Leap Card:4 days of Rambler vanished

Verwolff · 21-05-2015 10:40am #1

I rarely use Dublin Bus and my Leap Card. I remember that I bought 5 days Rambler on it and I used maybe one or two days. Recently I wanted to have quick lift by bus few stops every day, so I topped up 20 euro in shop. Shop assistant assured me that my Rambler days are safe. Today when I logged into my account on Internet I see that my Rambler days gone and only few euros left.

So how it is? Can you have Rambler and short trip money on your Leap Card same time? Is there chance to get back Rambler days?

punisher5112 · 21-05-2015 10:44am

Verwolff wrote: »

I rarely use Dublin Bus and my Leap Card. I remember that I bought 5 days Rambler on it and I used maybe one or two days. Recently I wanted to have quick lift by bus few stops every day, so I topped up 20 euro in shop. Shop assistant assured me that my Rambler days are safe. Today when I logged into my account on Internet I see that my Rambler days gone and only few euros left.

So how it is? Can you have Rambler and short trip money on your Leap Card same time? Is there chance to get back Rambler days?

You can have up to 5 products on a card.

you can ask the driver to select use product feature on their ticket machine and look through and see if there are any rambler days left.

If you use the right hand validator at door before 20.00(8pm) it will auto use a rambler day as opposed to cash fare.

Is it possible you used this method and used up your days.

If you are going short journeys place card on drivers machine and state destination and cost of fare. Makes things easier.

LXFlyer · 21-05-2015 4:53pm

There is a glitch on the website - it doesn't list the ticket products loaded on the card.

Just ask a driver the next time what's on the card - he can check using the ticket machine.

The rambler ticket will still be there if you haven't used the days.

Sean9015 · 22-05-2015 8:21am

This whole issue of tagging on at one machine for one thing, at the driver for another is cray and needs to be sorted - yesterday! Or maybe it is deliberately designed to confuse and cause issues like this.

LXFlyer · 22-05-2015 9:21am

Sean9015 wrote: »

This whole issue of tagging on at one machine for one thing, at the driver for another is cray and needs to be sorted - yesterday! Or maybe it is deliberately designed to confuse and cause issues like this.

I'm not sure how you can operate it otherwise, given that the rambler ticket product is a product that you can choose to use or not.

Simple rules:

If you have a ticket product loaded onto the card:

If you wish to use that product, use the righthand validator. The only exception to this is if you start travelling after 8pm, and wish to use a day from your rambler ticket, then you must use the driver's machine on the first trip.
If you want to use the e-purse use the driver's ticket machine

If you don't have a ticket product loaded onto the card and are using the e-purse:

If you want to pay the €2.60 fare from your e-purse then use the righthand validator
If you want to pay any other fare from the e-purse then use the driver's ticket machine

Sean9015 · 22-05-2015 11:48am

lxflyer wrote: »

I'm not sure how you can operate it otherwise, given that the rambler ticket product is a product that you can choose to use or not.

But that implies that there NEEDS to be a seperate "product", and perhaps explains the silo mentality the has created such a mess with the scheme - a mess which Oyster in London has largely managed to avoid, despite having such extras on their cards as Travelcards, season tickets, Jobseekers and National Railcards. You ony tag on one machine on a bus in London regadless of any add-ons on the card.

Back to first principles. What is the consumer actually buying? A rambler, a travel 90, a single ticket? No. He/she is buying transport from A to B, possibly via C, and maybe using a bus and tram or some other combination. The consumer wants this at the best price. He/she is not concerned with what "product" to use, only that he/she gets the best deal.

There are two obvious ways this could be implemented - tag on and tag off for all journeys; or tag on and tell the driver the destination of that journey segment. I accept entirely that the first of these create an issue over boarding and alighting times, given the largely single door nature of the fleet, hence I would suggest the latter which would also stop the queue jumping seen at times by cardholders. It is not rocket science then for the system to have a cap (for bus, bus/rail, bus/tram or whatever combination if you must) and limit daily/weekly/monthly spend to that according to travel undertaken and mode used. No need to buy a "product" and have to go to a retailer to load it onto the card.

