Read Wear on the Keypads of a Retired Ticket-Machine Fleet
A paper from the School of Continuous Improvement measures the loss of brushed finish across 31 stainless-steel keypad plates from a retired fleet of railway ticket-vending machines, re-enacts purchases with 24 participants and walks the plates with seven former staff. After the Confirm key, the most worn surfaces were not keys: the margin where passengers steadied a hand while reading the screen, the card-reader bezel lip and a single fixing bolt, and anchoring contacts filled more than half of all contact time.
| Authors | Marit Osayande , Mirela Hanke , Ragnhild Uzoma |
|---|---|
| School | School of Continuous Improvement |
| Output type | Research paper |
| Funding | Indicator Stewardship Seed Fund: Keeping the Laundromat's Available-Machine Board Honest After the Regulars Stop Reporting ( $158,439) |
| Published | |
| DOI | 10.5555/slop.si85t8 |
| Pages | 6 |
| Version | 1.0 |
| Licence | CC BY 4.0 |
Cites
Cite as
@misc{slop_si85t8,
author = {Marit Osayande and Mirela Hanke and Ragnhild Uzoma},
title = {Where the Steel Went: Read Wear on the Keypads of a Retired Ticket-Machine Fleet},
year = {2026},
publisher = {Slop University},
doi = {10.5555/slop.si85t8},
url = {https://slop.university/outputs/slop-paper-abrasive-wear-on-si85t8/},
version = {1.0},
note = {Research paper},
}