Geneva buses and trams - controlled!

TPG's yellow card - you're booked sonny

Schadenfreude over load! This morning I was on Rue Servette looking for a suitable cutlery tray to fit in the odd sized drawers in our Edwardian kitchen cupboard, when I saw a young woman getting fined by the TPG (Transport Publiques Genevoise) for having no ticket.
It's a pretty hefty fine for the want of a 3CHF single, it comes in at 80CHF or 120CHF if you can't pay it on the spot.

Oh the shock on the person's face.

It's lovely to see when they realise they haven't got away with riding the buses and trams for free. There's a look of pained innocence and confusion, a sense that the bus is to blame for not getting to your stop before the ticket inspectors arrived. But my favourite bit is the look, whether acted or not, that says I can't believe I don't have a ticket. True on so many levels, particularly the one that blames the commuter herself for thinking she could get away with it. How, if you didn't get one before you got on, do you think you'd have acquired a valid ticket since then?

• Weekly cards for the buses cost 34CHF, around 22GBP or 35USD, so you'd need to be a tourist using it more than twice a day to get any value. 
• Monthly cards cost 67CHF, so if you use it every day to get to and from work, you make a decent saving! Assuming you actually have a job.  

This is the first person I've seen getting controlled in the five months I've been here. In fact its the first time I've seen controllers in the five months I've been here. So thinking about it, an 80CHF fine for half year actually sounds like very good value for money compared with the other options, including the 670CHF you could pay for an annual card.
What makes me laugh the most, is that Geneva is such a small city and the trams and buses wind around so much that on average it's quicker for me to walk home from the city centre.