Integrated Ticketing

markpb

There was an article in yesterdays Sunday Times about conflict between CIA and RPA over the integrated ticketing. It's a pretty miserable story showing all the infighting (over sales and branding) that really shouldn't be an issue if the DTA existed and had proper authority. Two particularly memorable quotes are:

Integrated ticketing has also been held up because, during a bidding process last year, no private-sector company came up with a system that met Ireland’s demands.

What makes Dublin any different from any other city? Why do we need a special "Irish" solution?

And this one from Tim Gaston, the project director:

We would hope to start with integrated smart cards on buses only, and then introduce more transport modes

I hope he was misquoted or it was a slip of the tongue but it's going to be a complete mess if the PM thinks you can have integrated ticketing on one mode of transport.

*sigh*

MarkoP11

The RPA are in charge on ticketing business, the same outfit who won't let you buy a luas + rail ticket at there ticket machines. Strangely you can walk into say Howth station and get a single to Heuston but the Luas vending machines can't issue Heuston to Howth. Is it a fix or are they just thick ?

There is an obscene amount of money spent on this and nothing to show

As it stands today without spending a single euro it would be possible to have fully integrated ticketing across all rail based transport. You could buy a ticket from Sligo to Tallaght it could be done without getting bogged down in infighting. You can already do Cork to Larne on one ticket and it gives you the choice of Luas or bus to get across Dublin most people don't realise that

Buses are complex and we need a overhaul of the whole setup to make things work, a zonal structure is one of the key things to ensure it works, Dublin Bus of course are blocked from doing anything by the DoT

In fact bus is where you would start as it would offer the most benefit, one fare for a journey requiring N buses

markpb

MarkoP11 wrote:

Buses are complex and we need a overhaul of the whole setup to make things work, a zonal structure is one of the key things to ensure it works, Dublin Bus of course are blocked from doing anything by the DoT

In fact bus is where you would start as it would offer the most benefit, one fare for a journey requiring N buses

Absolutely, no arguments here. Even a value-card system like the Luas would be fine for a starter but I do hope they realise that a bus-only card is not integrated ticketing.

MarkoP11

There is a standard for smart cards from the ITSO a UK based outfit it would be an idea to talk to them, you probably need to be UK based to be a member that said Irish Rail being an international operator .......

The new wayfarer machines Dublin Bus have are the only ones in the world to have ITSO certification. Scheidt-Bachmann the suppliers for Luas and IE are also members. Now imagine a smart card system that could work in Northern Ireland, most of the UK and possibly Europe. It was done with mobile phones just imagine how great it would be to use it to get to Dublin airport, and use the same smart card on the tube in London, metro in Paris etc its all there for the taking

The solution is available off the shelf http://www.itso.org.uk/

Much as many people don't like CIE, given they move 20 times more people a year than the RPA surely they know a lot more about how it should work than an outfit that moves a little more than 20 million on a very very simple tram system of 2 lines

Metrobest

Can anyone post up the ST article - link seems to be invalid.

I guess the reason CIE weren't tasked with integrated ticketing is that it's had decades to implement the paper-based integrated tickets used in most other countries - and done nothing. Irish Rail and Dublin Bus ticket readers are fully compatible, yet it's not possible to walk into Howth station (Irish Rail/CIE), and buy a ticket to Rathfarnham (Dublin Bus/CIE). There are many other glaring examples of CIE ticketing ineptitude which are too long to go into here. Each one of us can name some.

I've been using Singapore's EZ Link smartcard - it's fantastic, most passengers seem to have one. The system is probably what we'll end up with in Dublin: while the card itself works across all modes, the ticket structure remains unintegrated.

For instance, you take a metro - tag on, tag off - then take a bus - tag on, tag off- and two fares are deducted from the card. The card works very well on buses because Singapore's double deckers all have exit doors in the middle where you tag off; the front door is for entry-only passengers tagging on. Crucially, you get a discounted fare on each mode by using the smart card, and no losing out on exact-fare-only buses.
(Dublin's Bus's decision to actively remove exit doors from its new buses means that smart cards will not be viable for the foreseeable future - just imagine the chaos of people tagging on and taggging off using only one set of doors.)

