On 29/03/2015 23:45, Clive Page wrote:

On 29/03/2015 12:13, Clank wrote:
Personally, whenever I arrive in a foreign city for the first time I
always use ticket machines instead of windows because (a) there's a
much higher chance the machine will speak my language and (b) even
if it doesn't, it's unlikely to make fun of my accent.

I've received some useful pronunciation lessons from ticket clerks - if
one is open, willing and smiling it doesn't normally result in humiliation!


I appreciate anecdote doesn't make data though .

Well so do I. But in two cities in the last few years (Paris and
Rotterdam) I've found machines which won't take British credit or debit
cards and I had to resort to feeding in literally dozens of small coins
to buy my tickets. Fortunately I had just enough, but many tourists
will have had experiences like this and decide a human is more helpful
than a machine.

I haven't come across an issue with UK cards in Paris (either RATP or
SNCF machines). They don't take notes though.


But in the case of King's Cross, they take some trouble on Eurostar to
push sales of Oyster cards, and TfL also encourage their use by having
cash fares which are many times that of the Oyster fare. So I'm baffled
as to why the queues are so long, but it's a fact that they are.

Lots of people simply don't think about it until they arrive.