Integrated ticketing might not happen at all

Slice

Cost to integrate ticketing up €20m
By Martin Wall, from today's Irish Times

Integrated ticketing: The long-planned introduction of an integrated ticketing scheme for various forms of public transport will now cost nearly €50 million, the C&AG's report reveals.

The Department of Transport told the comptroller that the increase from the original estimated capital cost of €29.6 million was due to factors including the longer implementation period for the project from 2005 to 2010, associated price inflation, and increased contributions to transport operators to reflect the cost of integration and to stimulate the involvement of private bus operators.

The report says the Department of Finance approved proposals put forward by the Department of Transport last May for a smartcard-based integrated ticketing system subject to conditions.

The department stipulated that the capital cost of the project, including agreed contributions to the stakeholder companies and the cost associated with incorporating the Free Travel Scheme, would not exceed €49.6 million.

The department said the full capital cost had to be met from within the Transport 21 budget (for transport infrastructure projects) and that the ongoing current cost of the project had to be met by the transport companies and not in any form by the exchequer.

The secretary general of the Department of Transport told the comptroller that "while the focus would be on delivery within the agreed programme and capital budget, if at any stage it appeared that out-turn costs were likely to increase or that the expected benefits might not materialise, the department would immediately undertake a reappraisal of this project".

The final sentence of this article seems to suggest that the DoT are conceding that integrated ticketing might never actually happen...

popebenny16

I love Ireland.

murphaph

We don't have a government because a government would govern. :mad:

ciaran76

Very sad indeed. If it doesn't happen that is !

Fratton Fred

If they stopped talking about it and got on ****ing did it, then the costs would stop going up.

Dare I say it, but maybe one of these fools should go and visit London and take a look at how the Oyster card works. it's not rocket science
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oyster_card

KC61

Fratton Fred wrote:

If they stopped talking about it and got on ****ing did it, then the costs would stop going up.

Dare I say it, but maybe one of these fools should go and visit London and take a look at how the Oyster card works. it's not rocket science
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oyster_card

London has not been quite as smooth as you suggest. Yes TfL rolled Oyster out over the services under its control, but remember that they all have a common fares structure. We don't!!! And this is the problem. The real issue is how the revenue is split between a variety of operators all of whom have different fares! This again goes back to the basic structure of Dublin's public transport system - and this is where a TfL based solution on our operators would certainly assist the situation.

However, it needs to be borne in mind that the amount of argument over the rollout of Oyster over the heavy rail network operated by Southern, Southwest Trains, First Capital Connect, Silverlink, First Great Western and C2C has been unbelievable and is only beginning to now resolve itself.

Even now though some operators are still refusing to accept the rollout of Oyster.

Red Alert

What the goverment neglect to say is that we pretty much have all the nuts and bolts of an integrated ticketing system - if you include the RPA's gear such as vending machines, and the fact that every Dublin Bus vehicle is smartcard enabled right now.

Furthermore, while the fare structure on the buses/LUASes/Darts is in serious need of reform we could in theory let stored value smartcards loose right now. For example, why shouldn't it be the case that I can tag on to a bus, tag off when I'm getting off and that my smartcard is billed for the current fare (based on the number of stages till we can come up with something better). The equipment is there, the will is not.

paulm17781

What we need is a fare structure. Smart cards have nothing to do with it.

Put a real transport body in place, unify all fares. Then you can easily integrate the tickets.

This smart card thing is a shambles and should be done once we have integrated tickets.

popebenny16

abolish fares.

I'm not kidding.

DerekP11

Unless we get a DTA, nothing will work or develop properly. Big decisions need to be made. A transport czar can make them. T21 isn't worth a fiddlers **** without it.

AlekSmart

As our beloved Taoiseach is currently providing a shining example of this type of stuff,perhaps we should focus on whats NOT being focused on......

The REAL meat in this sandwich is contained in the following throwaway quote...

"[ The department stipulated that the capital cost of the project, including agreed contributions to the stakeholder companies and the cost associated with incorporating the Free Travel Scheme, would not exceed €49.6 million]"

Now this is the FIRST time I have ever come across ANY of the Public Transport agencies make ANY mention of what amounts to a Cap on the cost of the long standing Department of Social and Family Affairs Free Travel Scheme.

There is little doubt in my mind that the methodology forced upon the Republic`s Government by the extension of the DSFA Scheme across the Land Frontier has unearthed a black-hole of truly vast proportions.

This Pòll Dubh has,since the inception of the Free Travel Scheme been cleverly disguised and concealed within the arcane financial labyrinth which existed between Government and CIE.

This methodology however simply will not wash with such entities as Veolia,Morton,First Group or any of the Thatcher era "Public" Transport Service Providers.

There will be more on this I reckon.....MUCH more !!! :eek:

antoinolachtnai

I think you are misreading this. This report had nothing to do with the free travel scheme. It is just saying that the contribution by the DSFA and all the other state bodies involved will be no more than EUR 49.6m.

