Mallorca's a misery for the unsuspecting rail passenger

The island needs to encourage more holidaymakers to use the excellent metro system, writes a frustrated Simon Calder

-  Simon Calder

Other people's public transport is usually fun to unravel. So far this month, I have variously been assured on some buses in Lithuania and Poland that I must get a ticket in advance; on others, I had to pay the driver. Some buses were cash only, others insisted on payment by card (or phone).

Flying on from Warsaw to Palma, the driver of the airport bus into town needed €5 in cash - but at least she could sell tickets, unlike increasingly many airport bus services (Lodz in Poland, for example). But last Wednesday evening, I fell foul of the Kafkaesque ticketing trap devised by Mallorca's otherwise excellent public transport network.

The island's railway - a train line running north from Palma has improved by leaps and bounds over the years. It is now a metro, with smart air-conditioned trains as frequently as every 10 minutes. But unlike any other such system I have seen, each platform is a stand-alone entity.