London Banter - View Single Post

Richard · December 8th 03, 10:24 PM posted to uk.transport.london

On Fri, 05 Dec 2003 21:49:10 -0000, (Mark Brader) wrote:
Further, since the MUCTC/SCTUM chose to mimic the Paris Metro in various
respects, this suggests that Paris may also have been using magnetic-
stripe tickets by the mid-1960s. However, unless the Paris tickets
have changed size and shape since then, Montreal didn't copy that;
the Paris ones I've used (since 1985) are about Edmondson size, whereas
the Montreal ones I remember are smaller and squarer, like normal North
American transit tickets. So maybe Montreal didn't copy the use of
magnetic stripes from Paris either, in which case I have no idea when
they were first used in Paris.

The excellent "Metro Insolite" by Clive Lamming (Parigramme, 2001) has
a page about the demise of the poinconneur - the person who sat at the
bottom of the stairs clipping thousands of tickets a day. A picture
from 1972 shows barriers, but with the old bus-style validators
perched awkwardly on top. I expect these just printed on the ticket.

The Ascom web site says that the contract for magnetic ticketing was
awarded to Crouzet (now Ascom) by 1968 and the equipment was in
service in 1969 - the year the first section of the RER opened. It
seems that it took a few more years more to reach the "real" metro.

Another good book, "La Patrimoine de la RATP" (Flohic Editions, 1996?)
has many interesting photos of older tickets but not much about the
use of magnetic tickets. It does show how the RATP used the stripy
appearance of the ticket in several different ways in their
advertising, including their "2eme voiture" (2nd car) campaign.

To bring this post back to London, I just about remember the old
ticket machines on the underground, with one machine (or more) for
each fare. The tickets were a bit sticky on the oxide side weren't
they? This subject definitely deserves a book...

Richard.