SBB EasyRide - no need to buy a ticket ever again

[radamfi]

SBB have launched EasyRide, a way of paying for your train travel by merely checking in and out with your phone. It uses GPS to work out where and when you started and finished your journey. It is currently available to those with the "SBB Preview" version of the mobile app.

https://www.sbb.ch/de/fahrplan/mobile-fahrplaene/sbb-mobile-preview/easyride.html
(German)

 

[Bletchleyite]

Interesting idea, though probably quite battery-heavy.

 

[radamfi]

Interesting idea, though probably quite battery-heavy.

The FAQ says you have to have the location and internet on for the whole journey. Although I have those on all the time normally.

 

[Bletchleyite]

The FAQ says you have to have the location and internet on for the whole journey. Although I have those on all the time normally.

I do too, but actually using them heavily (such as a continuous GPS track) is much harder on the battery than using cell locate unless you have a map on screen, for instance.

 

[embers25]

I do too, but actually using them heavily (such as a continuous GPS track) is much harder on the battery than using cell locate unless you have a map on screen, for instance.

Particularly in remote swiss areas.

 

[rg177]

Battery issues aside, this is a pretty impressive development. No doubt it'd turn into a complete farce attempting to replicate it over here!

 

[radamfi]

The FAQ says the data usage is 200 kB per hour. So maybe it won't be constantly checking the location and therefore won't impact so much on the battery.

It is also interesting to note that this may be the first example in the world of national fare capping, as it charges you the price of a day ticket if you exceed that price in single fares.

https://www.20min.ch/schweiz/news/story/Jetzt-gibt-es-mit-App-der-SBB-automatische-Tickets-27644534

says ZVV (the transport authority for the Zurich region) has been using this system for 6 months.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Given how a location takes a few bytes to send, that's actually rather a lot of data.

 

[Groningen]

What is new? In the Netherlands you check in and out with your chipcard and the amount travelled is taken from your bankaccount. > https://www.ns.nl/en/flex/

 

[AlexNL]

What is new? In the Netherlands you check in and out with your chipcard

We already have the infrastructure for that in place: validators, gatelines, backend infrastructure, issuing infrastructure, et cetera.

Switzerland has an open system and isn't planning on changing that, while they do want to simplify public transport for their customers. Ticketless travel can't be made much easier than pressing a "Start" button in the app when boarding, and pressing "Stop" once you get to your destination.

 

[Groningen]

Some how one has to indicate to the travelsystem where one starts and ends with the journey. A card in the Netherlands; a Phone in Switzerland. Than i rather use the card.

 

[U-Bahnfreund]

This has been possible with lezzgo, an app by BLS, since at least January already. Same goes for fairtiq, an app by Passepartout, Frimobil und Engadin Mobil, that works swisswide since March this year.

 

[thaitransit]

I see one huge problem with this. Most places don't have continuous 3G or 4G coverage throughout the whole line. This is very common on long distance trains especially in Australia. Where more that 50% of the trip is outside phone network coverage. Even the trains onboard card readers can't work throughout the whole trip due to no signal. Most train companies here warn customers to have cash with them for food and drink purchases. So I don't see this working very well and would cost billions of dollars in new mobile phone towers to be installed often in very remote places with no other users than the passing trains.

 

[radamfi]

I see one huge problem with this. Most places don't have continuous 3G or 4G coverage throughout the whole line. This is very common on long distance trains especially in Australia. Where more that 50% of the trip is outside phone network coverage. Even the trains onboard card readers can't work throughout the whole trip due to no signal. Most train companies here warn customers to have cash with them for food and drink purchases. So I don't see this working very well and would cost billions of dollars in new mobile phone towers to be installed often in very remote places with no other users than the passing trains.

In Switzerland coverage is very comprehensive even in rural areas. It even works in railway tunnels! I presume this system doesn't need to have 100% internet coverage along the whole route, just coverage at the start and end and enough intermediate points so that the route can be calculated.

