The Anonymous Widower

Dutch Train Tickets

I think it is true to say, that Dutch train tickets and how you purchase them will be rather strange to many British travellers.

The use of credit cards is actively discouraged and for example, you’ll pay a surcharge if you can find a machine that accepts cash or credit cards.

No machine seems to accept notes.

At least at a few stations, like Den Haag Central and Schipol, there will be a ticket office, but I never found it at Den Haag HS.

I don’t know what you do there, if you haven’t got a debit card!

I did buy a ticket at Den Haag Central ticket office, but I was in a queue for twenty minutes. Just imagine, the flak a UK train company would get if you had to wait that length of time for a ticket.  And we’re supposed to like queues!

I’ve used machines extensively in Italy and the Dutch system is certainly inferior. It’s also very foreigner friendly with several languages being shown.  The Dutch use just two; Dutch and English.

On my way out at Schipol, I met a student from Delft University, who was researching the ticketing on Dutch trains. He was effectively being a ticketing advisor to all of the foreigners coming into the airport and wanting to take a train from the airport. When I last came into Gatwick, there were three Transport for London employees to make sure travellers got the right ticket advice.

Is it rather arrogant to expect visitors to your country to immediately know how buy tickets in a language they’ve never seen before, from a strange machine, which won’t accept cash or credit cards? A New Yorker wouldn’t be able to pop back to get his debit card!

This afternoon I was in Walthamstow Central station and gave the ticket machine a good once-over. The first thing you notice is that the UK machine, as are the Italian ones I remember, is very much bigger than the equivalent Dutch machine. but then it accepts coins and notes, as well as most credit and debit cards. It also deals with a lot more operations, like collecting tickets bought on-line.

The Dutch machine is a lot simpler and has much less glitz, so I suspect it was designed down to a price and as it looks cheap and nasty on the outside, I suspect the inside isn’t very bright.

After all it does the same thing as the British machine does and just issues you with a small piece of card.

The on-line tickets are all print yourself jobs on a sheet of A4 paper. In theory print at home tickets are one of those ideas that looks good on paper, but in practice could be a serious nuisance and especially at times, when it matters. Printers do run out of paper and ink and just suppose you book a ticket in a hotel room on your laptop.

When I bought the ticket for Brussels to Den Haag, I got one ticket for each leg of the journey.  I didn’t have a problem, but the layout of the information like carriage and seat number is not good and I had to get someone to tell me the latter, as I got it wrong and was going to the wrong seat.

On the high speed train, you need a reservation and walk-up tickets seem very discouraged.  Not having tried it, I wouldn’t know and if anybody has, I’d like to know.

But Dutch train ticketing seems to be a system designed to be cheap to run and easier for the company, than the customers. The very fact that two months ago, one ticket got me from London to The Hague and this week it was three tickets is surely a retrograde step.

They may be very last century, but I’m beginning to like the simple card tickets designed by British Rail more and more.

January 10, 2013 - Posted by AnonW | Transport/Travel | The Netherlands, Ticketing, Trains