Public transport ticketing systems in many cities are overly complex and confusing, leading to a cognitive burden on users.

🆕 blog! “Public Transport - Don't Make Me Think!” In the last year, I've been through over a dozen cities and used public transport in all of them. It is wild just how confusing and complex buying a ticket can be. While some cities obviously take a user-centred approach to ticketing, others appear to take a Kafkaesque delight in a bureaucratic maze of zones, apps, and intricate… 👀 Read more: https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2026/07/public-transport-dont-make-me-think/ ⸻ #usability

Public Transport - Don't Make Me Think! https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2026/07/public-transport-dont-make-me-think/ In the last year, I've been through over a dozen cities and used public transport in all of them. It is wild just how confusing and complex buying a ticket can be. While some cities obviously take a user-centred approach to ticketing, others appear to take a Kafkaesque delight in a bureaucratic maze of zones, apps, and intricate restrictions. One of the seminal texts in computer systems design is "Don't Make Me Think". Every time a service forces the user into making a decision, it is placing a cognitive burden on them. Computers' jobs are to make things easier for us fleshy meatbags. There are some intractable problems with navigating unfamiliar spaces (looking at you Kyoto Station!) and a transport authority can't publish signs and make announcements in every conceivable language, but there's one thing they can control - ticketing. Let me take you through some of the public transport ticket experiences I had - and explain how easy or hard they were to use. Basel, Switzerland - free Upon checking in to our hotel I was given a free Basel Card. It entitled me to free public transport across the city. Zero extra cost. I didn't have to remember to take a physical card with me - the details were emailed as a PDF directly from the hotel on check-in. I didn't have to show the bus driver when I entered a tram. If a ticket inspector was present, they could have asked to scan it. This is close to the platonic ideal of "Don't Make Me Think" public transport. I didn't have to work out zones, fares, or timings. I didn't need to interact with people or machines. I didn't worry that I was somehow doing it wrong and was going to get shouted at. Milano, Italy - contactless I tapped my credit card on the reader. Whether it was a bus, tram, or metro the process was the same. Tap, wait a few milliseconds, beep. On the metro the gates opened automatically. On the tram, I just sat down after the beep. The fares have a bit of complexity based on how frequently you travel. If you catch another bus within 90 minutes it only counts as one fare. I didn't care because the daily price was capped. Once I'd taken a few journeys it wasn't going to cost me any more. With a fee-free credit card it was simplicity itself. If I had been on an extremely tight budget, I might have done some thinking - but as the daily cap was less than the price of a cocktail, I didn't bother. Warsaw - paper ticket validation I walked up to a touchscreen kiosk, selected the 🇬🇧 flag, and bought a 3 day paper ticket for a few € using contactless. The machine spat out a small paper ticket. I hopped onto a tram, shoved the ticket in a slot and the machine printed a timestamp on it. Well, in theory. It didn't work the first few times for inscrutable reasons. From then on, I didn't have to do anything. I jumped on whatever public transport I wanted. Only once did a ticket inspector come round demanding to see everyone's proof of validity. The ticket was a slightly inconvenient size for my wallet - being much smaller than a credit card - and I think the kiosk should have validated it automatically. But, for general transport purposes, it was great at not forcing me to think. Tallinn - scan the app Install an app, choose ticket type, pay, done. Every time I entered public transport, open the app, click the ticket, wave the resultant QR over a scanner. Obviously choosing a ticket type is a little thinky. Do I want a single ticket, a day pass, something longer? I'm not averse to installing an app when necessary. Thankfully, this transit app worked on GrapheneOS. There was an optional registration step which I skipped because I was unlikely to come back any time soon. Riga - scan the bus OK, this was just weird! Much like above, install app, choose ticket, pay. Despite buying an all-you-can-eat ticket, I still had to register on every bus/tram I got on. That meant hopping on, finding a QR code, opening the app, and trying to scan it while the driver attempted a new land-speed record. Melbourne - annoying We wanted to visit a mate in the suburbs of Melbs. For this we needed to buy a plastic card. We then needed to load it up with (I think) multiples of $5. Our return fare was about $7.50. So our actual journey cost something like double what the fare was. There was no obvious way to get a refund for the credit amount, nor for the cards. So we gave them to a friend to distribute to any other tourists she hosted. Paris - ridiculous Fuck Paris. The only way to buy a metro ticket is to download an app. Fair enough. But, after downloading the app it tells you to install another app! What the actual fuck? A convoluted, messy, and frustrating situation which has resulted in awful reviews for them. Trains and metro travel require separate tickets at different prices. You can't easily hop from one to another. You need to think carefully about the route you're taking. A more convoluted route may be significantly cheaper because it doesn't involve swapping between services. Madness! The ticket readers use your phone's NFC chip to validate. So there's no technical reason why they can't just use contactless payment cards. To be fair, change is coming… in 2030! Japan Last year we took a trip to Tokyo, Osaka, Hiroshima, and Kyoto. We picked up a physical Suica card (because the digital one only works with iPhone). We topped up the card with cash (which was a bit of a pain). An annoying start - but from then on it was seamless. The same card worked on trains, busses, and trams in all the cities we visited! Brilliant! We didn't need to think at all. Compare that to Germany where every city has its own special app and it was always a pain to remember which one to open. I understand that Japan's public transport system now accepts foreign contactless cards - which should make things easier for travellers. So what's best? In an ideal world, all public transport would be free and plentiful. In our less-than-ideal reality, it seems obvious to me that public transport should above all be simple. Tourists don't want to grapple with the complexities of zones, split tickets, random charges, and a different app for each city. Regular travellers don't want yet another piece of plastic tat in their wallets, or to work out in advance what precise combination of journeys they need to take in order to optimise their spending. One app is fine. Having to install a different app for each city you visit - even within the same country! - is infuriating. Visitors should not have to think about how, where, when, or why they need to validate their tickets. Nor should anyone need to figure out which modes of transport are inclusive or not. For the casual visitor, contactless payment with a daily / weekly cap is the simplest possible charging mechanism. It's cheaper for the cities to not have to build, develop, and support apps. If you've come across a better public transport ticketing system - please let me know in the comments. #usability