
(photograph © Kiwidutch)
The last thing that I want to talk about from our visit to “Het Haags Openbaar Vervoer Museum” (the Hague Public Transport Museum) is a metal yellowy-orange box that anyone who has lived in the Netherlands will recognise instantly.
It’s the stamp machine that was used to stamp the famous “Nationale Strippen Kaart”.
For decades these cards could be found in millions of Dutch wallets and bureau drawers to be used as payment for rides on the busses and trams all around the Netherlands. They were also valid payment for a few train lines too.
On each tram or bus (and information board at each halt) there would be a list of all the halts on that route.
The stripper card system was that you would count the number of halts to your destination, add one and then stamp of that number of strips from your strip card.
So one halt would be two strips, two halts would be three strips etc. Additionally there was a time element and a zone element to the system as well. Between two and four strips (1 hour /between 1 and 3 zones), five and seven strips (1.5 hours / between 4 and 6 zones), …between seventeen and twenty strips, (3.5 hours / 16 or more zones).
It sounds complicated but if you have to travel into the centre of the city and the journey would cost you four strips, but your errands there took less than one hour, you could either return home on the same strips without re-stamping, or go on to a new destination (worth four strips or less) within three zones of the original stamp.

(photograph © Kiwidutch)
An inspector on the tram would be able to look at the time on the stamp and know where (which zone) and when you got on the tram, thus work out if you needed to stamp again or not.
Of course there were fare abusers, they were often conspicuous by the fact they that would prefer to stay standing as close to the stamp machine as possible, even when seats further down the tram were available.
Their standing position meant they could see if uniformed inspectors where waiting to board at the next halt to inspect the tram, then they would quickly stamp their cards to avoid a heavy instant fine.
The inspectors often boarded trams in mufti and knowing this trick pounced on these people first when doing an inspection.
Of course I heard the fare avoiders say ” it was only this one time” but everyone knew they were lying through their teeth and they dodged fares constantly.
Before we saved up and bought our car, I used the tram to go to work and saw more shenanigans than you could list. Certain routes and particular halts were prime targets for fare dodgers, raids by inspectors were carried out accordingly.
On one of the trams I took to get to work, the same girl got caught four or five times in a month, the spot fines exceeded at least six months of travel, so cheating the system certainly wasn’t cost efficient, for her at least.
Later on I got an “abonnement” where you paid for a monthly card and could have unlimited travel within the zones you had paid for, within that month.
I eventually switched to the car after having children because getting to the daycare centre that my work subsidised, was so far out of my way via public transport that it cost me an extra hour each way. By car it cost me about fifteen minutes.
The “Strippen Kaart” came in three sizes: the blue Fifteen and Forty-five strip cards for adults, a pink half priced Fifteen strip card for senior citizens and children eleven years of age or younger, and finally, a small two strip card that the driver would issue if you came to him when you got on because you didn’t have a card.Getting a strippen card from the driver was by far the most expensive way to travel so was to be avoided where ever possible.
The regular blue and pink Strippen Kaarten were available to purchase from every tobacconists, supermarket and bookshop, so most people bought two cards at a time, you used one, and as soon as you started the second one you would buy a new “spare”.
Although I used the car for work most of the time, occasionally Himself would need the car and I would use a strip card for the tram. I still had a “spare” adult and child card in the drawer when I had my accident, and I haven’t been on a tram since, so after the Strippen Kaarten were phased out I was left with a couple of pristine cards that might well be worth something one day.
Today the Dutch travel on public transport with electronic “OV Chip” cards, which I have also not used to date because the nearest tram halt is beyond my pain threshold on crutches. Himself and the kids do use the new ones though, especially for trips to the centre of town where parking can be a nightmare. In the meantime I find a certain nostalgia in these old cards… as do many Dutch people I suspect.

(photograph © Kiwidutch)
Photograph above: (old) 45 strip adult card, photograph below: 15 strip child/senior citizen card…

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)
(New) 45 strip adult card, note the black edging…

(photograph © Kiwidutch)
(old) 15 strip adult card…

(photograph © Kiwidutch)
Next… the card(s) you buy from the driver… if your fare falls between card values ie 5 strips, there will be no change given, you pay for three cards (six strips). Not a cheap way to travel…

(photograph © Kiwidutch)
The first OV Chip cards (these are one time use paper ones) there are plastic ones that can be topped up…

(photograph © Kiwidutch)
The two new 15 strip cards I found with the rest… I will keep them for nostalgia’s sake…

(photograph © Kiwidutch)
15 strip adult cards… three different editions, fare increases and different styling…

(photograph © Kiwidutch)
15 strip kid/ senior edition, price increase and new styling…

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)
The oldest card in my collection… sadly used and not in mint condition…

(photograph © Kiwidutch)
The stamping machine, usually 3 (or four) in each tram… in stations also outside at tramhalt… everyone remembers jumping on a tram in the rush-hour and the flurry of “peep” noises that the machine gave when each card was stamped successfully one after another. You had to fold the card over in the right place to put it into the machine, that’s why so many of my strippen kaart are bent up…

(photograph © Kiwidutch)
Calculating the number of stops and thus how many strips to stamp off…

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)