Vienna has an excellent public transport system and tickets are reasonable cheap, so many people living in Vienna have an annual ticket and there are very few ticket inspectors called “Schwarzkappler”.
Some people even considered starting an insurance that pays the extra fees if you get caught.
Although I use the subway nearly daily it happens sometimes that i don’t meet a ticket inspector for months. But sometimes you meet them everytime you enter the subway. There seems to be a rule of thumb that in the week before university starts or in the first week of the university holidays all employees of the Wiener Linien are trying to catch fare dodgers. (I wonder what they are doing the rest of the time).
From my experience the “safest” vehicle is the tram, especially in the Rush hour. Next is the S-Bahn in the City, as most of the �BB inspectors are starting to control tickets shortly before the S-Bahn leaves the City (Zone 100). Buses are only safe in the Rushhour, and most dangerous is the subway.
The most dangerous stations are Schottentor, Karlsplatz and L�ngenfeldgasse, because there are very few exits for a lot of people changing trains.
3 thoughts on “Fare dodging in Vienna”
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Before I was checked about two weeks ago I was check-free for over 2 years… and this although last year I had no ticket for whole July 🙂
Quite random. Well, now it is too much stress to always keep attention when you see strange passengers; you really see (or better: feel) the Schwarzkappler with some experience. So I now always pay for the service that I use. Guess I’m getting older.
Well, the situation in Linz is quite different: the people who do the checks are always the same 5 to 7 “usual suspects”. I usually have one check per week. Today, I was going by tram with a friend, and there were some juveniles without tickets. When they saw one of those “usual suspects”, they jumped out of the tram. The inspectors acted quite brutally by trying to hunt them down with holding and kicking them. My friend then said that they were working with Mafia methods. They even fucking controlled the “Grundwehrdiener” in his uniform, even while they have a free ride when they wear their uniform! The last thing I want to mention was that the inspectors were calling themselves “Beamte” and what they’re doing an “Amtshandlung”. Obviously, they’re not, they’re all from a private “security” company (Securitas). Oh, I wish they would get into troubles due to “Amtsanma�ung”…
Fare dodging is crime, just like stealing.
It’s only right that those who get caught have to pay a penalty, and, as is the case in some places, face criminal charges in case they choose not to pay or repeat their free riding.
Peter