Monday, June 07, 2004
Tram Scam
Temptation, deceit and suspicion hang thick in the air on the trams here in The Hague, particularly if you are playing The Tram Scam.
Trams here, operated by a private corporation called HTM, run on the honor system. Rather than paying at the entrance to an underground system (all these light trains are above ground) or paying the driver as you enter (like on the buses here), you are responsible for stamping your own ticket. Riding requires the purchase of a strippenkaart, a strip of cardstock with various horizontal divisions, or strips. The longest strippenkaarten have 45 strips on them and sell for 18 euros 90 cents. Smaller cards are available with fewer strips.
When you get on the tram, you stamp the number of strips appropriate for your journey by folding the strippenkaart back and inserting it into the stamping machine. The rate is one strip per zone, plus an extra strip. For instance, we live in Zone 5410. For us to ride to the Centrum (downtown) or to either of the two train stations in neighboring Zone 5400, we must stamp three strips by counting three down from the last stamp, folding the strippenkaart and putting it into the machine. The machine places a stamp on the strippenkaart that notes the zone, the time, the date and the number of the machine. You stamp the strippenkaart, sit down, and wait for your stop.
Here is where the temptation comes in: Nobody is watching you stamp your strippenkaart. The driver doesn't care, and there are no guards near the machines. It's all on you, should you choose to be an honest and forthright tram traveler. Tempting, no? Why stamp the ticket at all?
Because to avoid stamping is to risk financial penalty and, worse, withering public humiliation. Your tram might be raided by a group of people in various forms of green or red HTM garb, people I'll call "the HTMers". All of a sudden one day, you'll see a group of tram riders quietly duck out the back door as these guys get on. By the time you've turned back around, one of the HTMers is in your face, demanding to see your strippenkaart. Fail to produce one, and be subject to a 30-euro charge right there on the spot, a thorough tongue-lashing, and (sometimes) immediate ejectment from the tram, wherever you might be.
These raids are seemingly fairly random, though a few ugly patterns tend to emerge to the tram veteran. I rode the tram maybe 20 times before I was ever asked to produce a strippenkaart. Since then, I have been confronted on maybe four occasions, at times ranging from late on a Thursday night to early on a Sunday morning (when the number of HTMers outnumbered the number of tram riders on the 11). HTM is more predictable geographically than it is chronologically, however. I have never been checked in our Zone, 5410, only in the zone in the center of town, 5400. Racially, these zones are as different as night and day, one might say. Fifty-four hundred is home to many of The Hague's recent immigrants from North Africa and the Middle East. There have been times when the brown faces on the tram have been checked and the HTMers didn't give me a second look. I've even seen three HTMers, essentially security guards for a private corporation, corner a (brown) guy with no strippenkaart and refuse to let him leave until three stops after his intended destination. Sheryl has run into whole checkpoints in front of the vast, ethnic open-air market on Tram 11 and in front of the railstation Hollands-Spoor, both places always heavily populated by immigrants. During such operations, you can't get on or off the tram without showing your strippenkaart.
Sinister enforcement aside, however, one is still tempted to simply not pay. I've given into the temptation more than once. It's not always deliberate, but more of a split-second hesitation in the moment before you reach for your wallet to retrieve the strippenkaart. Inaction becomes defiance; before you know it, you're already sitting down, strippenkaart pristine in your wallet, and you're a scofflaw. One begins to find completely specious reasons to justify why he hasn't paid, things like, "This country has ripped me off enough, so I'm taking this one from it!" Irrational rants like this.
My friend and fellow intern Sonja, on the other hand, played the game quite deliberately. As a student and unpaid intern, she was perpetually broke, but was required to ride the tram from her apartment in 5400 to the ICTY in 5410. She could always rely on her charm and gregariousness to get her through. The "dumb tourist" tactic works for a time, and after that, she would resort to good-natured begging in response to their stern admonishments. She ususally got away scot-free in the face of the HTMers' wrath, and once talked down the fine to the few euros she had in her pocket.
The uneven book "Undutchables" suggests placing a bit of tape over the strips before stamping them, so that the tape can be removed and the strippenkaart reused. This implies a level of sophistication that could prove quite damning once confronted. One could not produce such a forged document and still play the dumb tourist, for instance. There's no way you're avoiding a fine with a doctored strippenkaart. The better tactic is to have a story in mind for when it happens.
This is not to say that Sheryl and I are serial shirkers of our responsibility. Normally, we pay, though one can be lulled into a sense of complacancy. And that's just what they're counting on.
A couple of weeks back, Sheryl got caught. She got on the tram with Sofia and Dario in his stroller and parked in the designated stroller-parking area. The machine nearest her was broken, so stamping her strippenkaart would have required leaving Dario alone while she walked to one of the other two machines on the tram, something she was not willing to do. Besides, she figured, what are the chances they'll actually check?
Sure enough, the HTMers swarmed the tram just as it rolled into 5400. She had Sofia watch Dari and made a dash for the machine. Just as she stamped it, an HTMer asked her where she had gotten on. Now, she had a perfectly reasonable explanation for not stamping the strippenkaart that might actually have worked. But it's uncomfortable in the bright glare of accusation, however, and she panicked. She said she had just gotten on.
Unfortunately for her, the HTMers had a collaborator on the tram. The innocent-seeming old woman who got on the tram at the same time piped up, "She got on in Statenkwartier, the same stop as me." Shocked, Sheryl just looked at her, mouth agape. Such betrayal!
In the end, Sheryl received a stern lecture from the HTMer, in front of the whole tram (including the informer, no doubt smug in the knowledge that she saved HTM a few pennies). Usually not affected by such rebukes, Sheryl remains traumatized about the incident to this day. Thankfully, however, she received no fine, and the public humiliation has been enough to keep the both of us honest in the weeks since. No more Tram Scam for us.
