[EngManagerIsMe]

Agreed. This is actually a "why public systems fail" critique approaching from the left -- we assume systems need a cost to function correctly. For something like transit, collecting fares involves:

1) Systems and equipment to issue and collect fares -- boxes, kiosks, scanners, currency handling, staff to collect and deposit currency, arrangements with payment providers, educational materials about paying fares, websites with instructions on how to pay fares (often in multiple languages)

2) Systems to enforce fare payment -- humans, typically, to police the fares

3) Systems to analyze fare rates -- are fares too low, too high, are they being paid at the correct rates, do we need to publish new content on how much fares are changing this year

4) Queues to pay fares -- entering a bus or train requires a turnstile, tap, or other impediment that slows access

5) Systems to ensure everyone has access -- either fares price out the poorest, or we provide means for the poor to get reduced and free fares. Provide systems for workers to get fares subsidized through their workplaces.

These systems are really inefficient. I mean, they might be run efficiently, but their existence is itself an inefficiency. If we believe transit is useful and valuable, we could simply pay for it once in taxes. Cutting out all the fare maintenance systems would save a huge amount of money, which could be spent on maintenance, comfort, cleaning, additional routes, etc. and the experience would be much nicer (hop on/hop off whenever you need).

[lispm]

> entering a bus or train requires a turnstile, tap, or other impediment that slows access

In Hamburg, where I live, there is nothing like that.

[EngManagerIsMe]

Hamburg's busses don't have coin boxes or sell tickets/fares? You don't have any mechanism that requires swiping a card, tapping a device, showing a card/ticket to an operator, or otherwise proving you have, in fact, purchased a fare?

In Seattle, we tap our cards on something that looks like this: https://seattletransitblog.com/2011/06/28/dont-tap-orca-here...

It's pretty quick, but on the busiest bus routes it slows things down.

Edit: Reading up, it looks like they don't really have those things, and rely on a combination of very infrequent inspectors (which do slow things and cost money) and the honor system.