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Tristan Miller · July 13th 10, 07:51 PM posted to uk.transport.london

Greetings.

In article news:dd2e1bf6-be6b-4e29-96ba-
, Mizter T wrote:
On Jul 13, 6:18 pm, Tristan Miller
wrote:

In article , Ian Jelf
wrote:

In message , Tristan Miller
writes

* The pricing is simple: it's 26 RUB for each journey, regardless of
distance or number of interchanges.

How do you buy tickets? Just individually at the ticket office? Is
there anything like Oyster or - more usefully for us - a Paris-style
Carnet?

I don't have any experience buying tickets, as my girlfriend gave me a
card good for ten trips. It was an ordinary-looking paper card that
must have had some embedded magnetic strip or chip in it; just like in
London you swiped it at the entrance to the station, and a display on
the pillar told you how many trips you had remaining. [...]

You tapped it on a reader, like an Oyster card, or shoved it in a
slot, like a paper ticket?

For the Metro, you tap your paper card on a reader, just like an Oyster
card. The light on the reader changes from red to green, and an LED
display tells you how many journeys you have left on your card. For the
buses, you insert your paper card into a slot; the machine then sucks it
in, prints something on the back, spits it back out again, and unlocks the
turnstile.

[...] This card was not valid on the
buses, which used separate single-use tickets (again, purchased for me
in advance by my girlfriend, whence I know not) which were validated
upon boarding. The marshrutkas are cash-only; you pay the driver 25
RUB. When several people board at once, rather than pay the driver
individually, you just give your fare to the passenger sitting next to
you, who passes it on. Whoever sits closest to the driver ends up with a
big wad of cash which they give the driver, telling him how many
passengers it's for.

So perhaps best for newcomers to try and sit at the back!

Well, that has its disadvantages as well. The marshrutkas stop only on
demand, so if you're in the back you'll have to yell out to the driver, in
whatever mangled Russian you can muster, when you want him to stop. (There
are no bells or buttons to signal a stop; it's all done orally.) In Moscow
I got my girlfriend to do the yelling; when I took the marshrutkas in St.
Petersburg in 2008 as a solo traveller, I just yelled out "Stop!" and that
seemed to work. (I saw the word "стоп" on various traffic signs, so I
figured it would be understandable even if it wasn't the usual way of
making the request.)

Very interesting post about the Moscow Metro, thanks - hasn't been
anything along these lines here for a while. Any other broader Moscow
recommendations that stand out to you as worthy of imparting to us utl-
ites? Afraid I'm not going there imminently, but would love to at some
point in the future.

Well, I can't think of anything off the top of my head, but if anyone has
questions feel free to ask. Had I known people would find this sort of
post so interesting I would have written up some critiques of the Budapest
and Toronto subways as well. I used to live in each of those cities,
though years ago; my recollections are now hazy and out of date.

Regards,
Tristan

--
_
_V.-o Tristan Miller Space is limited
/ |`-' -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- In a haiku, so it's hard
(7_\\ http://www.nothingisreal.com/ To finish what you