Worked on public transport ticketing (think rail gates and stuff) with contactless last 30 years, when guys would tell me that the software was "ready", I'd ask:

> Is it "stand next to the gates at Central Station during peak time and everything works" ready?

We were working on the project from a different city/country, but we managed to cycle our developers through the actual deployments so they got to see what they were building, made a hell of a difference to attitude and "polish".

Plus they also got to learn "People travel on public transport to get somewhere, not to interact with the ticketing system."

Meant that they understood the difference just 200ms can make to the passenger experience as well as the passenger management in the stations.

> "People travel on public transport to get somewhere, not to interact with the ticketing system."

I really like this line because it applies to so many things we build.

Public transport is an interesting one because it applies to so many things. If you need to use it but can't depend on it, it's a huge stress creator and time waster. Suddenly you need to pad times by hours to ensure you don't miss your appointment.

Notice the words there, "miss appointment" and not "miss bus or train". The outcome is what matters, not the transport mechanism.

Or, maybe you're traveling in a foreign country. Having every car in the metro display the line in a digital way showing the previous stops, current location and next stops in English is huge for eliminating doubt. Having the audio in multiple languages and clear is important too because maybe you're sitting down and everyone is standing in front of you so you can't see the display clearly. Having a non-digital map as a backup on the wall in case there's a hardware failure is a good idea too.

Thinking "no one needs any of that waste because they can just use their phone" is the wrong mode of thinking. Maybe there's no service because you're underground or maybe that person's eSIM isn't hooked up yet or isn't working. These are real problems.

The travel experience outcome in the grand scheme of things matters a lot. It could mean having a smooth trip or a questionable experience. It could be the difference between recommending the country to your friends and family or not. Suddenly it affects tourism rates at a global scale. Maybe not a lot, but it has an impact.

Thales?