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The transition was rough. The way the tickets are handeled is draconian. There was a time when taking a ticket on the train only costed 5CHF more... Now it cost

by batiste 14y ago

The transition was rough. The way the tickets are handeled is draconian. There was a time when taking a ticket on the train only costed 5CHF more... Now it cost you the 90CHF fine every single time + the price of the ticket. Thankfully the mobile app is rather good and I never been fined for taking the ticket as I jump on the train. But surely you shoudn't wait a second before buying the ticket once on the train.

jsnell 14y ago
The SBB web-store and the mobile app are useless piles of crap. There can easily be a 10 minute delay between buying the ticket and actually receiving it -- totally unacceptable if this is really a CC check as suggested by the article. Sometimes there are apparently multi-hour delays between buying the ticket (and receiving it) and it actually being recorded in the central database. So even if you're a good citizen and buy the ticket an hour before the trip, there's still a chance you'll end up in an argument with the conductor. Just this weekend I was going to buy an e-ticket. My password wasn't accepted. No problem, there's a button to send a password reset email. I tried that several times over an hour, and never got the email (yes, checked the spam folder). Today, the reset worked fine. Except now I have an unweildy temporary password, but the "change password" page on the website doesn't work, but just silently ignores any attempts to use it. Basically at this point I wouldn't trust the electronic ticketing for a moment. It's a horrible thought that all this incompetence is actually malice, and they're starting to depend on the fines as a revenue source.
- batiste 14y ago
  Are you using the new Android version? The app is not perfect but it's pretty good. When I buy the ticket it takes maybe 10 seconds after I entered my password to process the payment (using my postcard account) and then I get the QR code ticket immediatly. Isn't this QR code a valid ticket? It might be that the payment is yet not confirmed but I never had any issue when controlled...
  - jsnell 14y ago
    Yes, I'm using the new Android app. The QR code does not appear immediately, but after a long and unpredictable delay. (This is with a credit card). So I've paid, have no proof of purchase, and have no idea of whether a valid ticket is ever going to arrive on my phone. Given the quality of SBB's data infrastructure as a whole and the strict penalties, using the app just doesn't seem like a sensible trade-off.

by batiste 14y ago

jsnell 14y ago

The SBB web-store and the mobile app are useless piles of crap. There can easily be a 10 minute delay between buying the ticket and actually receiving it -- totally unacceptable if this is really a CC check as suggested by the article. Sometimes there are apparently multi-hour delays between buying the ticket (and receiving it) and it actually being recorded in the central database. So even if you're a good citizen and buy the ticket an hour before the trip, there's still a chance you'll end up in an argument with the conductor. Just this weekend I was going to buy an e-ticket. My password wasn't accepted. No problem, there's a button to send a password reset email. I tried that several times over an hour, and never got the email (yes, checked the spam folder). Today, the reset worked fine. Except now I have an unweildy temporary password, but the "change password" page on the website doesn't work, but just silently ignores any attempts to use it. Basically at this point I wouldn't trust the electronic ticketing for a moment. It's a horrible thought that all this incompetence is actually malice, and they're starting to depend on the fines as a revenue source.

batiste 14y ago
Are you using the new Android version? The app is not perfect but it's pretty good. When I buy the ticket it takes maybe 10 seconds after I entered my password to process the payment (using my postcard account) and then I get the QR code ticket immediatly. Isn't this QR code a valid ticket? It might be that the payment is yet not confirmed but I never had any issue when controlled...
- jsnell 14y ago
  Yes, I'm using the new Android app. The QR code does not appear immediately, but after a long and unpredictable delay. (This is with a credit card). So I've paid, have no proof of purchase, and have no idea of whether a valid ticket is ever going to arrive on my phone. Given the quality of SBB's data infrastructure as a whole and the strict penalties, using the app just doesn't seem like a sensible trade-off.