[Article] €1m unclaimed in Dublin Bus tickets

Victor

http://home.eircom.net/content/irelandcom/topstories/7085272?view=Eircomnet

€1m unclaimed in Dublin Bus tickets
From:ireland.com
Friday, 30th December, 2005

Some €1 million worth of Dublin Bus refund tickets remained unclaimed this year, the company has said.

Gráinne Macken, spokeswoman for Dublin Bus, said a recent audit showed that, though up to 75 per cent of refund tickets was claimed in 2005, some €1 million was not reimbursed.

Refund tickets are issued in lieu of cash to passengers who do not have the correct fare when beginning their journey.

"On average about 75 per cent of tickets are claimed at some stage," Ms Macken said. "There are highs and lows during the year - coming up to Christmas you'd have more people claiming their tickets, and the charities would collect them and claim them all together."

Since the auto-fare scheme was introduced in 1999, charities and aid organisations have invited people to donate unwanted refund tickets.

Paddy McGuinness, deputy chief executive of Concern, said the total amount of tickets it claimed from Dublin Bus was "certainly in the thousands". Concern had approached Dublin Bus asking the company to donate the fund to charity, he added, "but they didn't pick up on it. We would be delighted to talk to them."

Mr McGuinness suggested that Dublin Bus installs boxes on its fleet, where passengers could deposit unwanted tickets. "If there's a will, there's a way. We'll provide the way if they have the will. It's very easy to do in many ways."

However, Ms Macken said security and logistical issues would prevent the company from doing this. "There's a security issue, because you could have buses with several hundred euro worth of tickets in the boxes. As well as that, we have more than one thousand buses on the roads, and we would have to install boxes on every one. Who would empty them? Who would count the tickets?"

Dublin Bus argues that the refund ticket fund cannot be donated to charity because it does not belong to the company. When asked if an expiry date could be printed on the tickets, after which the company would be free to distribute the fund, Ms Macken said: "That is an option, but the company would feel that we would still be found fault with, [ in that] we're not giving people a chance to claim their money. We're sensitive to that."

However, under its community support programme, Dublin Bus donates almost €250,000 from the fund to local charities every year.

Ms Macken pointed out that Dublin Bus is the only bus company in Europe to offer passengers full refund receipts. "Maybe we're a victim of our own decision-making," she said.

A Dub in Glasgo

I have lost a few € through not having the right change and more importantly, not knowing the correct fare to have the right change. I usually leave the refund slips for my father in law to collect. If the money does not belong to DB (as claimed when asked if they would donate it to charity), what are they doing with the unclaimed money and the interest it is accruing?

Victor

Realise that in the scheme of things, that it is very little money.

A Dub in Glasgo

What? my few € or the €1m?

MarkoP11

Be thankful there is a receipt in the first place

Part of the deal should be any DB ticket agent i.e. your local shop should exchange the tickets. There is going to be fun in the new year as most Dublin Bus fares will require a 5¢ coin

There are still far to many cash customers despite the heaps of pre pay options, the tourists seem to get it but the locals still persist

shltter

MarkoP11 wrote:

Be thankful there is a receipt in the first place

Part of the deal should be any DB ticket agent i.e. your local shop should exchange the tickets. There is going to be fun in the new year as most Dublin Bus fares will require a 5¢ coin

There are still far to many cash customers despite the heaps of pre pay options, the tourists seem to get it but the locals still persist

Yes DB is very rare in giving change receipts most systems are exact fare or over and NO change


I would imagine the Local newsagents would not be very keen on accepting change tickets just from the messy aspect


Yes there are way too many cash customers but perhaps the incentive of saving money on the prepaid tickets rather than just the handyness would persuade more people to use prepaid tickets.


Something that has always amazed me about change tickets is that the poorer the area the less likely that people will wait for the change ticket ( indeed they will often ask you not to bother giving them a change ticket) and the more well off the area the more likely that they will wait and indeed ask for the change ticket no matter what the value.

