Or so we all would assume when we visit.

Like all change, there are problems and people who don't like change.

he doesn't understand the concept that you have to buy your ticket before you get on the train... Is it so hard to grasp? Of course your ticket is invalid if you buy it online at the very same time that the train leaves. If this were not illegal, no one would ever buy an eticket beforehand but simply hop on a train and then buy one if there happens to be a conductor on the train. You have to be quite stupid not to understand why there is a no-tolerance policy on this: the system wouldn't work any other way.

Also, I wholeheartedly reject the claim that the "swiss love affair with rails turns sour". It take more than an ignorant, disgruntled brit that doesn't get the system in order for a people to lose their love for something they care about so much.

No public service is ever perfect. Certainly, mass transportation can't be, and there's bound to be some kind of problem along the way. Reading the article, you'd have the impressions that the Swiss are fed up with their public transportation system - this is simply not true.

In fact, the SBB (Swiss Rail Services) tracks what they're costumers (me inlcuded) think of them very accuratly: http://sbb-gb2010.mxm.ch/sbbgb2010/media/sbbgb2010_upload/31-33_DE.pdf -- there's absolutely no indication that the Swiss have lost ANY love for the SBB. Certainly not because of E-tickets.

So, I think the article is ignorant claptrap. For every grandparent that is fined for not understanding the system, I bet 10 are let go every day without any fine. I could list personal anecdotes of how people got off the hook because conductors are very lenient. That's the thing about personal anecdotes: They always represent a subset of a subset. Judging whole systems on anecdotes is bound to turn out as shittily stupid as this article.

And yeah, havin worked in London for a couple of months, I'm slightly offended by the smugness with which this Brit likes to put down the SBB. Any rational person that is given the choice between British Rail Services and their Swiss counterpart would happily choose the latter. This I say not out of some kind of false patriotism, (got none of that, really.)

On edit: I love to see that people post stories about Switzerland quite often. It makes me feel mildly relevant.

Swiss people are heavily invested in their public transportation - almost like americans and guns

And yes, there's something about a condemnation of a whole system that totally riles me up when it is based on one lame anecdote from someone taking a vaccation there. As I wrote above, the smugness of the article offended me; bringing out the smuggest in me as well.

and, without people manning stations, passengers get screwed. "by the time I got on the intercity to Geneva I had an e-ticket" - the excuse for fining him was that the payment had not gone through concurrently with that. Which is a pathetic way to run a railway system. And it's ridiculous that one person cannot by an e-ticket for another, if that's how you want to run a system with unreliable ticket machines and inflexible conductors.

Though luck - this happens to people around the world constantly. And if the machine is broken, you can report it, they will check it out, if it is true, you will not have to pay the fine (happened to me twice).

Secondly, they advise you that your eticket will not be valid if it is purchased after the train arrives. This makes perfect sense. He might have been in a hurry - but if they would change the rules to accomodate his special case, then they would ruin the system - allow that and everyone will buy his eticket only when a conductor shows up. There needs to be a hard cut-off here, or the system defeats itself. That's why they make you aware of these facts prominently when youn sign up for etickets.

As to not being able to hold more than 1 eticket, that legitmately sounds rather stupid. If it's the case, it needs to be changed: But that's about the only valid criticism I found in the article.

Edit: And yes, Muriel, manned stations would take care of that. They're simply a financial impossibility, not anyway that that is going to happen.

One of the things I love about DU and it's diversity.

I really do enjoy discussing local stuff on here whenever the chance comes up! Thanks