Agreed. This is actually a "why public systems fail" critique approaching from the left -- we assume systems need a cost to function correctly. For something like transit, collecting fares involves:
1) Systems and equipment to issue and collect fares -- boxes, kiosks, scanners, currency handling, staff to collect and deposit currency, arrangements with payment providers, educational materials about paying fares, websites with instructions on how to pay fares (often in multiple languages)
2) Systems to enforce fare payment -- humans, typically, to police the fares
3) Systems to analyze fare rates -- are fares too low, too high, are they being paid at the correct rates, do we need to publish new content on how much fares are changing this year
4) Queues to pay fares -- entering a bus or train requires a turnstile, tap, or other impediment that slows access
5) Systems to ensure everyone has access -- either fares price out the poorest, or we provide means for the poor to get reduced and free fares. Provide systems for workers to get fares subsidized through their workplaces.
These systems are really inefficient. I mean, they might be run efficiently, but their existence is itself an inefficiency. If we believe transit is useful and valuable, we could simply pay for it once in taxes. Cutting out all the fare maintenance systems would save a huge amount of money, which could be spent on maintenance, comfort, cleaning, additional routes, etc. and the experience would be much nicer (hop on/hop off whenever you need).
Hamburg's busses don't have coin boxes or sell tickets/fares? You don't have any mechanism that requires swiping a card, tapping a device, showing a card/ticket to an operator, or otherwise proving you have, in fact, purchased a fare?
It's pretty quick, but on the busiest bus routes it slows things down.
Edit: Reading up, it looks like they don't really have those things, and rely on a combination of very infrequent inspectors (which do slow things and cost money) and the honor system.
In Switzerland there are no gates or a need for "showing a card/ticket to an operator, or otherwise proving you have, in fact, purchased a fare".
You just enter the bus/train/tram vehicle. Maybe a ticket controllant comes, maybe not (most often they dont come and check)
EDIT: To get a ticket you simple open the app and "check in". When you leave the transport you open the app and "check out". At the end of the day the system calculated the cheapest ticket for you based on that 24h period. This works across the entire country. From local buses to high speed intercity rail
You are haltingly recapitulating Evgeny Morozov's essay "Why You Should Ride the Metro in Berlin" (which is really about public transit in a large portion of Europe).
The inspectors don't slow things down. (They do cause other more serious issues, but still far less than anywhere in the US.)
1) Systems and equipment to issue and collect fares -- boxes, kiosks, scanners, currency handling, staff to collect and deposit currency, arrangements with payment providers, educational materials about paying fares, websites with instructions on how to pay fares (often in multiple languages)
2) Systems to enforce fare payment -- humans, typically, to police the fares
3) Systems to analyze fare rates -- are fares too low, too high, are they being paid at the correct rates, do we need to publish new content on how much fares are changing this year
4) Queues to pay fares -- entering a bus or train requires a turnstile, tap, or other impediment that slows access
5) Systems to ensure everyone has access -- either fares price out the poorest, or we provide means for the poor to get reduced and free fares. Provide systems for workers to get fares subsidized through their workplaces.
These systems are really inefficient. I mean, they might be run efficiently, but their existence is itself an inefficiency. If we believe transit is useful and valuable, we could simply pay for it once in taxes. Cutting out all the fare maintenance systems would save a huge amount of money, which could be spent on maintenance, comfort, cleaning, additional routes, etc. and the experience would be much nicer (hop on/hop off whenever you need).