Addio, paper vaporetto tickets, the ACTV is adapting the most advanced smart card ticketing system in Europe, according to the announcement: one magnetized pass will take you anywhere in the system, land or sea, depending on the options you’ve purchased, and can be topped up at will. We won’t show them to anyone as we board, we’ll just be sliding and beeping, like the Paris Métro without the stairs. And it won’t be just for transport: they have plans to include options for museum entrances, events, and more.
The name’s Imob.venezia, thank you very much, and was introduced with much fanfare last week. The system will be phased in little by little, operational from November and paper eliminated by the end of March, 2008…it can’t come too soon for me.
Of course, this doesn’t make figuring out how to get from the Zattere to San Zaccaria without going to Giudecca any less confusing…but it’s the little things. Bravi, bravi.
I LIKE the paper tickets! They can be pasted into a travel diary to tell tales of the happy times when you realised you were on the wrong vap, or the even happier time when you FINALLY got busted for having no ticket after all those free rides!
Aime, better hold on to them then! Just think how much more valuable they’ll be once they’re no more…
I love the name: I mob! Like Venice needs more mobs….. I won’t have any trouble remembering it.
So how will the vaporetto attendants bust people for not having a ticket if it’s not a paper with a tick out of it?
(Love this site by the way. Just found it)