In a sense, it's like having a SIM card in your phone. You might be dialling a local number first, then an international number. The one SIM handles all requirements. At the moment, we have a system where you need seperate "SIMs" depending on which call you want to make. A Smart Card, at least valid across bus, rail and tram would be start.

markpb

Ticket plan stalled by transport feud
John Burns

One of the Irish government’s most ambitious transport projects has become bogged down in a bitter feud between rival state agencies.

Integrated tickets, which would allow Dublin commuters to move from bus to Luas to rail without using cash, are the subject of a behind-the-scenes turf war between CIE and the Railway Procurement Agency (RPA). The €30m project, launched in 2001, is now years behind deadline.

Dublin Bus, the biggest transport provider in the city, has insisted on launching its own disposable smart card, even though the RPA has said this would “undermine” the integrated ticketing project.

While CIE has been sending representatives to a steering committee overseeing the integration project, the RPA has complained to the Department of Transport that they were not “engaging” in the process.

In a briefing two months ago to Martin Cullen, the transport minister, RPA officials said the “key issue” was now “CIE’s unwillingness to commit” to the project. In a series of slides, released last week under the Freedom of Information Act, the RPA accused CIE of turning up at work groups, committee meetings and discussions “but resisting any aspect of physical integration”.

CIE’s “non-standard requirements”, such as controlling sales revenue and having its own branding on the integrated card, “were reluctantly accepted by RPA”, it said.

Its most hard-hitting claim, bound to infuriate the company, was that “Dublin Bus’s real agenda is continual delay”.

Officials in the Department of Transport say that three-way talks with the RPA and Dublin Bus are now under way in an effort to sort out the dispute.

“It’s no secret that there has been a fractious relationship between the RPA and Dublin Bus, and the minister has been deeply frustrated about it,” said one official. “They’ve both been territorial. Dublin Bus thinks the RPA are smaller fish than them.”

Officials say that Cullen now wants reassurances that a system has been worked out before any more money is spent.

Tim Gaston, the project director, said CIE was now engaging in the process. He agreed that last year the RPA had concerns about foot-dragging by CIE companies, “but I don’t have those concerns now”.

Integrated ticketing has also been held up because, during a bidding process last year, no private-sector company came up with a system that met Ireland’s demands.

The Department of Transport is now likely to choose a “slowly but surely” approach instead of a “big bang”. Dublin Bus will launch its own smart card early next year, and the RPA hopes to use that as the basis for integrated ticketing, adding Luas, Irish Rail and Bus Eireann in future years.

“We would hope to start with integrated smart cards on buses only, and then introduce more transport modes,” said Gaston. “It’s a slow process, but we’ll get there in the end. We have presented our programme and a budget to the department and are awaiting confirmation.”

If the plan is approved by Cullen, Dublin Bus’s smart card will be upgraded to an integrated ticket in 2008. Luas, which already has its own smart card, is the most likely candidate to join up next.

Dublin Bus denied that introducing its own disposable card was slowing down the integrated ticketing process, claiming it only held things up by a month.

“For customers, the disposable cards provide an easy transition to smart card usage,” it said. “The ticket products remain the same, just the supporting technology changes.”

Integrated ticketing is just one of a number of ambitious transport projects announced years ago that have become bogged down. It joins the roll-out of penalty points, the Dublin Port tunnel and tolling on the M50 as projects that are behind schedule.

Still to be resolved is the issue of branding on the integrated tickets, with the RPA wanting a symbol explaining the card’s capability. “Ideally we want a card that is identified as a smart card,” Gaston said. CIE companies will be equally keen to use their logos.

The thorniest issue will be how to divide up the smart card revenue. A computer system will have to calculate precisely how much of a multistage journey fare goes to each operator.

I have to agree with Metrobest on this. CIE might have a bigger market share but they are hamstrung by both the Dept of Transport and their own proven ineptitude and unwillingness to change. The RPA might not be much better but there's no point in waiting around for CIE anymore.

There are a few small examples of integrated ticketing (monthly, but not weekly tickets) and IE/Luas regular tickets but nothing more. It took Dublin Bus years to implement the 90 minute ticket which is a great idea but can't be bought in singles, can't be bought on-board and doesn't integrate with the Dart.