I think this is a ridiculous promise to make by the way. Integrated ticketing has to be done in some form. Whatever it costs is what the government will have to pay. You can't set an arbitrary cap at the beginning of the project.

OTK

Would you agree that there is a point at which integrated ticketing is not worth doing? Maybe not 49m but what about 490m? There comes a point where potential benefits cannot possibly be enough to justify the cost.

Once the project is specified in detail it should be possible to cap the price. Once the design work is done the price can be capped more accurately. Integrated ticketing would be nice to have but it has to compete with every other transport initiative for funding and if it's too risky or too expensive then it should be dropped in favour of something else.

It may be the case that it's not worth pursuing integrated ticketing until there is an integrated transit authority and in this case is it really worth pissing away 49m to determine that CIE doesn't like the RPA?

paulm17781

OTK wrote:

It may be the case that it's not worth pursuing integrated ticketing until there is an integrated transit authority and in this case is it really worth pissing away 49m to determine that CIE doesn't like the RPA?

Probably not. Sadly the Government don't seem to be bothered to set up a proper transit authority to look after matters like this. :mad:

Saying that we may get one soon, Dempsey needs to be able to pass the buck when things go wrong.

Fratton Fred

KC61 wrote:

London has not been quite as smooth as you suggest. Yes TfL rolled Oyster out over the services under its control, but remember that they all have a common fares structure. We don't!!! And this is the problem. The real issue is how the revenue is split between a variety of operators all of whom have different fares! This again goes back to the basic structure of Dublin's public transport system - and this is where a TfL based solution on our operators would certainly assist the situation.

However, it needs to be borne in mind that the amount of argument over the rollout of Oyster over the heavy rail network operated by Southern, Southwest Trains, First Capital Connect, Silverlink, First Great Western and C2C has been unbelievable and is only beginning to now resolve itself.

Even now though some operators are still refusing to accept the rollout of Oyster.

it's not been easy, I wasn't trying to say that it has, but London has proven that it can be done. The heavy rail operators are all private companies, so there will be obvious problems there, but how many private operators are there in Ireland?

Why can someone not pick up the phone to Ken Livingstone and ask for his advice, if there is one thing Ken is good at, it is getting things done.

MarkoP11

It should be noted this is an expensive business, fairly serious IT infrastructure has to go on all over the rail network to join all the stations up plus structural modifications to fit in all the new turnstiles, planning permission is in on several stations currently

The problems are quite simple

1. No operator is willing to put up the cash to do the changes themselves
2. The state still hasn't come up with a solution to the loss of revenue that will hit Dublin Bus in particular
3. There is no independent body to implement it, the RPA have a conflict of interest as the Luas owner
4. All the operators are refusing to play ball on tweaking the current paper based mag stripe solution to provide a real improvement now

Slice

Given that Dublin Bus receives one of the smallest public interventions out of any publicly owned bus service in any major European city the question of a larger subsidy is an easy one to answer. Furthermore, with the near complete death of the PDs the ideological opposition to continued State support for a public service operator such as Dublin Bus that existed in the previous Government is no longer there.

A commitment to integrated ticketing should be a condition of any public transport license issued to any operator regardless of whether they're publicly or privately owned. Surely regulation can be introduced and applied retrospectively?

antoinolachtnai

It is a condition. The issue seems to be that the Government hasn't come up with the goods in terms of actually proposing what the working of such a system would be.

weehamster

Why don't there start here. There must be something useful among this lot :rolleyes:

KC61

Fratton Fred wrote:

it's not been easy, I wasn't trying to say that it has, but London has proven that it can be done. The heavy rail operators are all private companies, so there will be obvious problems there, but how many private operators are there in Ireland?

Why can someone not pick up the phone to Ken Livingstone and ask for his advice, if there is one thing Ken is good at, it is getting things done.

The problem is in Dublin you have:
Iarnrod Eireann
Bus Eireann
Dublin Bus
RPA/LUAS
Mortons
Dualway
Locolink
Aircoach
Patton Flyer
AMC

and more - each of whom has independent fare structures that are not under the control of one body. The more licensed independent operators that arrive, the more difficult this becomes unless a TfL style DTA is established.

antoinolachtnai

Integrated ticketing doesn't necessarily require a change to the fare structure. The system that was envisaged was basically an electronic wallet for transport, rather than some type of season ticket.

The problem with a season ticket is subtly different from the UK. We have a number of very small operators. Distributing season ticket shares to very small operators on the basis of statistical surveys doesn't work very well. That's why you end up needing a smartcard system rather than an old fashioned paper ticket.

icdg

Supposedly the Dublin Transport Authority Bill is on the cards for the current Dáil session. Wouldn't hold my breath on it though.

Like I said before, the London situatution re integrating ticketing was sorted prior to privatisation, when it was only London Transport and British Rail - both state-owned at the time - which needed to negotiate between themselves. Here, we've got RPA, BAC, IE, BE, Aircoach, and a whole load of small private operators who wouuld need to be in on it. I'd like to see something done but I fear there are too many vested interests at work here.

Victor

icdg wrote:

Here, we've got RPA, BAC, IE, BE, Aircoach, and a whole load of small private operators who wouuld need to be in on it.

