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Frankly, that pales to what we have here in The Netherlands. A single OV-chipkaart swipe and you can take an NS train to wherever you want without needing to reserve seats and pre-book tickets. When I was in UK I didn't understand why the need for so much complexity when they could make it work like London metro (swipe in/out with a card). Needless to say I am not a fan of the UK system.

edit: grammar



As implemented, the OV chipkaart has its own share of problems.

1. For railway travel, you need to top up a minimum balance of 20 € (okay, technically 16 €, because with an anonymous card you're allowed 4 € of credit), which is already a bit on the high side if you're only need to go a few stations by train and are only travelling occasionally.

2. Changing trains has become a bit more complicated, because if the change of trains also coincides with a change of the train operator you now always have to check out and back in again (and the check out/in procedure also potentially makes things more expensive than a true through ticket).

3. Certain offers (including e.g. reduced fares for children!) are only available with a personal chipkaart – for a long time those were impossible to obtain without a Dutch address of residence and/or bank account. These days they're also sold to residents of Belgium, Luxembourg and Germany, but you still have to order them in advance, and everybody else is still left out (e.g. somebody from Lille is actually closer to the Dutch border than somebody living in Munich, but only the latter is allowed to buy a personal chipkaart).


Wouldn't work because you could complete the same trip via a range of different companies. So to keep track, you'd need to be tapping in/off each train so the operators could charge you accordingly. And then you'd never have an idea of what the price would be, as fares change according to how early you book and how busy the trains are.

I'm not saying it's a good system - it's a very bad one, having it split between so many companies is a mistake. But the London metro is not a good analogy since it is all one company.


The Netherlands is a small country though. Reservations are not needed because you're expected to stand if the train is fully occupied. Travel journey is rarely longer than an hour.

The Dutch railway system is more like a giant metro/light rail. Trains between the major cities have a high frequency of every 10 minutes.




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