Without changing the fare structure for DB, a proper integrated ticketing system is still possible and easy to implement. Readers at all bus doors for entry/exit validation and the same for trains and a back-office system to divide the fare between the operators. Countless cities have done it but in Dublin we wait years (with CIA), spend millions (by RPA) and then decide we're so different that we can't do it like them.

MarkoP11

The fundamental stumbling block is Dublin Bus, rail ticketing is based on point to point so it doesn't work terribly well if you want to get to a bus stop in the middle of say Finglas, you need a zonal system to make it work, thats the DoT problem.

Dublin Bus have over several decades tuned that fare system to get as much cash as possible no doubt due to lack of funds from central government, who pays for the discount you get for cross operator journeys ?? The London solution is to jack the price up for those who don't use the smart card system while reducing the fare for those who do, no one is out of pocket

There are a huge number of ticketing options

For instance it is possible to get a ticket from any DART station which is also valid on the 747/748 to the airport, most people dont know that

People still dont get it that you can get a ticket from Cork to Howth and it is valid on the bus or luas, the choice of which is yours when you reach Heuston

It is possible (and I have one to prove it dart_nitelink.jpg) get a DART ticket to town and use it on on the nitelink home. It is possible

With respect the removal of center doors had more to do with accessibilty than an attempt to block smart cards

The ticketing hardware Dublin Bus now use is compatible with smart card as are the ticketing machines IE use

Metrobest

Thanks Markpb!

A "disposable" smart card! What a stupid idea. The whole point of a smart card is that you load it up with value, keep it in your wallet and it's there for you whenever you need to use public transport. Dublin Bus gives us a smart card we can throw away, and only use on buses. Pretty much what we have already: an unintegrated system.

CIE will never agree to a fully-integrated system, as it stands to lose the most from it as passengers will, under T21, increasingly switch to tram and metro. It shouldn't be about CIE protecting its patch, it should be about what's best for passengers. But why would a semi state monopoly like CIE have to worry about minor details that?

The RPA seem to be pushing, sensibly, for the Singapore solution. Which will mean a generic "public transport smart card" without being "branded" under any particular mode. It will mean that passengers will always have to tag on and tag off for fare calculation purposes, ensuring each company gets its "share". And it will mean Dublin Bus will have to do something radical about its awful new bus fleet which have no exit doors for tagging off. What a mess!

MarkoP11

T&C 4 on the Luas smartcard says

This card will be replaced by the RPA when the intergrated ticketing scheme is launched

The RPA have screwed up first, there is no reason why they couldn't have launched a forward compatable system, Dublin Bus have

markpb

Dublin Bus haven't launched anything yet. They might be slighly more plausible than Cullen and co, it's still a year before they roll out a single-mode card.

MarkoP11

The new TGX150 system Dublin Bus rolled out over the last year or sois forward compatible

DerekP11

Eh...hello everyone. CIE or RPA? Both state agencies. If you want to pick holes with anything, then I suggest you question why the Government created the RPA in the first place. To date, neither organisation has actually done anything right, across the board. Luas has a multitude of basic problems, that many here just ignore or accept as a relaity. But when it comes the DART etc. all hell breaks loose.

In relation to integrated ticketing, CIE over many years failed to grasp and offer this most basic requirment, mainly due to zero funds to do it with. FACT.(apart from weekly/monthly "hop" tickets valid on all bus/rail within a "zone")However the formation of the RPA has done nothing for integrated ticketing (and by this I mean a one journey ticket purchase) This system is built around a complex but workable computer operation. Its not rocket science. But by creating the RPA and forwarding funds to it for the purpose of integrated ticketing, an instant division of power, turf, call it what you will, has been developed.

Maybe Ive been spoilt over the years. But when I commuted from Kildare to college in Dun Laoghaire as far back as 1990, I bought a medium hop monthly ticket. This entitled me to unlimited travel on BE,IE and DB within a designated boundary. Fast forward to 2006. How much does it take to implement this on a one off, A to B journey? Not very much. But when you pit the 5 year old RPA (ex CIE in many places) against CIE itself, you have a recipe for disaster. Back to the "turf war, Im bigger than you" scenario.

