{"id":814,"date":"2008-03-04T22:55:42","date_gmt":"2008-03-04T20:55:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.breigh.com\/wordpress\/archives\/814"},"modified":"2008-08-07T20:37:49","modified_gmt":"2008-08-07T18:37:49","slug":"booo-ov-chipkaart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.canadutch.nl\/blog\/archives\/814","title":{"rendered":"Booo! OV Chipkaart"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"ov<\/a> The new-ish thing for public transit here in Rotterdam is the OV Chipkaart.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 It’s a card that you can charge up with credit and use on the public transit to get around the city.<\/p>\n

In the past we used something called a strippenkaart which was a long paper thing sectioned into blocks or ‘strips’.\u00a0 Depending on how many zones you were travelling, you’d stamp a certain amount of strips.\u00a0 It was easy enough really and I never really minded.\u00a0 The OV Chipkaart was designed to make it even easier though, and from what I can tell… it’s failing.<\/p>\n

The main difference is that not only do you have to swipe the card when you enter the public transit, but also when you are getting out, this is where I have a problem.<\/p>\n

The strippenkaart was easy, if you forgot to stamp it (and didn’t get caught) you got a free ride.\u00a0 With the OV Chipkaart, if you forget going in or out you pay \u20ac4 regardless of how far you go!\u00a0 When you swipe the card when you get on the tram, for example, it will deduct \u20ac4 from your card.\u00a0 Then when you swipe it again getting out it calculates the length of time and distance you have travelled, then credits your card again for the difference.\u00a0 So if you swipe it on the way in, then forget on the way out, you are out the full \u20ac4.\u00a0 The same goes for the other way around.\u00a0 If you forget to swipe going in then swipe going out, it takes off the \u20ac4 and never gets the second swipe to figure the difference.<\/p>\n

I know it probably doesn’t sound that difficult to swipe in and out but when you are used to the strippenkaart and have spent years only having to punch that on the way in, it’s not difficult to forget the whole checking out thing.<\/p>\n

Then there’s the crowds.\u00a0 It’s not so bad when you are getting on the tram, you can usually slow down for a sec to swipe the card or hang around the doorway to do it just before sitting down.\u00a0 Getting out is different, everyone seems to be in such a hurry to get off all things public transit, you are lucky if you manage to reach out and swipe your card as you get shoved out in the mass.<\/p>\n

I’m sure this is working out to be pretty sweet financially for the government but I think there must be a lot of other disgruntled travellers in this city who also keep spending \u20ac4 for a 10 minute ride.<\/p>\n

You can also get something called a Maandkaart.\u00a0 It’s a set cost and it allows you to travel within certain zones unlimited.\u00a0 You get your photo taken and put on this card and there is no punching, no swiping, nothing.\u00a0 You just carry it with you and show it if someone checks it along the way.<\/p>\n

I’m so getting one of those this weekend.\u00a0 Enough of this OV Chipkaart crap.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The new-ish thing for public transit here in Rotterdam is the OV Chipkaart.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 It’s a card that you can charge up with credit and use on the public transit to get around the city. In the past we used something called a strippenkaart which was a long paper thing sectioned into blocks or ‘strips’.\u00a0 Depending …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":812,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,6],"tags":[33,143,57,73],"class_list":["post-814","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","","category-life-in-nl","category-tantrums-rants","tag-netherlands","tag-public-transit","tag-rants","tag-rotterdam"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.canadutch.nl\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/814","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.canadutch.nl\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.canadutch.nl\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.canadutch.nl\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.canadutch.nl\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=814"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.canadutch.nl\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/814\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1293,"href":"https:\/\/www.canadutch.nl\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/814\/revisions\/1293"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.canadutch.nl\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/812"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.canadutch.nl\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=814"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.canadutch.nl\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=814"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.canadutch.nl\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=814"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}