[ntauthority]

> talk to a driver (who usually acts annoyed on behalf of the whole bus that you are holding up)

It is still an interesting cultural observation that here in NL, even people who manually buy a ticket at the driver while struggling using the card terminal do not seem to get an annoyed response inherently even on a half-filled bus, whereas in Germany it seemed almost expected to get chewed out for not having exact change or taking more than 10 seconds to gather a pile of coins - in the pre-app era, of course.

[Aachen]

I guess in the Netherlands, you have to be nearly demented to not be able to use the ov-chipkaart. Beeping it when you step in and out could hardly be simpler, but my grandparents don't want to learn a new system¹ and also don't want to drive highways anymore. It's different if a 90 year old asks for a ticket at the driver's compared to 30 year old me.

¹ Pinnen existed before ov-chipkaart to they're okay with one form of electronic payment but don't even want to try out another... I'm waiting for the day where I am that old, probably then I'll understand!

[sokoloff]

I’m from US and periodically visit Netherlands for work; on my most recent trip, some local colleagues dropped me at the train station for the ride to AMS. They kindly asked me if I knew how to buy the tickets and were shocked when I said I just my OV card. Neither had one (which I thought was equally surprising).

[Aachen]

There's some 14 million cards active on a population of 18 million. That they don't have one surprises me also! But yeah, there are some stubborn car people, particularly in the more rural places when you aren't often in a place with good public transport connections. Having one is essentially free, though, so there's not really a reason to not keep one on hand for when you do visit any of the cities anywhere in the country. It's more of a "I hate shared transport so much that I refuse to even look at how this card system works" type of mentality.

Note that "rural" in NL means civilization is virtually always <5 minutes driving but there's still no public transport to speak of (a bus might come once an hour between 8 and 19 'o clock... going home after an evening of visiting family or going out? Tough luck).

(Rant: The bus companies keep reducing frequency, operating hours, and stop count due to unprofitability and, guess what? Line profitability keeps going down! It's surprising, really. When it's made so inconvenient to use mass transit, why would anyone choose to buy a car? It's beyond anyone's understanding..!)