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December 13, 2004

DC Metro Farecard machine

Check out Thomas Vander Wal’s photo of Washington, DC’s Metro Farecard machines. I rode the Metro twice a day for most of high school, and so I used Farecard machines all the time. But when I was home the other week for Thanksgiving, I was embarrassingly totally frustrated when I went to buy my card. I had to ask my Dad (who’s ridden the Metro since forever) to come over and show me what to do. It’s hard to believe, but this picture actually doesn’t show some other buttons, instructions, and starting points, as well as steps two and three of the main buying funnel. It is a riot of confusion.

Update: Thomas took two more pictures since we chatted last night: one of the full front of the “new style” Farecard machines, and another of the “old style” brown-on-brown kind I remember using in high school with a much simpler UI.

Posted by Andrew at December 13, 2004 08:56 PM

Comments

Here’s another highly confusing ticket machine, complete with annotations, courtesy of Tom Coates. The worst part is that you have to select the type of ticket first, but the machine makes it look like that’s the second thing you do. I can’t tell you how many pissed off commuters I’ve seen use these things.

Posted by: Joshua Kaufman [TypeKey Profile Page] at December 14, 2004 04:24 PM

I have uploaded a full picture of the horrible METRO farecard machine and one of the more simple METRO farecard machines. Both are in use and both are in every station. There seems to be a third machine, but I could not find one today between home and work.

Posted by: vanderwal [TypeKey Profile Page] at December 14, 2004 09:21 PM

include recent photographs of dc/ac machines

Posted by: aneesh at May 21, 2005 02:20 AM