Moscow authorities have discontinued the use of entrance turnstiles on buses, trams, and trolleybuses since September 1. The roughly 15-year-long history of turnstile madness in the capital has ended on city routes, but it still plagues commuter train passengers, as Travel.ru's own correspondent points out.
Turnstiles on Moscow's ground transportation system appeared at the beginning of the century as a way to combat fare evasion. While they did provide a temporary boost to revenue, they also led to chronic, widespread delays for buses, trams, and trolleybuses, further driving ridership away from public transportation, increasing car ownership, and, consequently, increasing transportation problems.
The city authorities didn't immediately realize the harmful effects of this route, although attempts to remove the turnstiles had been made since 2010—but for a long time, they were unsuccessful. Before completely eliminating the turnstiles, experiments were conducted on tram routes in 2017, which yielded positive results in the form of a sharp increase in speeds and passenger traffic.
Turnstiles on Moscow region commuter train lines remain a problem—or rather, their imperfections and extremely slow operation. As a result, long queues to exit at many stations during rush hour can take up to 5-7 minutes (off-peak, these queues are slightly shorter). However, there is no indication that Russian Railways or its commuter train subsidiaries intend to address this issue.
Source: travel.ru