"Leap" into the unknown: The feedback thread

robd · 05-12-2011 2:45pm

robd wrote: »

Will check Luas TVM on Monday when I'm passing.

So here's the Luas TVM as promised.

Mark G from RailUsers further investigated this on Sunday. It turns out that the wheelchair gate on Southbound Platform in Landsdowne is configured backwards so a tag-off is a tag-one and visa-versa. This is an Irish Rail problem so it affects their smartcards too.

As you can see I was tagged on twice for my journey. I think the logic in the backend system is bad here. Obviously the fault is Irish Rails but the backend Leap Card system should have tagged me off and tagged me on, just crediting me with 2.20.

No joy with Customer Service. They can't issue individual refunds !!! :eek:
Gave me a number to contact Irish Rail. Think I have another card on the way though. Thankfully some good open channels through RailUsers.

Very bad that they went ahead with trial without thinking about the need to issue refunds given its a trial and errors are likely to occur.

AlekSmart · 05-12-2011 2:49pm

Winters wrote: »

Using the bus has not proved to be any easier for me, how can I find out how many stages I am travelling and thus my fare before getting on the bus? Would a time limit not be easier for the bus user? If its confusing for Irish people god knows how tourists get their head around it.

With the exception of the Luas, Ireland still operates with the antiquated and confusing fare stage system. I fear that until we progress to the common and simpler zonal fare system the Leap Card will forever be just a contactless ticket.

You cant have an integrated ticketing scheme without an integrated fare system, I would have presumed this was clear when the project started in 2003.

(Emailed to customer.care@leapcard.ie, testcard@rpa.ie, Janice.O'Neill@rpa.ie, smartcard@irishrail.ie, customercomment@dublinbus.ie and info@transport.ie)

Excellent summation Winters,and one which deserves some consideration by those you've e-mailed.

However I cannot see any of those worthy folk manning up and admitting that they have managed to devote 9 years to this project and finally have to be told it's single largest flaw by a mere member of the Public.....Won't Happen in this Republic I'm afraid oul son....:rolleyes:

Right now,this week,it is frighteningly apparent that the Bus Atha Cliath element of Leap is essentially dysfunctional on one basic issue.....FARE STAGES,or more particularly,the lack of on-street identification of same.

Now from the ITIG perspective,I'm suggesting that this single contentious element which impacts on the largest group of Leap users,renders the ENTIRE operation of Leap significantly more difficult to market.

Therefore,either force Bus Atha Cliath to reinstate their on street Fare-Stage markings OR forcibly introduce a totally new Zonal System......either way the time for these actions is NOW,whilst the newness of Leap is appreciated by the new customer base...if this is left to fester and develop then Leap will simply take a running jump into oblivion.

markpb · 05-12-2011 2:54pm

robd wrote: »

I think the logic in the backend system is bad here. Obviously the fault is Irish Rails but the backend Leap Card system should have tagged me off and tagged me on, just crediting me with 2.20.

How would the backend know the difference between a broken gate and someone failing to tag off at all and then coming back later for another trip?

SandyfordGuy · 05-12-2011 2:58pm

Generally I would hope the NTA ensure that Irish Rail will support LEAP a hell of a lot better than their own smart cards. When I was overcharged a few weeks ago, I went up to the ticket counter at my local desk, where someone was being told about how great the Irish Rail smartcard is and they should buy one and doing a real sales pitch about how great they are. So this person got one.

I then went up to the desk and was told that sorry, but staff cannot deal with refunds or problems with the card, and this is a problem that only Connolly Station can sort out. So I went down to Connolly Station and talked to them, who said sorry, but Smart Cards cannot be supported by Irish Rail public facing staff, you have to call us or fill in a form online, we can only help you with topping them up or selling them here.

So I in the end put a complaint in via the web form, and about a week later I got an email back from the sales department in Connolly Station telling me that my credit would be reapplied, it did indeed get applied, but at the same time I was left appalled by the fact I have to jump through so many hoops to get it done. The fact is a large station like Connolly should be dealing with problems with smartcards, they sell them, say how great they are, but then soon as the problems happen, say it's not our problem.

That is very bad business, whether it is related to infrastructure, lack of equipment or internal politics, they should be supporting their own product, as a friend who had exactly the same problem said, this gives you the impression that once they have the money, they couldn't care less.

robd · 05-12-2011 3:01pm

markpb wrote: »

How would the backend know the difference between a broken gate and someone failing to tag off at all and then coming back later for another trip?