Ray777

MarkoP11 wrote:

Part of the deal should be any DB ticket agent i.e. your local shop should exchange the tickets.

If people couldn't be arsed having the correct change ready for their bus journey, the inconvenience shouldn't be passed onto hapless shop assistants. Particularly in light of the new bus fares, DB should have the common sense to abandon the stupid idea of giving refund tickets to lazy cretins.

jd

When L lived in the states (2 different occasions-MA and CA) if you didn't have exact change ->"Tough"
People have to learn to have exact change.

Capt'n Midnight

Exact change ?
Many foreign operators get by with pre-paid tickets which you can get at most newsagents...

Then again I still reckon it would be cheaper to provide Dublin Bus free than spend more on the M50. Of course you'd need valid smartcard ID to get on the bus, cost maybe a tenner so we could fleece the tourists and track any undesirables.

silverside

as far as i can see there is no obvious advantage, for occasional bus users, to using prepay/card tickets. This includes a lot of people (tourists, cyclists and drivers) who might only get the bus at weekends.

A few years ago you could get "travel ten" which worked out 10/15 % cheaper than cash fares. this facility was removed.

If dublin bus want to discourage cash payments for occasional users, they should look to London and the oyster card system. This is easy to use, easy to top up, and transparent. Also oyster card users will never pay more than the equivalent day pass fare.

in my opinion the dublin bus "stage" system is outdated, it should be replaced with a 1/2/3 euro flat fare system, with discounts for prepay users. Expecting people to pay e.g. 1.15 euro each time is obviously going to slow things up.

John R

silverside wrote:

as far as i can see there is no obvious advantage, for occasional bus users, to using prepay/card tickets. This includes a lot of people (tourists, cyclists and drivers) who might only get the bus at weekends.

A few years ago you could get "travel ten" which worked out 10/15 % cheaper than cash fares. this facility was removed.

The travel ten tickets were stopped because of widescale abuse from passengers and validation problems with the tickets.

The discount was reduced because increasing the pre-pay and commuter ticket fares were the only way the company could increase revenue.

In one of those only-in-Ireland scenarios the cash fares are 100% under government control while all other fares have no restrictions whatsoever. In the mid-late 90's they were under increasing pressure to reduce the subsidy and at the same time they were refused cash fare increases so the other tickets were increased. Bizarrely enough, as prices increased so did useage.

It is an incredibly stupid scenario but that is the way things run in this country, people voted for these muppets to be in office so I say blame them.



There are some very good discounts with some of the current range of pre-pay tickets, regular user or occasional. They are all valid for a minimum of six months (in practice they will work for up to 2 years) so unless you are a very occasional user I don't see the problem

silverside wrote:

If dublin bus want to discourage cash payments for occasional users, they should look to London and the oyster card system. This is easy to use, easy to top up, and transparent. Also oyster card users will never pay more than the equivalent day pass fare.

By the end of this month every bus in the fleet will have all the hardware on-board to handle smartcards. All that is left now is for the RPA to spend the €38m they have been given to set-up and implement the system.

silverside wrote:

in my opinion the dublin bus "stage" system is outdated, it should be replaced with a 1/2/3 euro flat fare system, with discounts for prepay users. Expecting people to pay e.g. 1.15 euro each time is obviously going to slow things up.

It won't make any difference then before tbh, the lower fares will require 5c but now the higher fares will not. The same 15% who slowed things up before will continue to do so, everyone else will just adjust.

Of course the stage system is outdated, it goes back to the earliest horse-drawn buses and trams. The stage system is too complex and unweildy for modern systems, most passengers do not understand it. Since Dublin Bus stopped putting the stages on the bus stops a few years ago many of the drivers only have a vague idea where the correct stages are.

Remember Dublin Bus proposed a small change to try and simplify the fare structure and were shot down by the Department of Transport.

A complete change of the fare system will require a DoT that is actually concerned with improving the service for the benefit of passengers rather than using it as a political football to make as has been the case throughout the current government.