Trams here, operated by a private corporation called HTM, run on the honor system. Rather than paying at the entrance to an underground system (all these light trains are above ground) or paying the driver as you enter (like on the buses here), you are responsible for stamping your own ticket. Riding requires the purchase of a strippenkaart, a strip of cardstock with various horizontal divisions, or strips. The longest strippenkaarten have 45 strips on them and sell for 18 euros 90 cents. Smaller cards are available with fewer strips.
When you get on the tram, you stamp the number of strips appropriate for your journey by folding the strippenkaart back and inserting it into the stamping machine. The rate is one strip per zone, plus an extra strip. For instance, we live in Zone 5410. For us to ride to the Centrum (downtown) or to either of the two train stations in neighboring Zone 5400, we must stamp three strips by counting three down from the last stamp, folding the strippenkaart and putting it into the machine. The machine places a stamp on the strippenkaart that notes the zone, the time, the date and the number of the machine. You stamp the strippenkaart, sit down, and wait for your stop.
Here is where the temptation comes in: Nobody is watching you stamp your strippenkaart. The driver doesn't care, and there are no guards near the machines. It's all on you, should you choose to be an honest and forthright tram traveler. Tempting, no? Why stamp the ticket at all?
Because to avoid stamping is to risk financial penalty and, worse, withering public humiliation. Your tram might be raided by a group of people in various forms of green or red HTM garb, people I'll call "the HTMers". All of a sudden one day, you'll see a group of tram riders quietly duck out the back door as these guys get on. By the time you've turned back around, one of the HTMers is in your face, demanding to see your strippenkaart. Fail to produce one, and be subject to a 30-euro charge right there on the spot, a thorough tongue-lashing, and (sometimes) immediate ejectment from the tram, wherever you might be.
These raids are seemingly fairly random, though a few ugly patterns tend to emerge to the tram veteran. I rode the tram maybe 20 times before I was ever asked to produce a strippenkaart. Since then, I have been confronted on maybe four occasions, at times ranging from late on a Thursday night to early on a Sunday morning (when the number of HTMers outnumbered the number of tram riders on the 11). HTM is more predictable geographically than it is chronologically, however. I have never been checked in our Zone, 5410, only in the zone in the center of town, 5400. Racially, these zones are as different as night and day, one might say. Fifty-four hundred is home to many of The Hague's recent immigrants from North Africa and the Middle East. There have been times when the brown faces on the tram have been checked and the HTMers didn't give me a second look. I've even seen three HTMers, essentially security guards for a private corporation, corner a (brown) guy with no strippenkaart and refuse to let him leave until three stops after his intended destination. Sheryl has run into whole checkpoints in front of the vast, ethnic open-air market on Tram 11 and in front of the railstation Hollands-Spoor, both places always heavily populated by immigrants. During such operations, you can't get on or off the tram without showing your strippenkaart.
Sinister enforcement aside, however, one is still tempted to simply not pay. I've given into the temptation more than once. It's not always deliberate, but more of a split-second hesitation in the moment before you reach for your wallet to retrieve the strippenkaart. Inaction becomes defiance; before you know it, you're already sitting down, strippenkaart pristine in your wallet, and you're a scofflaw. One begins to find completely specious reasons to justify why he hasn't paid, things like, "This country has ripped me off enough, so I'm taking this one from it!" Irrational rants like this.
My friend and fellow intern Sonja, on the other hand, played the game quite deliberately. As a student and unpaid intern, she was perpetually broke, but was required to ride the tram from her apartment in 5400 to the ICTY in 5410. She could always rely on her charm and gregariousness to get her through. The "dumb tourist" tactic works for a time, and after that, she would resort to good-natured begging in response to their stern admonishments. She ususally got away scot-free in the face of the HTMers' wrath, and once talked down the fine to the few euros she had in her pocket.
The uneven book "Undutchables" suggests placing a bit of tape over the strips before stamping them, so that the tape can be removed and the strippenkaart reused. This implies a level of sophistication that could prove quite damning once confronted. One could not produce such a forged document and still play the dumb tourist, for instance. There's no way you're avoiding a fine with a doctored strippenkaart. The better tactic is to have a story in mind for when it happens.
This is not to say that Sheryl and I are serial shirkers of our responsibility. Normally, we pay, though one can be lulled into a sense of complacancy. And that's just what they're counting on.
A couple of weeks back, Sheryl got caught. She got on the tram with Sofia and Dario in his stroller and parked in the designated stroller-parking area. The machine nearest her was broken, so stamping her strippenkaart would have required leaving Dario alone while she walked to one of the other two machines on the tram, something she was not willing to do. Besides, she figured, what are the chances they'll actually check?
Sure enough, the HTMers swarmed the tram just as it rolled into 5400. She had Sofia watch Dari and made a dash for the machine. Just as she stamped it, an HTMer asked her where she had gotten on. Now, she had a perfectly reasonable explanation for not stamping the strippenkaart that might actually have worked. But it's uncomfortable in the bright glare of accusation, however, and she panicked. She said she had just gotten on.
Unfortunately for her, the HTMers had a collaborator on the tram. The innocent-seeming old woman who got on the tram at the same time piped up, "She got on in Statenkwartier, the same stop as me." Shocked, Sheryl just looked at her, mouth agape. Such betrayal!
In the end, Sheryl received a stern lecture from the HTMer, in front of the whole tram (including the informer, no doubt smug in the knowledge that she saved HTM a few pennies). Usually not affected by such rebukes, Sheryl remains traumatized about the incident to this day. Thankfully, however, she received no fine, and the public humiliation has been enough to keep the both of us honest in the weeks since. No more Tram Scam for us.
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