The system has to tag-off to tag-on so it knows the state. Could be broken gate, could be someone tagging off on the wrong side (presume poll tag locations are dual tag-on/tag-off). I'm simply stating that if tag-off is occurring at a time that aligns with normal journey time it should tag me off as normal (give credit) and then tag me back off. I'd still lose but not as much.

Here's another problem. I tag on at a station, discover that the train has broken down (as occurred to me on way home same day) due to idiot on track and I leave to get Taxi. I can't even tag off. I should be able to tag off at the same station and get a full credit.

The current backend has been engineered in an overly simplistic and completely dumb way.

SandyfordGuy · 05-12-2011 3:10pm

markpb wrote: »

How would the backend know the difference between a broken gate and someone failing to tag off at all and then coming back later for another trip?

Indeed, by enabling either side to tag on or tag off would allow fare evasion. If the gate is broken then the chances increase hugely.

EG:
I travel from Connolly to Bray I tag in at Connolly then see one gate is broken or no staff are around, so I avoid tagging off. Later on I go back to Dublin by some other method such as Bus. I then go into any station in Dublin purely to tag off and have no intention of using the train

Result = I pay less than the correct fare.

Winters · 05-12-2011 3:17pm

AlekSmart wrote: »

Therefore,either force Bus Atha Cliath to reinstate their on street Fare-Stage markings OR forcibly introduce a totally new Zonal System

Or the 3rd option, as talked about previously, of a time based flat fare for all bus journeys i.e. €2 for 90mins.

Irish Rail's fare system could be easily adopted to the Luas zonal system but would introducing a zonal fare system to BAC require the user to tag off when alighting the bus?

Would it be straight forward for the readers on the individual buses to know what zone they are in?

Incidentally, regarding my feedback - Leap Card customer care replied to say that "In relation to you being charged €2.20 on the Dart instead of €2.10, we are going have to refer you to Irish Rail" and "At the moment you cannot top up or check your balance on the Dart validator but they may bring it in the future". I wonder what part of the scheme really is 'integrated'..

robd · 05-12-2011 3:19pm

Winters wrote: »

I have noticed that the Leap Card is charging €2.20 for my DART journeys while my existing IE Smart Card is charging €2.10. Also, seeing as I can use my Leap Card on IE journeys, I dont see why I cannot top up or even check my balance using IE ticket vending machines.

If you look at my post above where I've linked a picture from Luas TVM, I appear to be getting charged (mistakes aside) €2.10. -€4.30 tag on, +€2.20 tag off = €2.10 fare.

This is as advertised on Irish Rail Site:

Fare Category D
Smart Card Single €2.10
Adult Single €2.40

Are you sure you are reporting this correctly and not confusing credit being reapplied with what is being charged? Maybe check a Luas TVM for history.

coylemj · 05-12-2011 5:13pm

Tried to add credit today in a local shop which is listed on Payzone as supporting the Leap card but the girl in the shop refused point blank to even attempt it. She said something along the lines of that they were supposed to be starting on the 5th but that it had been delayed. She was surprised that someone even had one of the cards in their hands, it looked to me like I was the first ordinary person off the street to walk in with a Leap card.

When I said that the Payzone website said that her specific shop did support the Leap card, she said that something similar happened with the M50 payments but that they weren't able to process those paments until well after the website claimed they were.

She was able to scan the card and give me the balance but she (politely but firmly) refused to try a topup, she did disappear into the back office and I assume phoned someone or talked to the boss but she wasn't budging.

blubloblu · 05-12-2011 11:01pm

I went into Maguires at the bottom of Grafton Street today, I must've had the first leap card they'd seen. Woman on the till called for one of the younger ones to show her how it's done, took about five minutes but no trouble other than that.
Irish Rail TVMs really need to get updated soon, it's really annoying when I'm at my home station and there's literally nowhere to top up my card so I need to get a more expensive single ticket.

Winters · 06-12-2011 11:36am

robd wrote: »

Are you sure you are reporting this correctly and not confusing credit being reapplied with what is being charged? Maybe check a Luas TVM for history.

Thats must have been it, thanks Rob D.

robd · 06-12-2011 11:48am

Was a little shocked when one of these popped out of the ticket machine on the bus today. Thought I was getting double charged. Turns out the nice lady decided to issue me with a card status receipt so I can see my last 5 journeys (which is what the card stores internally).

Apparently the Payzone machines in the shops can issue receipt with same details.

dublinman1990 · 06-12-2011 3:58pm

The brief news regarding zonal fares is shown here:

http://twitter.com/#!/LeapCard

coylemj · 06-12-2011 7:20pm

Is that Twitter a/c some kind of joke? Just one tweet since December 1st and on Nov. 30th they said the following...

plan to enable loading of T90s on card in new year, check leapcard.ie for updates

did nobody tell them that the website isn't up yet?

