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Comment by nonrandomstring | Hacker News Reader

> littered with them.

I don't see that. The ticket barriers are programmed to retain used tickets. And please lay-off the "contrarian" slurs, I'm just telling you what I see with my eyes each day. If you looked up from your phone you might notice too :)

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ScotRail have started to print tickets with QR codes on them, which unfortunately are an awkward size (far bigger than a credit card, even larger than a £20), come as a single strip without a perforated edge to tear, and are generally very low quality. I full expect these to become a common sight on the ground as they're not eaten by machines and difficult to store even in your wallet.

It’s a shame these have become more commonplace.

Northern started issuing them instead of cardboard tickets a few years ago and other TOCs followed along after Network Rail/Cubic finished adding barcode readers to ~all ticket barriers.

I understand why: paper barcode-only tickets are significantly cheaper than cardboard tickets (their lack of a magstripe allows any generic thermal printer to be used), but their larger form factor makes them a definite UX downgrade.

Ticket barriers that swallow tickets are not universal. In many cities tickets are reusable over a long period of time and contactless.

I see downvoters are happy to downvote facts, good going HN tonight.

Those aren't the tickets that would be littering the ground.

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