Comment by throwaway2037
5 hours ago
> Swiss metro
I guess you mean they don't have fare gates? I quickly Googled about it and found this article: https://lenews.ch/2025/03/21/the-rapid-rise-of-fare-dodging-...
To quote: "In 2024, more than 1 million cases of fare evasion were recorded in Switzerland, reported RTS. The number has more than doubled since 2019."
High trust, eh? Here is a better explanation: Someone smart did the math and discovered that for many Swiss mass transit systems (there are many), they could get better overall revenue by (1) removing the expense of buying and maintaining fare gates, and (2) adding fare dodging penalties and enforcement staff. FYI: Berlin is similar.
And a meta-point on top of the objectively better revenue argument swinging back to the other point about honor: if some or even most of the people involved in the honor system believe it works for the purpose of maintaining honor between each other, then it will encourage honorable behavior, even when there's significant dishonorable behavior.
The fact that most people don't know that the honor system is about money not honor is part of what makes the money part of the honor system work.
This is the standard across Europe outside of a few metropoles (really is there anywhere else in Europe outside Paris & London that does this?)