An integrated timetable from CIE on the web?

Floater

While all modes of public transport in Ireland are dominated by a single company – CIE – the face they present to the customer is very disintegrated – particularly when it comes to timetabling and ticketing.

Many journeys involve multiple modes of transport – eg a bus and a train and a bus or a provincial bus followed by a city bus, or an intercity train followed by a # 90 bus followed by a DART.

Bus Eireann use the HAFAS system to answer timetable queries at their website. This system can work out connections and is capable of intermodality – ie catering for connections using all forms of public transport operation.

Why in heaven’s name don’t they make the entire group-wide timetable incorporating intercity rail, DART, suburban rail, Bus Eireann services and Dublin Bus services available from one query page?

HAFAS is developed by http://www.hacon.de/hacon_e/index.shtml. It is also used by Deutsche Bahn, Swill Federal Railways, Belgium, Luxembourg and Dutch Rail services etc.


Floater


http://194.106.151.88/jplan/bin/query.exe/en

Victor

Part of the problem is Dublin Bus simply can't predict journey times accurately, through a combination of congestion and "management / staff" "issues".

Of course, there should be no busses from Galway to Dublin (apparently it's 20+ a day), they should all feed into the railway system. like they do in sensible countries.

Floater

Originally posted by Victor
Part of the problem is Dublin Bus simply can't predict journey times accurately, through a combination of congestion and "management / staff" "issues".

Fine - let Dublin Bus throw in their best efforts input with "connections not guaranteed" etc.

They (CIE) have no excuse for not providing an integrated system-wide timetable on the web. Dublin Bus's problems are no excuse for denying the country as a whole information on its public transport infrastructure presented in a coherent customer focused way. Who lives over the main rail stations in Cork, Dublin, Galway, Limerick, Waterford, etc? Virtually everyone depends on connections!

If they are worried about service unreliability in the Dublin area they can always give one the option of entering one's mobile phone number to receive updates as one approaches the next node on one's journey via text message. 'till they get the problem sorted!

They also have no excuse for not delivering integrated ticketing.

Floater

De Rebel

A friend of mine wrote to Bus Eireann (with copies to Iarnrod Eireann and CIE) a few years back to ask why the Waterford-Dungarvan-Youghal bus left Waterford 10 minutes before the Dublin-Waterford train arrived. He received a written response from Bus Eireann stating that it was not Bus Eireann policy to co-operate with competitor companies. (meaning Iarnrod Eireann)

Integrating the timetable on the web means little when there is little attempt to integrate the services themselves.

The concept of Win-Win appears to be beyond the tiny minds that populate the CIE group companies.

Floater

Originally posted by De Rebel
Integrating the timetable on the web means little when there is little attempt to integrate the services themselves.

Integration has to start somewhere, and the obvious starting points are the timetable and the ticketing system.

The real competitor of Bus Eireann and Irish Rail is THE CAR – not each other.

Those rail networks that have failed to recognise this basic fact have been in decline for the past forty years or so.

On most end to end journeys, bus and rail complement each other.

Someone from Monkstown in Dublin visiting their cousin living in Monkstown in Cork on public transport will require:

a) DART times to town
b) Heuston shuttle # 90 connecting times
c) Intercity rail times from Heuston to Cork
d) Bus times on the Cork city to Monkstown service

Why make life difficult for the customer?

Let the customer enter the starting and ending points of his journey, together with his proposed starting time and produce a complete connected itinerary for them automatically.

Let the customer decide which modes of transport he will use. He is going to make the decision himself anyway.

Why does CIE continually shoot itself in the foot by making it so easy for its main competitor, the car?

The Irish Rail timetable system already has schedules for the #90 bus and DART. Why not connecting bus schedules for services around the country too?

Why does the state company waste public money setting up two separate timetable systems, when one would give a better service to the travelling public and be a lot cheaper to operate?

Why does the state monopoly not provide bus schedules on the internet for the urban bus systems it operates outside the Dublin area?

I also notice that the ticket machines at the DART stations have an incomplete table of destinations, so one ends up having to purchase separate tickets at each stage of the journey! Surely those machines should have a fares table covering every station in the country - or more precisely every travelzone in the country, based on integrated ticketing principles?

A company with a multiple split personality if ever there was one!

Floater

Sarsfield

Just a reminder that IE, BE and BAC are 3 separate companies under a holding company that the minister wants to abolish.

While there are many things wrong that are solely the fault of the CIE group, the lack of integration is directly related to government policy.

This government believes that competition is the solution to all transport problems. So Bus Eireann competes with InterCity, Dublin Bus competes with DART & Suburban.

Cork Airport is to compete with Dublin Airport ffs. If I want to fly to Manchester, Cork will have to work bloody hard to get be to travel down there when DUB is only 20mins away. Now if Baldonnel was opened to civil ops then we might see some useful competition. But that's for another thread.

This is what happens when ideology takes over from common sense.