 

[MarkyT]

If your battery runs out unexpectedly or your phone malfunctions while you are travelling after a successful check in, you are considered without a valid ticket and could be 'bailed out' (from a google translation of the FAQs I hope not while still in motion!). I suspect that could mean you would be subject to penalty fares on inspection which are very expensive on SBB at 90 CHF (£70!!!!) today on first occasion. My cr@p old Samsung sometimes fails in weird ways when out and about and that has been known to drain the battery unexpectedly. I would definitely not trust it as the only way of avoiding a big fine. Perhaps you are supposed to continuously check your phone to see it is still working. If you saw it had failed can you then at least inform the guard and get off at the next station or are you already in the infringement zone? Are you allowed to base your battery life estimation at boarding on charging sockets on the train being available and actually working and if they don't work must you disembark if you think you are about to run out even if that's at a remote station in the middle of nowhere on the last train home? I think a card and reader system is far superior as a card can't suffer from so many potential failures. A phone app like this could work in conjunction with a card based account though, perhaps providing an alternative way to record movement where available. Thus a journey might start with a phone check-in, but then be resolved at destination using a card if the phone becomes inoperable, or on inspection en route by a conductor's terminal. So a great idea SBB but actually I probably would never risk using it as currently offered.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Agreed. I won't use M-tickets as it is, and I can do stuff like save battery by using flight mode with those. No way would I even consider this except for a very short journey.

 

[radamfi]

If your battery runs out unexpectedly or your phone malfunctions while you are travelling after a successful check in, you are considered without a valid ticket and could be 'bailed out' (from a google translation of the FAQs I hope not while still in motion!). I suspect that could mean you would be subject to penalty fares on inspection which are very expensive on SBB at 90 CHF (£70!!!!) today on first occasion. My cr@p old Samsung sometimes fails in weird ways when out and about and that has been known to drain the battery unexpectedly. I would definitely not trust it as the only way of avoiding a big fine. Perhaps you are supposed to continuously check your phone to see it is still working. If you saw it had failed can you then at least inform the guard and get off at the next station or are you already in the infringement zone? Are you allowed to base your battery life estimation at boarding on charging sockets on the train being available and actually working and if they don't work must you disembark if you think you are about to run out even if that's at a remote station in the middle of nowhere on the last train home? I think a card and reader system is far superior as a card can't suffer from so many potential failures. A phone app like this could work in conjunction with a card based account though, perhaps providing an alternative way to record movement where available. Thus a journey might start with a phone check-in, but then be resolved at destination using a card if the phone becomes inoperable, or on inspection en route by a conductor's terminal. So a great idea SBB but actually I probably would never risk using it as currently offered.

Many Swiss trains have charging points, but having a battery pack is considered a near necessity for many people anyway these days.

 

[AlexNL]

Cards can also fail in unexpected ways. For example, the RFID antenna could break (there have been bad batches of OV-chipkaarten), and if the card can't be read then you could also get fined.

While plug sockets aren't universally available yet, it is slowly getting better. Phone batteries as well as battery life management has improved much as well, up to a point where I have enough confidence that I can make a journey without running out of juice.

I've been able to travel from Copenhagen to Breda (a 12 hr journey) using nothing but my phone. The DSB IC had plug sockets, the DB IC had them, and Dusseldorf - Breda was manageable without needing to plug in my phone.

 

[MarkyT]

Ok ok, I'm behind the times, I only got my first smartphone two years ago! Yes I understand the latest phones are amazing etc and most people carry a huge backup pack now with their £700 digital marvels, but I still think a virtual ticketing online travel account would be much better and would likely be more popular if it had a number of means available for resolving journeys made such as phone AND card/reader. The same system could allow you to print out pre-purchased tickets at home from web access on computer if required as well, if that day your phone was in for repair or you were were waiting for a replacement after flushing it.

 

[Bletchleyite]

I agree, a travel account would be good. You could use it on your smartphone, or log in at a TVM or ticket office to reprint as required. Even if you had lost absolutely everything in a mugging or hotel fire you'd still be able to access your ticket using remembered username and password and get home.

You could even have a feature whereby someone else could pay for and send a ticket to your travel account, replacing the SILK procedure and making it far more accessible. A small fee (standard £10 admin fee?) could be charged for doing this, or even do it as no fee to allow parents to send their children tickets etc.

