By Larbi Arbaoui
By Larbi Arbaoui
Morocco World News
Rabat, August 23, 2012
Rabat-Sale tramway users are still facing complicated problems in getting their tickets.
The cost of a ticket in tramway is 6 dirhams, but if you can’t get your ticket before getting inside the tramway – for whatever reasons- you will have to pay 50 dirhams.
There is no way to buy your ticket inside the tramway other than paying the penalty of 50dirhams.
An American passenger told MWN that “in New York the penalty for buying the ticket on the train is almost double the pre-boarding price, rather than almost 9 time as much as is the case in Rabat.”
“It is cheaper to rent a taxi rather than paying through the nose for an unintentional mistake” the same person added to MWN.
It makes sense to make people pay more on board the train because the conductors would be over stressed and people would take advantage of the system. However, charging 9 times the cost of the regular ticket far exceeds the requirements to deter passengers from buying the ticket on board instead, sounds unjust for riders who were in a rush or because the ticket machine was not working.
The average daily ridership on the tramway service is expected to be 180,000 a day, but many technical problems and lack of enough centers to get tickets are a stumbling block to meet this number on a daily basis.
Users of tramway may be blocked in a station at night because they can’t get a ticket nearby, and of course they are not ready to pay 50 dirhams as a fee.
In order for the tramway to meet the daily transport requirements of more than 3 million inhabitants in Rabat and Salé cities, more flexible policies are to be implemented regarding getting tickets and ways of payments.
The Rabat-Salé tramway is a tram system which was put into service on May 23, 2011 in the Moroccan cities of Rabat and Salé.