Victor

Originally posted by Sarsfield
Now if Baldonnel was opened to civil ops then we might see some useful competition.

But this would be diabolical for integrated services. While London needs / can support 5/6 airports, Dublin can't yet support two terminals, never mind two airports.

It would be handy for private aircraft and some cargo - it would mean a particular cargo operator would need to make a conscious decision to disengage from cooperation with other cargo operators in Dublin.

Separately, Baldonnel would need a new terminal, rebuilt runways (some of the concrete panels have settled unevenly causing water to pond on the surface - not good as you aquaplane along at 150mph), new transport links (when we can't "afford" to build a metro to the existing airport) and a lot of other work.

Floater

Originally posted by Sarsfield
Just a reminder that IE, BE and BAC are 3 separate companies under a holding company that the minister wants to abolish.

This is what happens when ideology takes over from common sense.

Competition needs to be defined. Most services are complementary in nature. People surely need to clarify their thinking on "competition" and rationalising the system.

Where a bus follows the same route as a train the customer can and will decide which to use.

The provision of a single ticketing system and a single timetable system has nothing to do with competition. It is there for the convenience of the customer and as a cost saving device for the operators.

Again CIE's biggest competitor is the motor car.

Floater

Sarsfield

Originally posted by Floater
The provision of a single ticketing system and a single timetable system has nothing to do with competition. It is there for the convenience of the customer and as a cost saving device for the operators.

It does have to do with competition. If IE offers a service from Galway to Dublin, why should they mention that Bus Eireann does too (and that it's a lot cheaper)? If its all about customer convenience then Bus Eireann should also report the services offered by the private bus operators.

Please note that I fully support the idea of complementary services and integrated ticketing.

Again CIE's biggest competitor is the motor car.

Agree totally.

Floater

Originally posted by Sarsfield
It does have to do with competition. If IE offers a service from Galway to Dublin, why should they mention that Bus Eireann does too (and that it's a lot cheaper)? If its all about customer convenience then Bus Eireann should also report the services offered by the private bus operators.

It is surely up to the CIE Group (rather than operating companies) to provide a neutral timetable service using a single platform? They save the money on software, keeping a single live site up and running etc. Everyone knows bus is cheaper than rail. The fact that schedules are presented from a single engine won't cause people to move from rail to bus at a whim. If they do, there is surely something radically wrong with rail as the implication is that rail might be slower than bus!

Integrated ticketing is about getting one from zone x to zone y at a fixed one trip, daily, weekly, monthly or annual cost - irrespective of the mode of transport used.

If I live in zone 53 in Zurich canton and work in zone 10 (city) I can purchase a ticket for any period from one trip to an entire year to travel between those zones at a standard price. On a sunny monday morning I might decide to take a boat up the lake rather than the train. Have a coffee on deck with some friends. My ticket works. On Tuesday the heavens are open with thundershowers. I decide to take the S-bahn. The same ticket works.

The fact that I live in an integrated ticketing country does not stop the boat operator (who has completely different ownership from the SBB) from offering special ticket prices. However these special deal tickets will only work on his boat.

The key issue is the availability of the integrated ticket across the full range of time periods from a single journey (which could involve n modes and n changes) to a full year subscription to a particular zone or group of zones or the entire network for the convenience of the customer. To encourage them to use public transport end to end for all their journeys.

Zones are very simple (in Switzerland) from a ticketing point of view. Let's say you are starting in zone 50 and you want to go to zone 52 which involves you transiting zone 51, that ticket will cost 3 zones - ie 50, 51 and 52. Far more logical than the Carte Orange zones in Paris or the zones used in London.

Integrated ticketing especially applies to urban journeys where a single ticket document would cover (in the Dublin context) bus and DART / Suburban rail and all these other illconceived brand complexities in the metro area.

It also would apply to the trip from Monkstown to Monkstown. While you may be able to get there cheaper (ie the difference between rail and bus) if you bought individual bus tickets at each point taking advantage of bus operator discounted tickets you could also pay the rail based zone to zone fare and get one ticket for the end to end trip. Which should be preiswert! Otherwise the car will win!

Floater

Tarifzone map

Floater

I have added a link to the previous posting for a tarifzone map on the Zurich transit authority's website. The map is clickable.

Floater

drrnwbb

there is intergrated ticketing and an online travel planner here in helsinki

here is a journey from my house to school in the morning. you can set your watch by the service 90% of the time. (there is also a map element to the planner, you can see the same journey here in map form)

and here is the ticketing system here in helsinki: matkakortti (journey card)

dw

Floater

Originally posted by drrnwbb
there is intergrated ticketing and an online travel planner here in helsinki

Integrated ticketing systems of one form or another are almost universal across Europe and beyond. I can't think of any city on continental Europe which doesn't have integrated ticketing of some sort.

I focused on Zurich because it is the most comprehensive system I have come across which has delivered the goods in terms of making public transport the default way of getting around.

Floater