Post
This is perhaps one of the worst designed objects I have the displeasure of interacting with on a regular basis. It's a symphony of bad design choices. A vile hateful piece of equipment that makes my day a little bit worse every time I use one.
What is it? It's an NS ticket gate. In this case photographed at Sloterdijk Station, but they are installed at many stations across the Netherlands.
Why is it so badly designed?
Thread time.
1/n
@quixoticgeek Makes me happy once more to to live in #Vienna where those things work like this: If you have a ticket, you walk through. Otherwise, too (but you'd pay a fine when they catch you in one of the rare random checks).
@quixoticgeek i once was almost jumped by the railway police, because iu slowly made my way through, and had a sporst back over my shoulder restin on my tail bone, legth wise, and the gate gave that " Extra person crossed" alarm
@quixoticgeek the bad design goes very very very very deep with this one
Actually it goes to the very core of "why is it there to begin with?"
It shouldn't exist, most sane countries do just fine without gates. ESPECIALLY without gates that don't let you exit freely
@quixoticgeek adding 3 more of my own:
@quixoticgeek Fare gates in Japan (at least when I visited 20 years ago) work differently. Their default state is open - if you try to pass without scanning a ticket, it closes. So the throughput is insane.
All systems have errors, but with this one they decided a few people getting through without paying is worth making it slower for everyone else. The default position is that most people are not criminals, unlike these types of gate which come from the point of view that everyone is potentially a criminal and given half a chance will defraud anything.
The ticket scanners were amazing too: two different sizes of ticket, you could put them in upside down, back to front, even sideways and they'd still read it in a fraction of a second.
@quixoticgeek great thread, everyone working on these things or planning NS stations should have to read it.
Bonus annoyance for non-locals: some of these gates stand next to slightly different ones which will check you in to another transport provider (e.g. the Amsterdam metro) so you will think you have a ticket and still get fined on the train.
@quixoticgeek As someone used to UK gatelines, something about the design of these ones makes them feel very cramped and stressful. Mostly to do with the gate height I think?
@quixoticgeek bonus points when you try to exit the station with your DB (ICE) ticket
@quixoticgeek I would much rather have these gates than the "ticket control" thugs roaming the Oslo metro. You don't know how good you have it.
@millie interesting that I've had two replies about the Oslo metro. One saying how good it is to not have gates and just use goons. And one moaning about the goons... When I was in Oslo I cycled everywhere...
@quixoticgeek Yea idk why they're going on about, nobody in Oslo likes the ticket control guys. They're extremely rude and threatening. I really wish we had Japan's system.
@quixoticgeek Beware the (The!) alternative! https://aus.social/@augustusbrown/116056539132449510
@quixoticgeek We almost got stuck with something like this in Oslo too. Fortunately the project was a total failure and now we just use an app for tickets. No gates. Just random ticket inspections with fairly high fines.
@quixoticgeek great rant, tnx for this one!
@quixoticgeek After having read this thread, I now understand why Belgium wants to install these in train stations. They're the perfect amount of awful to make Belgian public transport even worse. And that certainly isn't an easy thing to do. Well done for building something SO FUCKING AWFUL that it can actually make Belgium worse.
@quixoticgeek oh we were stuck by these in Amsterdam, couldn’t figure out how to get in/out
@quixoticgeek If you will permit, I will take this opportunity to compare/contrast with the BART fare gates in SF that have also caused me considerable frustration (although it seems these are much worse).
@iris @quixoticgeek all of these wouldn't be a problem if transit was free.
@Nimbius666 Yep. tho fare evasion is seen as a precursor to other crimes and antisocial behaviour, which is why they try to control it. Free public transport is of course the solution
@quixoticgeek omg I was so baffled by these gates as a tourist and felt lousy about it. Sounds like it was not entirely my fault.
@stylus not your fault. It's just bad design.
@quixoticgeek @stylus nah it's super tourist unfriendly.
@quixoticgeek so many parallels to some of the UK barriers too. Also one of the bus ticket machine manufacturers has put the NFC reader right below the barcode reader, which causes all sorts of issues with scanning mobile tickets if the app doesn't turn off the NFC.
I see the same issue with wide gates here too. At least places like Glasgow Queen Street have two wide gates so you can have one way operation. Though still not enough of them.
Why fares should just be eliminated.
If you look really closely on the inside panel of the gate dividers, you'll see some little red dots. These are part of a presence detector. If you trip one of these the gate stops responding. So, say you are traveling with a child and you have them ahead of you as you try to check them through the gate. They trip the sensor and the gate doesnt work. The same often happens when people put their suitcase in front of them. I often find passengers stuck trying to get through the gate like this
2/n
@quixoticgeek Those red dots fucked us up while traveling. The whole thing is hostile.