Yesterday I sent an e-mail to both Payzone and customer.care@leapcard.ie about a problem attempting to topup in a shop which the Payzone website claims can handle Leap cards, haven't heard a dickie bird in 24 hours. As I don't live near the Luas the nearest shop which can potentially top me up is two miles away.

There are 400 people following Leapcard on Twitter, presumably most of them are part of the 500 user test phase, looks like we're being completely ignored.

coylemj · 07-12-2011 4:57pm

coylemj wrote: »

Yesterday I sent an e-mail to both Payzone and customer.care@leapcard.ie about a problem attempting to topup in a shop which the Payzone website claims can handle Leap cards, haven't heard a dickie bird in 24 hours. As I don't live near the Luas the nearest shop which can potentially top me up is two miles away.

There are 400 people following Leapcard on Twitter, presumably most of them are part of the 500 user test phase, looks like we're being completely ignored.

The letter that came with the Leapcard said that if I needed any further information to e-mail customer.care@leapcard.ie and that address was also given out by @Leapcard on Twitter on Dec 1st in response to a query from another user so you might think that the people running the Twitter a/c are also monitoring that e-mail inbox, think again!

Having had zero response to my e-mail (see above) sent two days ago, I tweeted @Leapcard today as follows....

@leapcard I sent an e-mail to you guys two days ago, still waiting for a response

Response:

Can I ask what email address you sent your query to?

Oh dear!

SandyfordGuy · 07-12-2011 5:19pm

They repleid to me within about half an hour of sendign them a mail yesterday.

robd · 07-12-2011 5:24pm

SandyfordGuy wrote: »

They repleid to me within about half an hour of sendign them a mail yesterday.

They seem to respond when it suits them.

They basically gave me a PFO in regard to my inquiry about being charged 2 x maximum fares (2 x 4.30), rather than 2.10 for a Category D DART Journey. When I inquired further, I got ZERO response.

This was due to a technical fault with one of IE's gates and was in no way due to my misuse. It was backwards so it charged me twice. Got resolution through RailUsers, a voluntary group just helping out.

That's not satisfactory at all IMO.

SandyfordGuy · 07-12-2011 5:28pm

They won't refund credit if you have used 20 euro or less, because this was test credit which is fare enough, as you never paid for the credit in the first place.

robd · 07-12-2011 5:35pm

SandyfordGuy wrote: »

They won't refund credit if you have used 20 euro or less, because this was test credit which is fare enough, as you never paid for the credit in the first place.

I was onto my own topped up €20 at this stage. Now onto my 3rd €20 (2nd topup) in 2 weeks.

Perhaps they figure no-one is going to lose > €20 so they don't need to worry about it given it was free.

Would be better if they rewarded for finding faults (rather than penalize), as would incentivise people to really test system for quirks.

As it happens I've been more than compensated for my loss through route I mentioned just not through Customer Service.

coylemj · 07-12-2011 8:48pm

Lashed off another e-mail (about not being able to topup in a listed Payzone shop) and got the following....

Sorry to hear of your trouble trying to top up your Leap Card. All stores listed on the payzonne website will be selling Leap Cards and will also provide top up facilities. As this is the test phase, not all stores listed will be able to top up your card until the offical launch date which is planned to be Monday the 12th Dec 2011.

I can provide you a list of stores that you will be able to top up in during this test phase.

There are as follows.....

Reynolds, Abbey Street
Londis, Stephen's Green
Easons, Heuston Station
Londis, 2-3 College Green
Londis, West Moreland Street
Centra, Ranelagh
Station House, Dundrum
Spar, Fairview
Spar, Swords

The letter that came with the card never mentioned that only a subset of the shops could be used to topup during the test phase, could have saved me the hassle of trying to convince a shop assistant in my local newsagent that Payzone said that they could topup a Leap card.

bk · 07-12-2011 8:56pm

coylemj wrote: »

[*]Easons, Heuston Station

Isn't it strange that while you can top up in Easons in Heuston Station, you can't top up at any of the ticket vending machines, nor the ticket desks of our largest train station!!

It seems like Irish Rail are dragging their feet on supporting Leap, with only minimum of support, with it just working at their validators, but no possibility of buying or topping up.

There is a surprise Irish rail, last again!!

coylemj · 07-12-2011 9:25pm

bk wrote: »

Isn't it strange that while you can top up in Easons in Heuston Station, you can't top up at any of the ticket vending machines, nor the ticket desks of our largest train station!!