In my opinion, CIE should be disbanded. IE,BE and DB should be made individual companies answerable to the DOT, and the RPA should never have been created as it was a half hearted and panicky attempt to break the old monopoly of CIE post ILDA strike. Its a joke. A weak method from Government to counteract strike threats from within the railway sector. It has only succeeded in creating a corporate battlefield on which the war of egos will be fought. The losers being....commuters.

If you follow the line of favouring one over the other, then you are simply joining the internal war that is waging between one state agency and another.

Let me quote a frequent poster on this board. He referred to the RPA as the "bastard child of CIE". Now he idolises and promotes the RPA.

Who's the sucker? Think about it.

Red Alert

In fact as of two weeks ago when Donnybrook converted to the TGX150 system, now every bus in dublin has a smart-card reader. The tag-on-tag-off system would work well, seen as the LUAS uses that too. It would be compatible with DB's 'stage' paradigm which is a good one for a bus system, as well as LUAS's zonal structure.

John R

Tag on-tag off is a stupid system for bus travel, it is acceptable for trams as the tagging is done at the stop.

For buses it completely removes one of the main advantages of the system; speed.

When rolling out their oyster card to buses TfL had a zonal system for buses similar to the Underground. It proved too problematic for high-density bus services to have people queuing up to tag out so they did away with zones and introduced a flat fare. To discourage cash payments they are increasing the cash fare and decreasing the pre-pay fare.

Red Alert

so basically you just swipe your card getting on and do nothing getting off... would work ok i suppose.

Metrobest

John R wrote:

Tag on-tag off is a stupid system for bus travel, it is acceptable for trams as the tagging is done at the stop.

For buses it completely removes one of the main advantages of the system; speed.

When rolling out their oyster card to buses TfL had a zonal system for buses similar to the Underground. It proved too problematic for high-density bus services to have people queuing up to tag out so they did away with zones and introduced a flat fare. To discourage cash payments they are increasing the cash fare and decreasing the pre-pay fare.

You're completely wrong; it works brilliantly on the double deckers in Singapore. Dwell times are minimal as passengers entering the bus tag on at the front, those exiting the bus are told to tag off ten seconds before the bus reaches their stop, and they exit via the rear(middle) doors. It is far, far quicker than the Dublin Bus system. The problem is, smart cards won't work on the current Dublin Bus fleet; with only one set of doors the people waiting to tag on are going to have to wait until all the tagger-offers have exited. At busy bus stops this will just slow down things even more.

DB's new disposable smart cards are a decoy to block the RPA's sensible plan of a single smart card valid on bus, tram and train. Dublin Bus wants people to go into Centra, buy a EUR10 smart card, use it, throw it away, then go into Centra and buy another. The card will only work on Dublin Bus, not luas, not DART. This is the most stupid smart card I have ever heard of! The sole difference from the current system is that you won't stick the card into the reader, just wave it over it for a split second.

Dublin Bus's suggestion that Irish people "need time" to adapt to smart card is nonsense. It took me four seconds to adapt to Singapore's EZ Link. I don't know the background to EZ Link, but it would appear that it is a similar situation to Ireland: you can't have an integrated single-journey trip using different modes. EZ Link doesn't appear to have an affiliation to a particular mode; it works equally well on Singapore's Metro and buses. The card is topped up at metro station ticket machines, by phone, or ATM etc.

Judging by the Sunday Times article, it seem like the only thing blocking a Singapore-style card for Dublin is CIE intransigence (wanting its own logo on the card, wanting control over the sales revenue), and Dublin Bus incompetence. Knowing that smart cards are on the way, Dublin Bus buys buses with no exit doors. Had the RPA been guilty of such incompetence, many members of this forum would have been spitting fire.

Red Alert

so then why are DB wasting the money at all? the MCV's are built like tanks and don't seem to need replacement? why replace just for the sake of smartcard technology when you're using it like the magnetic cards?

markpb

Contactless SCs are faster and more reliable that magstripes. They're also more secure, more flexible and can hold more information, making them more useful. Integrated ticking *can* be done with magstripes though.

