taps. That's one advantage of the cutout-style cards, I suppose, but I haven't seen many of these lately.
selcuka 2y ago
> I wonder how your wife thought of it? Probably because it's around the size of a credit card and has fake smart card contacts printed on it. That being said, I would probably get confused myself too.

markus_zhang 2y ago

I have found the same thing with my wife. I'm a technical person, but I'm extremely bad with tools and such, including the ticket thing. If no one shows me how to use it I'll probably figure out a way to insert it somewhere. My wife won't have any problem with this and other small tools. The same thing with IKEA: I always rely on the manual and just blindly follow the instructions, and gets very frustrated if the instructions miss one step.

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
II2II 2y ago
> The same thing with IKEA: I always rely on the manual and just blindly follow the instructions, and gets very frustrated if the instructions miss one step. Following instructions is a good thing. Plenty of people damage stuff when putting it together since it looks obvious, but they usually miss critical details. I would imagine that the people who designed the card scanners had to put a lot of thought into their design simply because they know many people won't read instructions and would do as you suggest: figure out a way to insert [the card] somewhere.
- markus_zhang 2y ago
  Yeah...but apparently she is more handy than me. I always joked she should work as an engineer of some sort.
- bluGill 2y ago
  For things like IKEA furniture there often is a good engineering reason to do things in a specific order that is not obvious. For furniture this is okay - nobody does it often (or if you do it is a few things that you memorize the instructions for). Transit has different considerations though. It is critical that doing the right thing is obvious without reading instructions. Someone might have an important meeting to make and the time to read the instructions (or wait for the person in from of them to read the instructions) means they are late. Or (worse?!?) that time spent in line is annoying enough that someone decides to buy a car. You can somewhat get around this with more fare machines - but they are expensive and take up a lot of space. Fortunately we have human-machine interaction specialists who can tell you how to make a fare machine that is easy to use correctly without needing any instructions.

TheJoeMan 2y ago

Does the card not have the three-arcs nfc symbol? Similar to the wifi symbol. To me the fake printed dip-chip is more confusing!

kens 2y ago
No, the card doesn't have any symbols like that. It does have a pictogram of the card getting tapped on a reader, along with the text "Apposez sur le lecteur".
michaelt 2y ago
Most metro stations have a much simpler way for travellers to figure out what to do: of loads people who do know how it works, ahead of and beside you.
- ghaff 2y ago
  It's getting better but, in my experience, once metro systems got away from manned booths and tokens, the systems worked fine for commuters but led to lots of fumbling and long lines for tourists. Trains in the UK still have a certain amount of "Which of these tickets/receipts go where?" while a line of irritated locals is building up behind you. Fortunately, also being the UK, someone will help you if you're struggling with something sooner rather than later.
  - djbusby 2y ago
    With a requisite amount of Tsk-ing I hope.
    - ghaff 2y ago
      Not really. My last trip to the UK I ended up--because of a complicated trip--with more of a bag than I should really have had on public transit. I was actually a bit embarrassed but a few folks were super-helpful with tube stations that were, shall we say, not exactly mobility friendly.