Tonight, upon alighting from the tram I was brusquely greeted by a commando of burly and surly ticket inspectors who were waiting outside, eager to do their job that is to pester paying customers and occasionally to nab the odd fare-dodger. I was quite in a hurry and so even more peeved by this new kind of assault that cost me valuable time, as I had to search for my ZVV-card which I did not have readily available.

Quite aside from the rudeness of the intervention, though, I was surprised that ticket inspectors are apparently authorised to stop people even after they have physically left the precincts of a station or a vehicle of the transport network. This would put them on a par with policemen and other law enforcers who have the authority to apprehend people in public areas. Any confirmation of the legality of this?

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Why is the legality so important? It is an ethical matter. Passengers must have tickets.

Enforcement benefits all honest travelers. I support all measures to stop ticket-less travel and stop fares rising because of falling ticket revenues.

Assuming you don't have a ticket, how do they prove you rode a train, tram or whatever? I agree with Goldtop concerning enforcement, but I doubt if that can be done the way Mr. Graben tells us. I'm afraid there is a gray zone. Being caught without a ticket on a train is one thing. Being stopped without a ticket outside, let alone on the way out of the station, leaves a bad taste. Do they video you on the way out to nail you down? Greetings from Big Brother...

Do you surmise this purely from your recent experience? Or have you come across some regulation that supoorts this idea?

According to the ZVV guidelines, they are allowed to check for valid tickets when people have just gotten off the tram if the ticket inspection was announced in the tram before. This enables them to catch people without valid tickets who slip off as soon as any ticket inspectors are sighted. I guess you must have looked pretty suspicious. Seriously, though, it doesn't sound like you knew about an inspection but rather, they were waiting to get on and announce the inspection, so they were going against their own regulations.

Just saw the previous post, so: http://www.zvv.ch/export/sites/defau...ntrolle_08.pdf.

It's my understanding 'in transit' authorities here have the same powers as Transport Police, so yeah, good luck in getting away with it

It works like this. As the tram/bus pulls into the stop, the driver announces "have your tickets ready". The tram/bus stops and a squad of inspectors board the vehicle. Another squad receives all disembarking passengers and checks their tickets. No video, no Big Brother. Just checking tickets inside and at the door.

Yep, I can confirm that it works exactly as Goldtop described in Lausanne, too. Pretty soon you'll get to recognize the uniforms of the inspectors and will be reaching for your ticket a lot quicker once you know what to expect and can recognize what's going on a bit sooner, and then it really shouldn't hold you up at all. I think that the system works well.

I'm often surprised at the frequency with which they catch people without a ticket in Lausanne - it must be at least one in four times when I see them check everyone on the bus that they find someone to give a fine too. Maybe people are more rule-abiding in Zurich, and nearly everyone always has a ticket there, but in Lausanne there seems to be a fair number of violators who keep the inspectors busy.

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Don't forget that at least in Zürich you have a very good chance of being checked by a plain clothes inspector. In fact most of the times I've been checked on trams it's been by a plain clothes guy. Does seem, however, that it tends to be at night that these guys operate.

Paragraph 7.15. "Grosskontrolle": "[...] die Kontrolle findet auch bei aussteigenden Fahrgästen sowie im Umkreis der Fahrzeugtüren auf der Haltestelle statt."

and paragraph 7.441: "Bei im Fahrzeug angekündigten Fahrausweis- / Grosskontrollen dürfen die Fahrgäste während des Aussteigens und im Umkreis der Fahrzeugtüren auch auf der Haltestelle kontrolliert werden. Bereits im Fahrzeug angesprochene Fahrgäste dürfen im Umkreis der Fahrzeugtüren auch auf der Haltestelle kontrolliert werden."

To answer the question about whether the ticket inspection had been announced, that may have been the case. I had headphones on and was listening to music so I was not able to tell.

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I love that the plain clothes guys are so easy to spot at the tram stop (in Basel anyway).

You've usually got four men all desperately trying to look as though they don't know each other. They all have a big bulge under their coat where their bum bag/computer thingy is hanging from their belt, and at least one aways seems to permanently on his mobile.

And every inspector I've seen has that 'certain' dress sense. I wonder if there is a special TNW wardrobe for tram police.

I like to show them my pass while they're still stood at the stop.

In a related matter, there is an article in today's Tagesanzeiger which warns that one can be fined for getting on or off a first-class carriage or even walking through it with a second-class ticket: http://www.tagesanzeiger.ch/schweiz/...story/15793723

I got inspected yesterday and hadn't noticed that the travel card expired two days earlier. The woman looked at my card and then asked a question. I took my earphones out and asked her to repeat and she asked where I travelled from I told her and then she said, "Danke", and moved on. Phew.

Another time, years ago, a similar thing happend near the airport, but this time my monthly ticket had expired the prior day. I looked so shocked that my ticket had expired, that the inspectors believed me and escorted me to the ticket machine to witness me buying a new ticket so that there was no gap between dates of tickets.

that's really terrible!

I'm not sure that legality is really on their minds when they do this. I was walking up the hill towards my house in Witikon last week, and I saw what looked like big police operation. They had blocked one lane off of the road up the hill, there were reflective jackets everywhere and flashing Polizei warning triangles, two police vans and a police car.

Fascinated, I stopped to watch.

I thought it might be a drug bust or a hostage situation, as they had stopped a couple of cars and two buses. Then I saw along with the 15 policemen in their flourescent jackets there were about 10 VBZ inspectors in their blue bommer jackets, and peaked caps. As buses arrived at the Carl-Spittelerstr stop, three VBZ would dive into each door, backed up by a couple of police, and split the passengers into valid ticket holders and Schwarzfahrers. No mercy was shown to the dammned, but they were kind enough to escort old dears across the road to the cash point to allow them to pay the fine on the spot.
The cars had been stopped because people had jumped out of the bus into a waiting car, and in one case I think, tried to ignore the inspectors and drive off.
Not sure if I would call that a great use of police resources.

Cheers

Jim

Worse has happened to me. I'd be too bitter if I got into details. Depends on whom you get and if they like the way you look, but I've been screwed twice.

Wow, I have never seen anything like this... did they at least arrest anybody, look for drugs or was this only concentrated at the bus?

So you had a ticket but had to pay anyway?

Brutal!


I always get on the 1st class cars. Either that or miss the train.

I've always seen people standing in the car entrance area of the first class with second class tickets. Controller never made an issue of it.

I believe they get vouchers for www.fundgarderobe.ch

Some ticket-less passengers become aggressive. The police presence prevents ugly situations. And if there is no crime or crisis happening elsewhere. then the police can help keeping fares down.