@quixoticgeek As someone who travels with a kid often by train this is simply not true.
@MisterMaker you're incredibly lucky. I see this happen almost weekly.
@quixoticgeek this is the most evil anti-feature I have ever heard of. I always put my luggage in front of me because if I don't, the gates will close on it and separate me from it.
You'll notice that one of the gates is wider than the other. For every platform (but not every gateline), one gate is wider than the others. This is so wheelchair users, larger passengers, people with bikes or lots of luggage can get through. This one wide gate is set up bidirectionally. What often happens is someone who could use any gate, tries to come through the wide gate, when a user who can only use the wide gate is trying to get through the other way. This causes tension among users.
3/n
@quixoticgeek And this. Similar setup in SF. When I am traveling with a bike (my default), I usually have to wait for people completely capable of using any of the other gates to go through the one gate I fit through with my bike. I get very frustrated about it.
And when I do get through, the gate usually closes on the back half of my bike no matter how quickly I try to move through. Sometimes I have to wrestle it free, and I may or may not do as much damage to the gate as possible when that happens.
@quixoticgeek usually, the wide gate is where the guiding line will lead blind NS customers. For me, the bi-directional gates are almost impossible to get through during rush hour. I memorize the location and direction of the ordinary gates for the stations that I often use. But even those arrangements can be changed. But there is a braille/tactile thingy on the check in surface, so I know I'm in Sighted People's thoughts.
@anantagd except I've also seen passengers who use a cane trip the sensors with their cane, so the gate locks up on them, with no audible information for what's happened. It's truly awful design.
When people have annoyed me doing this when travelling with my bike, I've sometimes pushed my wheel forward slightly to trip the sensor to block the gate from working in the hope the other traveller will bugger off. This issue could be resolved by installing a second wide gate per line, and making them unidirectional. But that would in theory reduce gateline capacity. Which is already pretty awful.
Why so? Well you see that round circle on the top? That's a nfc, and qr reader. And it sucks
4/n
@quixoticgeek further visual indicators that the wide gate is ONLY for people who need it is also an option. As is having two bidirectional wide gates. Or all wide gates.
@quixoticgeek the BART gates are impassable in BOTH directions for a brief interval after somebody uses them in either direction, as far as I can tell. So if you have to wait for a foot passenger to exit through the single wide gate (which you probably needed to circumnavigate the platform to reach in the first place), you then also have to wait for the gate to reset to bidirectional-standby mode.
Passengers will try to scan an object to gain permission to pass the gate. Originally this was just an OV chipkaart. A simple NFC card based on MyFare classic. But, cos the people who design and implement these design abominations aren't the people who use them. They decided that you should be able to scan a QR code from your ticket to use the barrier. Which is slow, requires almost perfect alignment, and requires you scan the right qr code. Which is a pain as some ticket types have >1 qr.
5/n
Then you run into the problem that some phones when they get near the scanner realise it's an NFC reader, and switch from the PDF ticket you had open to try and use your phone wallet thingy. This then results in a passenger, usually with lots of baggage, stood blocking a gate faffing with their phone trying to get the gate to recognise a ticket to let them out. Or, in the worst case, cos they have now allowed people to travel with any card that works for contactless payments...
6/n
... When the phone switches from your pdf qr code to the phone wallet, it scans your card, charges you €20 for a checkout without a check-in, and let's you through. Bravo, great design. FFS
Then you get users who intend to use the phone as a payment device. These passengers tend to present as someone who's queued to get to the gate, then act totally surprised they now need to scan their device. They then stand there, faffing with their phone trying to bring up the wallet with the right card
7/n
@quixoticgeek My only related complaint from SF is that the different transit systems, which interconnect, expect different things as far as tagging on and off.
BART: you must tag on and off, through a gate.
MUNI: you must tag on, but not off. If you board muni at a subway station, you must tag on by passing through a gate. If you board at street level, just tag on at the door. If you try to tag off at one of the fare gates when exiting a muni subway station, the gate will not respond, and you will stand there blocking traffic while you wait for confirmation of an ignored transaction.
CalTrain: if you tag on but not off, you will be charged the maximum possible fare for a trip starting from your point of embarkation. There are no gates, so please just remember to find a post. (I usually remember once I've exited the platform and have to go back, up and down some stairs or escalators or elevators with my cargo bike.)
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