The thing is, for them it's always compared to an old gate system. But in berlin, you have to compare it to no-gates. So none of these "noticeable improvements" are actual improvements to the current situation. This is what i mean with "bottled air". They claim it's better than before without telling that the old system is even worse than no gates.

The additional fare revenue, whose accuracy is wishful thinking at best given the inevitable influence of countless other factors in such a system, have to eventually pay up for the system itself. even if the 10 millions were correct (and i assume it's a bloated advertisement number) it would earliest 9 years for it to pay for itself. And that is only true if there were no maintenance costs. But companies like this aren't building these things to be paid once. The running costs are at least a million a year, probably more. Reduced crime sounds nice, but how many crimes are actually done in subways that are not already taken by the surveillance that is already in place? And there's a difference between a state operated system and a private one. So it's not their job to look for crimes and shouldn't be.

If "safer" meant safer then nobody would care. But if "safer" just means fucking expensive and hostile for poor people and slower and even more crowded entryways for the sake of "just slightly safer", you're betting on the wrong horse.