LEAP CARD - Updated Summary of Cards/Functionality Available - September 2014

Trampas wrote: »

Hi.

I was trying to top my leap card online yesterday but says I need to Load location - Payzone 'Leap Card' Agent

Should it not go directly on the card from the website?

I'm to quote the relevant section of my original post again:

lxflyer wrote: »

TOPPING UP LEAP CARD E-PURSE

The LEAP card e-purse can be topped up a number of different ways:

• At one of over 400 Payzone LEAP card agents around Dublin and also in Cork
• At any LUAS ticket machine
• At any Irish Rail ticket machine in the Short Hop Zone
• Online at www.leapcard.ie - Note that this option requires you to subsequently visit your nominated "load location" to physically load the top-up amount onto the card
• Via Auto top-up - this is the easiest way of topping up the card. It automatically tops up your Leap Card with funds from your bank account, whenever your Travel Credit balance falls below €10. You can choose to Auto Top-Up by €30.00, €40.00 or €50.00. Note that this requires your card to be registered on the LEAP website and a direct debit to be set up.

For the card to physically know that you have topped it up online, it has to touch a "live" terminal, which is any payzone agent, an Irish Rail ticket machine, or a LUAS ticket machine - you nominate which one of these you want.

The Dublin Bus ticket machines are not "live" terminals as that would require more memory space than they are physically capable of.

There's no magic way of sending the information of how much you top up a card directly from your computer to the card through the air unfortunately - it needs to touch a live terminal. In other places this is easier due to there being far more rail stations across the cities, but we don't have that luxury unfortunately.

However, auto top-up does allow the card to be topped up automatically without going near an agent, and will automatically top up the card once the balance goes below €10, by either €30, €40 or €50 - it does require you to set up a direct debit and to register the card. Follow the link in my quoted post above for more information.

Trampas wrote: »

I'm on bus Éireann and not near Luas or train station. Need to find a shop. That's crazy

Well unless you have a magic wand, there's no other way of putting the money onto the card.

It has to touch a live terminal.

Go to www.payzone.ie to find a list of stores.

As I said above if you opt for auto top-up you won't have this problem.

Trampas wrote: »

It's bad development. No magic wand needed just people who know what they are doing

You may want to tell that to all the other operators around the world that have the same problem.


Oyster in London for example operates exactly the same way.


You have to physically touch a live terminal.


How else is the information going to get onto your card?

Carpenter wrote: »

Hi
My daughter will be traveling to ITT from Sandyford and back each day what is the best option for her .

Assuming she is using the 75 each way then she should get a student travelcard. Then she has two options:


1) Use the epurse - the fares will cap at €5 per day or €20 per week (Monday-Sunday); or


2) Load a 5 day or 30 day student rambler ticket onto it (5 day - €20; 30 day - €100). These are non-consecutive days and the tickets remain valid for at least 12 months.


These fares/caps are valid on Dublin Bus only.


If she uses the LUAS as well then the epurse will cap at €7.50 per day or €30 per week.

Sean9015 wrote: »

So n on-taxsaver travellers, who previously bought monthly tickets, can now effectively only have weekly capping? Potentially a big increase in cost for them so. Not doubting you, but seems like a hidden fare increase to me.

It depends on the ticket, but some have marginally increased in cost while others have marginally decreased in cost.

There certainly wasn't a "big increase" in cost.

Annual tickets are still available.

bk wrote: »

No magic wand required, just more modern ticket machines with more memory and a mobile connection to the network.

I'll point out that it has been possible to apply online topups on buses in Atlanta since 2006!

That is now almost 10 years later!

The truth is DB just have been using the cheapest, oldest, least capable and totally outdated ticketing machines on the market.

So lets not make excuses for their bad management and instead try and highlight it and change it.

Perhaps it may have escaped you, but we have been in one of the biggest recessions in living memory.

It's not always possible to do everything you want. The money for upgrading all of the ticket machines has simply not been available, and is not there until next year. That money will come from the NTA - it's not a Dublin Bus decision. We already know that the machines are to be upgraded in Q4 of 2015.

Or maybe you have another magic wand to pay for nearly 1,000 new ticket machines for DB and a similar amount for Bus Eireann?

The ticket machines that Dublin Bus have, when purchased, were NOT outdated or indeed the cheapest available at the time of purchase - anything but, so don't imply that a bad decision was made.

While it may be possible to do it in Atlanta, it certainly isn't in most European countries, which would tell me that Atlanta isn't exactly representative.

devnull wrote: »

They were not then that is true, but they were superseded by a much newer version just after they took delivery of them and are based on outdated technology, even if the machines were not quite outdated.

bk wrote: »

While it is true that we have just been through a recession, and many major infrastructure projects were cancelled like Dart Underground, Metro North, etc. all investment in infrastructure and public transport didn't just stop.

In fact it freed up a lot of money for smaller, necessary public transport improvement projects.

For example Dublin Bikes, Leap, RTPI, on bus location signs and announcements, on bus wifi, were all launched during the recession!

In particular RTPI added a computer, GPS and live mobile internet connection to every bus and Leap added extra ticketing infrastructure. While doing all of this it would have made a lot of sense to add a more modern, powerful ticketing machine at the same time with all this other new gear. It probably wouldn't have even cost that much extra. 1 million would probably be enough, a drop in the ocean compared to the multi billion dollar projects.

That seems to be a theme with Irish public transport, we are quiet happy to drop billions on massive infrastructure projects like the Luas, port tunnel, motorway network, etc. But god help you if you want to spend a mere 1 million on new ticket machines which will speed up dwell times and make Leap actually work properly!

The issue with the ticket machines shows a clear failure at DB and NTA management level to clearly understand the requirements of the Leap project and speedy well integrated ticketing.

I honestly believe that spending just a few million on new ticketing machines and introducing true multi-modal integrated ticketing (Amsterdam style per km tag-on/tag-off system) would have as much benefit as a 300 million Luas line.

But then it isn't as sexy and there is no fancy ribbon cutting photo op for the politicians.

Well I think we could all argue that decisions should not have been taken, but it could have been that there was uncertainty about when the newer technology would be available and when would smart ticketing be rolled out, or it could have been an issue of use the funds now or don't get them at all (as is often the case in the public sector). None of us are privy to the discussions that would have gone on at the time.


Unfortunately our public transport providers are ultimately at the behest of the Department of Transport via the NTA. It's down to the DoT how much funds are made available, and then to the NTA as to which projects warrant the investment.


Like most people I'd love to see the fare structure on Dublin Bus simplified, but realistically that is not going to happen while the company's financial position is as dire as it is. I would be of the view that the company simply cannot afford the risk of any shock to the system right now, as they're already absorbing the additional annual back office costs of running LEAP, reduced farebox revenue from LEAP (lower fares) and now the reduction in child revenue due to the extension of the age limits. They've all had a fairly major impact during a time when revenue was falling regardless. In the same vein the NTA are eliminating the fare anomalies in the Irish Rail Short Hop Zone over three years to avoid a major jolt to the company/users.


I think in time when things have stabilised, it will be something to be addressed, but I just cannot see it happening in the short-medium term.


That's where I think people need to be realistic in their expectations in terms of what can be delivered. There is a very clear plan for the funding in relation to LEAP rollout over the next 15 months, and that was referenced here in an earlier thread. While we all want to see things happen now, the reality is that change is going to continue to be phased in.