In implementing the oyster card in London even the simple zone-based fare structure was considered too complex to use, the idea that pre-pay users had to tag out upon leaving buses (and tram stops) to calculate the correct fare was deemed to be too time wasting for the services and inconvenient for the passengers. They eventually opted for a single flat fare for all bus and tram journeys and free travel for under 16s. (age is verified by u16s getting a photo oystercard so there is no arguing with the driver over age crap)

This month the bus and tram cash fare is rising by nearly €0.45 to around €2.20 while the oyster card single fare has been cut in half to approx €0.60 (€0.70 morning peak)


If any sense prevails in Dublin, by the time the RPA manage to spend all that cash setting up a smart card a similar fare structure will have been adopted here. Making LUAS users tag out now is not a good sign though, neither is the small fare reduction given for using the thing.

Bluetonic

Bus fare winfall for charities
24/01/2006 - 09:50:25

Up to €250,000 in unclaimed bus fares is to be donated by Dublin Bus to local charities, schools and community groups this year, it emerged today.

Now in its third year, the Community Support Programme has so far helped more than 300 groups which have received €500,000.

The grants for the programme are funded from long-term unclaimed bus change receipts since Dublin Bus’s no-change policy on its fleet of vehicles.

Launching the 2006 scheme, former Irish international footballer Niall Quinn said: “This programme is aimed at the small local groups and organisations that are trying to make a difference in their community and is proving really popular.

“I have visited a number of the charities who have received money from Dublin Bus and it has made a huge difference to them and I’m delighted that Dublin Bus are committed to continuing this programme.”

CIE chairman John Lynch invited applications for funding from groups involving children and youth, people with disabilities, the elderly and the environment.

“The grants will range from €1,000 up to €5,000 and we hope to help as many groups as we can,” he said.

The closing date for applications is Friday March 31.

Application forms are available on the www.dublinbus.ie website.

http://www.breakingnews.ie/2006/01/24/story241259.html

Winters

I went back a bit but I found the reasons why DB and IE are still persisting with the current fare system.

Now, id love to know the reasons the RPA gave for going with a zone system.

Taken from: http://www.transport.ie/viewitem.asp?id=2648&lang=ENG&loc=845

4. Fares Structure

The Committee, on the basis of the MVA Study cited above, narrowed the possibilities for introducing Integrated Fares and Ticketing in Dublin to two practical possibilities, i.e.

· an adaptation of the existing fares structures to offer rebates to those passengers interchanging between routes and services, or
· a zonal fares structure.

These are now briefly described.

Rebated Fares

Currently, passengers are charged for public transport travel on the basis of distance travelled. On trips where more than one ‘leg’ is required to complete it, the traveller repeatedly pays an ‘entry’ charge for every ‘leg’, regardless of whether it is a second or third leg of the same overall journey. However, in the rebate system, a proportion of the fare is rebated, or not charged to the passenger, on second and subsequent “entries”. The system requires a ticketing medium, which can accommodate an electronic log of movements both to ‘rebate’ the boarding charge to the passenger and to divide the fare between the operators of the different modes/services used.

Some examples are:

· Fixed rebate, say 40p
For two ‘leg’ journey, rebated fare = sum of single fares less 40p
For three ‘leg’ journey, rebated fare = sum of single fares less 80p
· Variable rebate, say 15%
The rebated fare is the sum of single fares less 15%

Zonal Fares

The city would be divided into a number of zones. Fares are calculated on the basis of the number of zone boundaries crossed during the trip. Thus the fare
between two points in the city is the same no matter what combinations of services are used to make the trip, or how many miles are travelled in the public transport network to get there.
The Committee recommends that a rebated fares structure be implemented.

The main reasons for this choice include,

· existing fares structures will continue – no confusion for the majority of customers,
· it will be easier to incorporate additional operators,
· zonal fares traditionally require large subvention or substantial increases for large proportion of passengers,
· difficulty in drawing zonal boundaries