If your phone’s battery runs out before you can show your electronic ticket to the train conductor you can expect to be hit with a fine of 750 kroner, Metroxpress reports.
DSB stopped selling the paper multi-trip ‘klippekorts’ on February 9, so increasing numbers of passengers are using the electronic replacement on their smartphone. But if the phone is unable to display the documentation for inspection, the national railway operator will not consider technical problems a valid excuse.
LA: Not all right
Villum Christensen, the transport spokesperson for opposition party Liberal Alliance, considers this to be out of order. “It’s definitely not all right to persecute law-abiding citizens in this way if they have a technical problem with their phone,” he said.
“When companies introduce these ticketing solutions – also to save resources – then they also have to take the risk in a responsible way if passengers, through no fault of their own, get in a jam.”
Per Østergaard Jacobsen, a CBS lecturer specialising in customer relations, agrees. “It’s very bizarre. It shows that DSB doesn’t care about its customers, when it makes it even more bothersome and expensive to be a commuter,” he said.
“They can say that it is the customer’s responsibility to charge their mobile, but iPhone’s aren’t renowned for their ability to keep a charge. Maybe they see it as a money-making machine.”
