Public Transportation

I'm going to tell you a little about the public transportation here in Holland (minus the metro in Rotterdam because I never use it).

Previously, the only way to travel by train was to purchase a paper ticket.

(This is an example of a ticket that I would buy to get from Leiden to the airport)

For buses and trams, you could either pay with cash when you get on, use what's called a strippenkaart.

To use the strippenkaart, you either have the bus driver stamp the number of strips needed to get you to your destination (which is measured in zones), or stamp the correct number yourself in a stamping machine, found in various places throughout the bus.

If you use cash to take the bus, you either get a normal ticket or a Dalkaartje, which is an offpeak ticket that allows one way travel for any distance within a certain area. You can only get a Dalkaartje after 9am.

This one is obviously old because they now cost €1.20

But NOW, they've introduced what's called the OV Chipkaart.


This new card can be used on trains, buses, and trams. Perhaps I'm missing something, but I have had a hard time figuring out just how the OV Chipkaart works, precisely. But what I have found out from experience is this: You scan the card on the card reader. For trains, this is when you enter the train station. For buses and trams, this is when you enter the bus or tram. The reader then deducts the maximum amount needed to go the furthest possible distance (I figured this out after being told how the Oyster Cards in London work and seeing it done on the bus). Then, you must remember to swipe your card again on the way out so that it adds back on the difference.

So, for example: my trip from home to school on the bus costs €1.71 with the OV chipkaart. When I get on the bus, the reader takes off something like €4 to begin with. Then when I check out at the stop by the school, the reader shows that it puts back on €2.29 and tells me that the trip cost the €1.71.



Sounds great, right? All you have to do is remember to check out at the end, right?

Well, it turns out that for certain cities, the OV chipkaart is actually more expensive to use than the traditional methods (I know this to be true for buses, but I don't know about trains yet). But not only that, traditional methods ALSO have different prices for the same trip. To be more specific, in order to get me from home to school or from school to home, these are the following prices:

With OV chipkaart: €1.71
With strippenkaart: €1.50
With a dalkaartje: €1.20

So what's the point of using an OV chipkaart if I could use a strippenkaart in the morning and buy a dalkaartje in the afternoon and save 72 cents every day?

The point really is that in a couple years the traditional methods won't be allowed anymore and everyone will have to use the OV chipkaart!

The only thing that I've heard but haven't done enough to prove is that you get a discount using the OV chipkaart when you travel by train for the first 1.5 years that it's in use here (it just began last year). This is to encourage travelers to switch over to the new system. But once it becomes mandatory, the prices will go back to normal (well, most likely even higher than what normal is now).

I guess we'll see how it all works itself out. Switching over to newfangled things like this is bound to have a ton of problems.



So the moral of the story is: cycle to work.