 

[rg177]

In Switzerland coverage is very comprehensive even in rural areas. It even works in railway tunnels! I presume this system doesn't need to have 100% internet coverage along the whole route, just coverage at the start and end and enough intermediate points so that the route can be calculated.

Indeed, I had consistent 4G in the Gotthard Base Tunnel, impressive!

 

[axlecounter]

Indeed, I had consistent 4G in the Gotthard Base Tunnel, impressive!

Hopefully! The tunnel is brand new! Older tunnels are not always that good...

 

[Doctor Fegg]

Given how a location takes a few bytes to send, that's actually rather a lot of data.

It would be if the location were encoded efficiently, but chances are it's sent in XML or GeoJSON or something equally verbose.

 

[radamfi]

This is now available to everyone. If you use it before 8 December you get 2 x 10 CHF vouchers, to be used by 31 January.

https://www.sbb.ch/en/timetable/mobile-apps/sbb-mobile/easyride.html

Travel freely and flexibly throughout Switzerland – EasyRide does the rest for you! All you need is the SBB Mobileapp, one swipe to the right and one to the left.

Would you like to travel by public transport without having to worry about tickets – just get on and go? Without even having to decide where you are going beforehand? That is all quite simple with EasyRide. Because you check in with a swipe before your journey and check out again with a swipe afterwards. And at the end of the day, EasyRide calculates the lowest price.

This also works for bus, tram and boat.

 

[HSTEd]

The FAQ says the data usage is 200 kB per hour. So maybe it won't be constantly checking the location and therefore won't impact so much on the battery.

A metre accurate location using a UTM projection would require less than 64 bits.

20 bits for Easting/Westing, 25 bits for Northing/Southing and 6 bits for the UTM Zone.
Which is only 51 bits, add check values and you are getting it into a handful of bytes, and that is for global, rather than Switzerland only.

For Switzerland only you can delete the UTM zone and use zone 32, and add one extra bit onto the Easting/Westing figure.

So that takes us to 46 bits total.
48 with a pair of check bits. Or 6 bytes.

Excluding headers, you would be looking at 22kB/hr to check it every single second

So it looks like it does check continuously.

But we should definitely have a similar system in the UK..... and if it could be tied into free WiFi on trains it would enable checking what train the phone is aboard.

 

[Bletchleyite]

But we should definitely have a similar system in the UK..... and if it could be tied into free WiFi on trains it would enable checking what train the phone is aboard.

It seems a bit cack-handed and awkward (and possibly error prone) to me. I prefer buying a ticket and knowing its validity.

 

[Bletchleyite]

We already have the infrastructure for that in place: validators, gatelines, backend infrastructure, issuing infrastructure, et cetera.

Switzerland has an open system and isn't planning on changing that

You don't need gatelines to have touch-in and touch-out any more than you need them for paper ticketing - it's just done on the "honour method", or "self checking" as the Swiss would call it (Selbstkontrolle - the eye logo), i.e. it's up to you to do it properly and if you get caught not doing it's penalty fare time. The DLR in London is mostly not gated. You do need validators etc, though.

 

[Gerald Fiennes]

So, this is based on the Fairtiq app. When you board the first vehicle you set 'start' on the app and when you get off you set 'stop'. You are charged the end to end journey including all of the connections en route (I did Vevey Trolley - SBB - Bus in Thun). If you don't set start when you board = penalty fare. Not sure what happens if you don't set stop but presumably some maximum fare approach applies. The advantage of this system is that you can change your destination en route so you don't need to have a fixed end point in mind when you start. It's a great system.

This works in CH, because the fare system is (in general) very simple, ie. one way or return fares apply, including local connections and can be discounted by half fare cards. No Savers, Open Returns, Super Savers on Market Days only. Only one fare type, every day. If applied to the UK, some would like this and others would not...

 

[Bletchleyite]

In connection with their move from variable formation LHCS to fixed formation EMUs, SBB do now do Advances - so if you use this you'll miss out on those, but they are a minority thing.

 

[HSTEd]

Well I imagine you could still do temporal yield management with a system like this. They are already recording what times you travel over specific bits of track after all.