If you want to be infuriated by how slow things can be, try a bus in Malmö.
Malmö (I assume Skåne) has a 2D-barcode-based system, where everyone has to validate their ticket on the barcode reader when they board a bus. This is about as reliable as you'd expect, including the usual fiddling with brightness settings etc. They used to have an NFC card system, but for some reason discontinued it.
[But I think the GP meant a system with ticket barriers on the metro/trains, like London, Paris, Rome and Madrid.]
As an occasional visitor with a day pass, the experience is just the driver yelling at me, and me having to take my gloves out, get the thing and show it to the driver.
> They used to have an NFC card system, but for some reason discontinued it.
Because app is cheaper and they can gather data to sell it or just their own tracking.
Last time I was in malmö, I remember being on a large square trying to get a bus to go to our hotel. And there were like 15 different lanes named with unsorted letters, and by the time we'd found the lane we'd miss the bus. Repeat this like 4 times.
Exactly. Berlin is certainly not Göteborg but its long and nasty winters are notorious nonetheless.
This is the Göteborg way. Want to take a tram and go there 5 minutes earlier? Ah, there was no traffic and you see the tram already leaving anyway. Now enjoy waiting 20 minutes for the next in freezing temperature and strong winds.
> and introduce electronic ticket checks at every stop
Copenhagen does this on bus. Basically every stop suddenly takes 2x as long at the very least.