The Commuter Survival Guide

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ticket barriers

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COMMUTER SURVIVAL: barrier wars

Real commuters have season tickets or travel cards because it's much cheaper over a couple of months than buying tickets every day. In London, regular tube travellers have Oyster cards. You can therefore spot a novice train traveller as they have single train tickets. These take much longer to get through the barrier and often don't work. If it doesn't work once it will never work, but inexperienced train users will attempt to put their ticket through again. And again and again. The 'seek assistance' flashing message gets redder and redder, but still they persist. Human commuter traffic is constant and like a motorway, if someone stops, even for a couple of seconds, the backlog of frustrated human beings builds instantly. The single ticket user is oblivious to the civic uprising forming behind them.

Survival tips
When beginning to queue at the ticket barrier, watch out for novices as they'll slow you down. What they are wearing is a major clue. If they're dressed for the theatre, a football match, garden party whatever, and especially if they have a camera around their neck they'll be on a jolly or be a tourist, which in turn means they're not in a hurry to get anywhere. If they talk loudly, are fat and wear elasticated shorts they'll be American. If there are a lot of giggles and gum chewing they'll be teenagers on a shopping spree to Jack Wills. In each case the likelihood of going through without delay is minimal. Find a queue populated entirely by people wearing business attire and you'll sail through.

You'll also need to watch out for fare dodgers. What they do is join a quick moving queue and pretend to swipe their card and start to move forwards in anticipation of the barrier opening. As you follow them close behind, you then swipe your card which lets them through. By the time you get there the barrier has closed, even though it was opened with your card. You're then left stuck and in need of calling a barrierman because your card won't swipe twice and they've disappeared scot free.

food on trains

train toilets

complaints

dogs and other small animals

balance

ticket barriers

stuff to keep you entertained on the daily commute

COMMUTER SURVIVAL: house special please

COMMUTER SURVIVAL: you have been warned

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