It seems like Irish Rail are dragging their feet on supporting Leap, with only minimum of support, with it just working at their validators, but no possibility of buying or topping up.

There is a surprise Irish rail, last again!!

+1 Considering that there is a machine in every Dart station capable of topping up IR Smartcards, it's nothing short of a disgrace that after all the money that's been spent on this project there still isn't a single railway station (if you exclude Easons in Heuston and the Luas machines outside) where you can topup a Leap Card.

Looks to me like IR are a unwilling guest at the party!

starviewadams · 07-12-2011 9:53pm

Launching on Monday then,how much will one be when buying initially does anyone know?

Aard · 07-12-2011 10:15pm

I'd imagine €10, with €5 worth of credit on it.

Stevek101 · 07-12-2011 10:35pm

coylemj wrote: »

+1 Considering that there is a machine in every Dart station capable of topping up IR Smartcards, it's nothing short of a disgrace that after all the money that's been spent on this project there still isn't a single railway station (if you exclude Easons in Heuston and the Luas machines outside) where you can topup a Leap Card.

Looks to me like IR are a unwilling guest at the party!

In fairness you've been told before Irish Rail machines are not part of the trial.

robd · 07-12-2011 10:43pm

coylemj wrote: »

+1 Considering that there is a machine in every Dart station capable of topping up IR Smartcards, it's nothing short of a disgrace that after all the money that's been spent on this project there still isn't a single railway station (if you exclude Easons in Heuston and the Luas machines outside) where you can topup a Leap Card.

Looks to me like IR are a unwilling guest at the party!

It's a pain alright. One thing I'd say there was a huge difference in coverage for the current trial versus the smaller one before that.

Within a mater of 6 weeks it went from Luas and 1 Dublin Bus garage to Luas, DART & Short Hop Commuter, and 100% standard Dublin Bus routes. It wasn't announced bit by bit just all together.

I'd fully expect Irish Rail ticket machines to work for Go Live next week. Hope I don't have egg on my face.

bk · 07-12-2011 11:33pm

Aard wrote: »

I'd imagine €10, with €5 worth of credit on it.

That is what I got when I bought mine in the shop that started selling it early.

Stevek101 wrote: »

In fairness you've been told before Irish Rail machines are not part of the trial.

But if it goes live on Monday, will the Irish Rail TVM's start dispensing Leap cards and all you to tag off, view your history and top up?

Likewise will you be able to buy and top up the Leap card at Irish Rail ticket offices?

I will be delighted to be proven wrong, but I fear that non of the above will be ready on Monday.

It doesn't make sense not to have the TVM's and ticket offices part of the final trail. After all that is the whole point of a final trial, to make sure everything is working and ready to go.

I fear that it will be weeks or even months after the official launch of Leap before Irish Rail catches up and that could give a negative opinion to people at the start of such an important project.

coylemj · 07-12-2011 11:34pm

robd wrote: »

I'd fully expect Irish Rail ticket machines to work for Go Live next week.

This is known in the world of project management as the 'Big Bang' approach, the equivalent of Airbus rolling out it's first A380, shoving 600 employees on board and telling the pilot to fly them all to Singapore!

Bad idea, usually ends in tears.

blubloblu · 08-12-2011 12:47am

coylemj wrote: »

This is known in the world of project management as the 'Big Bang' approach, the equivalent of Airbus rolling out it's first A380, shoving 600 employees on board and telling the pilot to fly them all to Singapore!

Bad idea, usually ends in tears.

Hardly a big bang, they've incrementally been adding support for leap. They've had their own smartcard for ages, that's been well tested. There's 500 leap cards going around for a few weeks before the official launch.

coylemj · 08-12-2011 1:08am

blubloblu wrote: »

Hardly a big bang, they've incrementally been adding support for leap.

Where? Even in Heuston Station you have to go into Easons or outside to the Luas machines. Zero isn't incremental, it's burying your head in the sand and hoping it will work when you throw the switch on Monday.

blubloblu wrote: »

They've had their own smartcard for ages, that's been well tested.

That's not the same as programming 10 or so machines in selected Dart stations to allow topping up of the Leap card during the test phase. Plus the IR Smartcard is designed to only hold cash credit whereas the Leap card is designed to hold credit and as a carrier for certain ticket types (e.g. Travel90) which will be rolled out in 2012, the two cards are completely different.

blubloblu wrote: »

There's 500 leap cards going around for a few weeks before the official launch.

Not one of which can be topped up at an IR machine.

"Leap" into the unknown: The feedback thread

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