Real life impact to contactless vs. non contactless.

Currently visiting Helsinki and one of the big attractions is Suomenlinna, a fortified island, which is about 10 minutes away from the city's waterfront.

The ferry runs every 20 minutes each way and on a sunny day at the end of August, they're packed with people.

On the way out, I go to a kiosk and buy a ticket valid for 80 or 90 minutes. Just under €3 and the transaction takes about 30 seconds including tapping my Apple Watch to pay for the ticket.

I spend about 2 hours walking around the island. There are fortifications with WWI era cannons, maybe older, all over the coastal areas. Very picturesque and given the history, it's a UNESCO World Heritage site.

So coming back, I walk back to the dock with about 10 minutes left before the next ferry departure. I skipped going to the rest room. I go to the dock and see the ferry already full of people.

The kiosk on the island looks identical to the one back in the city but it doesn't have contactless!

So I dig out a physical card and go through the menus to specify one ticket. You have to tap through 3 screens at least and my first attempt inserting the card doesn't work, some error saying I put in the card before the reader was activated?

So I go through it again but the ferry is departing!

Eventually I purchase the ticket but have to wait another 20 minutes. Not a big deal but if it had contactless, I probably would have made the first departure. I think they left a couple of minutes earlier than scheduled because the boat was already pretty full.

The transport system is good but it doesn't have contactless readers on board. There are tram stops and some of them have ticket kiosks, some of them don't, instead of having the kiosk on board. And they print you a physical ticket instead of tracking your taps as other transport systems do.

They have an app in which you can buy digital tickets but it requires registration and saving a real card number instead of supporting Apple Pay.

Otherwise, no problems using contactless everywhere, as was the case also in Stockholm as well but they also have a very limited contactless rollout on their transport system.