Metrobest

Red Alert wrote:

so then why are DB wasting the money at all? why replace just for the sake of smartcard technology when you're using it like the magnetic cards?

Read this quote from DB in the Sunday Times: "The ticket products remain the same, just the supporting technology changes."

Fot DB this about not changing. We're talking here about a semi state company that has a cosy monopoly on bus routes in Dublin city, lucrative subsidies from the taxpayers of Ireland and lifetime-secure jobs for its workforce. Why would Dublin Bus want to risk all that for an integrated ticketing product that could reduce its revenue stream?

What Dublin Bus fails to realise is that a smart card valid on bus, tram and metro will benefit all modes by increasing the use of public transport in general. The RPA smart card is 100% the right idea for Dublin - I'm totally convinced after using Singapore's EZ Link. It really makes public transport so handy as you never have to think about fares, zones and the like: the card does that for you; plus you know you're always getting a cheaper fare than with cash.

Pfungstadter

I've been to a few major cities in the world now and the one I'm most impressed with is Melbourne in Victoria. The city is divided up into zones, and even though there are many many different tram bus and train companies your ticket works on all of them. Also your ticket lasts for two hours from time of purchase. Which is great. So zone one ticket you can use the any tram bus or train in zone one and if your finished whatever you doing in the two hours you can go home on the same ticket.

You can get tickets valid for longer or even the whole day but they cost more. It's a really cool system and really easy to use.


The thing that confused me about the lack of intergration between LUAS and DART is that the RPA have decided to call one of their lines the GREEN LINE, everyone knows that the DART is the GREEN LINE and they are painted Green to remind you. But RPA couldn't think of another colour!!! Must have been too complicated.
So now there are no combined LUAS / DART / COMMUTER network map.

It's just so stupid with the tickets too and need not have happened!!!!

Victor

Metrobest wrote:

(Dublin's Bus's decision to actively remove exit doors from its new buses means that smart cards will not be viable for the foreseeable future - just imagine the chaos of people tagging on and taggging off using only one set of doors.)

They aren't removing them, they just aren't fitting them. Slight difference.

Pete_Cavan

This appeared on the Transport for Ireland website yesterday, yhought some of you guys would be interested in it.

Victor

Publicity in Thursday's Metro Herald.

LXFlyer

Note that the features are being introduced on a phased basis. So initially it will simply charge you for every individual trip on the bus, and the appropriate single/return on LUAS or Irish Rail.

Roll Out Plans

The scheme will be launched when testing proves that the entire system is sufficiently robust. It will facilitate cashless travel on services of participating operators, initially Dublin Bus, Luas, DART and Commuter Rail services in the Dublin area. Users will be able to top-up their ITS card with Travel Credit and pay as they go. The scheme will then be rolled out to cover services provided by private bus operators, and Bus Éireann in the greater Dublin area following completion of the necessary development, testing and commissioning of their systems.

Future Developments

Once the Travel Credit aspect of ITS is established, more functions will be added, on a phased basis. This will include the introduction of:
•Transfer Rebates – this is where the system will “rebate” your card with a fixed amount of Travel Credit when you transfer between transport modes
•Auto Top-Up makes sure you never run out of Travel Credit by automatically topping up your card from your bank account. Once it’s introduced, you’ll be able to activate this online.
•A wide range of ticket products such as annual and monthly passes
•Cards specifically for Students and Scholars

lil5

from RTE News -
http://www.rte.ie/news/2011/1117/integratedticket.html

€55m to be spent on integrated ticketing
Updated: 11:12, Thursday, 17 November 2011

The Department of Transport has said a new integrated ticketing system will be available by the end of the year.

A new integrated transport ticketing system has been launched today for the Greater Dublin area.


The Leap Card is expected to be available to all commuters by the end of this year. In the meantime the National Transport Authority is calling for 500 customers to test the new system in the coming weeks.

The Department of Transport says €48m has been spent on the system to date over the last eight years and €55m will have been spent by the time the system is ready to go.

The idea of integrated ticketing was first suggested by Mary O'Rourke in 1999 and the Railway Procurement Agency took over the project in 2002.