The Budapest Metro has a rather odd ticketing system. Tickets can be bought from a machine or from a ticket-seller, but then they are checked by people called 'Kontrollers', who stand near the entrances to the trains and ask to show your ticket. Of course if you've got two or three people checking tickets and hundreds or thousands of people using the Metro at rush hour, most of the people simply breeze through whether they have a ticket or not.
It goes without saying that being a Kontroll is a pointless and alienating profession. I've heard stories about Kontrollers simply being ignored or told to fuck off, and while of course there's a fine for being on the subway or the tram without a ticket, technically the Kontrollers can't enforce it - they have to call the police, who don't like being bothered.
A few years ago there was a movie, also called 'Kontroll', about a group of Kontrollers who live in the subway without ever going to the surface. They deal with the scorn of the public and the indifference of the suits downtown. To pass the time they dirnk during their shifts and go 'railing' - that is, having races along the tracks to see who can out-run the next train. It's mostly a fantasy but it captures the spirit of the profession fairly well.
2 comments:
Malcolm Gladwell has a bit thing in his book, The Tipping Point, about how graffiti on subway cars and turnstyle jumping led to chaos in the subways and social disorganization in NYC during the 1970s. I think it is a stretch, but it is an interesting hypothesis. Any implications for social order in Budapest? Why don't they install turnstiles?
I imagine it's a a holdover from the Communist system, as a way to keep people employed.
Apparently it used to be much worse because the Kontrollers would actually go on the trains and check around, which caused all kinds of chaos.
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