I know there have been arguments over implementation, but for Dublin Bus it is actually very simple. I believe that, apart from the 747 and the tours, all of their services operate under the NTA contract. Implementation is therefore a condition of the contract - if that doesn't suit, tender out to someone who will - and explain clearly why thisd is being done. A UK authority I worked with when implementing Smartcards for schools and concessionary passes did just that - even with some operators who were issuing cloakroom tickets for travel on some deep rural services - albeit with technical support, and it achieved 100% compliance.

Having two machines on the bus a set of rules which require the user to make a decsion on the first journey of the day is not customer friendly and does not further the public transport case.

LXFlyer · 22-05-2015 11:58am

Sean9015 wrote: »

But that implies that there NEEDS to be a seperate "product", and perhaps explains the silo mentality the has created such a mess with the scheme - a mess which Oyster in London has largely managed to avoid, despite having such extras on their cards as Travelcards, season tickets, Jobseekers and National Railcards. You ony tag on one machine on a bus in London regadless of any add-ons on the card.

Back to first principles. What is the consumer actually buying? A rambler, a travel 90, a single ticket? No. He/she is buying transport from A to B, possibly via C, and maybe using a bus and tram or some other combination. The consumer wants this at the best price. He/she is not concerned with what "product" to use, only that he/she gets the best deal.

There are two obvious ways this could be implemented - tag on and tag off for all journeys; or tag on and tell the driver the destination of that journey segment. I accept entirely that the first of these create an issue over boarding and alighting times, given the largely single door nature of the fleet, hence I would suggest the latter which would also stop the queue jumping seen at times by cardholders. It is not rocket science then for the system to have a cap (for bus, bus/rail, bus/tram or whatever combination if you must) and limit daily/weekly/monthly spend to that according to travel undertaken and mode used. No need to buy a "product" and have to go to a retailer to load it onto the card.

I know there have been arguments over implementation, but for Dublin Bus it is actually very simple. I believe that, apart from the 747 and the tours, all of their services operate under the NTA contract. Implementation is therefore a condition of the contract - if that doesn't suit, tender out to someone who will - and explain clearly why thisd is being done. A UK authority I worked with when implementing Smartcards for schools and concessionary passes did just that - even with some operators who were issuing cloakroom tickets for travel on some deep rural services - albeit with technical support, and it achieved 100% compliance.

Having two machines on the bus a set of rules which require the user to make a decsion on the first journey of the day is not customer friendly and does not further the public transport case.

The rambler ticket on the bus is something that many other cities don't have - it's a non-consecutive ticket and is very useful to more occasional users.

I assume therefore you're happy to explain to those users that their daily fare should rise from €4.92 for a 30 day rambler ticket to €6.90 due to your not liking it?

The real problem is that there are multiple fares. That is gradually being addressed by the NTA, with simplification of fares each year - due to the financial position of the operating companies there was never going to be a flat fare straight away.

In time I suspect that will happen, and then it will be a case of driver ticket machine for epurse, and righthand validator for a ticket product.

AlekSmart · 22-05-2015 8:03pm

lxflyer wrote: »

The rambler ticket on the bus is something that many other cities don't have - it's a non-consecutive ticket and is very useful to more occasional users.

I assume therefore you're happy to explain to those users that their daily fare should rise from €4.92 for a 30 day rambler ticket to €6.90 due to your not liking it?

The real problem is that there are multiple fares. That is gradually being addressed by the NTA, with simplification of fares each year - due to the financial position of the operating companies there was never going to be a flat fare straight away.

In time I suspect that will happen, and then it will be a case of driver ticket machine for epurse, and righthand validator for a ticket product.

It is indeed odd,lxflyer,how some people seek to decry one of the main advantages of Leapcard over Oystercard...flexibility.

As you state,the non-consecutive aspect is now a VERY popular and expected benefit of the Rambler Ticket product...is it suggested that we ditch this in favour of the TfL Travelcard model...?

One of the very first elenents of London's Oystercard introduction was the realization that staged or other variable fare types would not dovetail with the 3 second process time inherent in Oystercard.

Thus came the London Bus Flat-Fare...covering ALL Bus services...immediately freeing up machine resources and giving absolute customer certainity resulting in very speedy boarding times.

All of this comes at a price...a VERY significant price,and one which the NTA is free to emulate should it decide to adopt the REAL London Model,rather than the single stand-alone element of Route Tendering.

Leap Card:4 days of Rambler vanished

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