You are forgetting the DoT and FF who are worrying themselves sily at the idea of increased cash fares.

AlekSmart

Maith an Fèar A Mhic.......You obviously have very good sources and an understanding of how these shams think.....
Whilst very few are prepared to admit it,Bus Atha Cliath are running one of the CHEAPEST urban bus services in the EU.
In terms of single cash fares you will travel a country mile before finding an EU capital city with a €1 busfare.......
And dont ya just havta Lurvvvvve it when FF`rs start worrying about the Cost of Living : ) :eek:

antoinolachtnai

Well, the theory is that you will save the difference between the cash and discounted fare by reducing the dwell time at stops. By my reckoning, dwell time on a one hour trip can be as much as 15 minutes (10 seconds per passenger, 150 passengers). If you can reduce that to 8 minutes (which might be optimistic to expect from a smartcard alone), you'll be looking at a reduction in operating costs of around 8/60 = 13 percent. You'll also have an increase in peak capacity amounting to a bit beyond that. You also get a service improvement from a shorter trip time, and if that leads to even a percentage point or two increase in patronage, you are looking at a big return.

I really think the big issue stopping integrated ticketing is determining a future structure for the industry. Without some sort of certainty about that, it's going to be hard to put in place a structure to make this work. If we thought the structure of the industry was going to stay the way it is at the moment, it would be implemented one way, if it were going to be done on a new model (for example, gross contracts a la TfL) it would be done quite differently. From what I can see, the ITS project is going to be at a standstill until this is sorted out.

Any issue with revenues can be dealt with easily enough by throwing relatively small amounts of money at the service. Increasing the subsidy isn't itself really a problem for the politicians.

Dublin Bus is indeed running a not particularly expensive service whether you take the subsidy into account or not. Paradoxically, the reason this is possible appears to be because the company has relatively small capacity to maintain compared to the number of customers served, and this is as much a product of the political situation as the company's operational efficiency. If a few hundred new buses are added, the cost/trip will inevitably go up, at least for a few years.

mike65

RTE reports tonight integrated ticketing is at least 3 years away.

http://jobs.rte.ie/jobdescRTE.asp?id=4690675&JMID=1563&RefPage=Member

Mike.

antoinolachtnai

I hate to say it, but you read it on boards.ie first (about three years ago):

http://wang.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=2823106&postcount=17

Realistically, rolling out integrated ticketing is a three to five year project. From what I can see, no contractor has been appointed yet to implement the system, so we should't expect too much action before 2008.

Propellerhead

One of the stumbling blocks to integrated ticketing appears to be Dublin Bus and its Fare Stage system. This has not changed at all since I was a small lad in the early 1970s and possibly has not really changed at all since the Dublin United Transport Company had trams and buses terminating at Nelson's Pillar.

What is the objection to DB (I can't bring myself to call it BÁC as I am unaware of any Gaeltachtaí in its operational area) implementing zonal fares without significant losses from its cash box?

Offhand, I can only think of a handful of non radial routes that would operate outside any putative central zone. The 18, the 17, the 17A, the 75 come to mind and not many more.

The most obvious answer, and I'm sure that it will be hotly denied publically by DB people, is that changing the fare stage system will make the scrap over using centre doors look like a noughts and crosses puzzle.

Am I right in thinking that simplifying the fare stage system into a zonal system would cause a wee scrap for compo by DB workers?

If I am wrong, what on earth is the problem? The Wayfarer machines that were used by DB up to recently were the same ticket machines used by the London Bus companies after the introduction of the wonderfully simple three zone London scheme in the late 1980s.

Existing technology should not be the problem. I can only conclude that it is the willingness or lack of it of the management and staff of Dublin Bus to accomodate something that has proved to be a benefit to every other European city that I have been in.

London has the Oyster. Paris has the Navigo.

Dublin still assumes that sure everyone pays a cash fare from Celbridge to O'Connell Bridge, travelling twenty kilometres on a stage carriage Double Decker Bus and why bother changing something that has been in place for the last sixty years?

Carawaystick

In fairness to DB at the currency change, they wanted to simplify the system but the govt put them back in their box sharply after some auld wans/lads whinged to Joe ( or was it Marian then)

I think DB wanted EUR1/EUR1.50/EUR2 system. I remember that the overall fare rchange was a fall but one of the prices was higher than allowed so db havn't bothered since.

Heart

Changes of the DB fare structure are regulated by the Minister for Transport. If I remember correctly there was outcry a few years back when they tried to bring in a 1, 1.50 and 2euro fare structure...

H

AlekSmart

Whilst it`s appealing to many (even occasionally myself) to whup BAC`s management over the Antiquated Fare Stage setup,the control of it`s cash fare reigeme is a very jealously guarded perogative of the Dept of Transport.

The one time that Bus Atha Cliath moved to rationalize it system (Euro Changeover 2002) it recieved a fairly substantial whack in the teeth from a spooked Department.

Some posters may recall how the company intended to introduce a simplified fare stage system in tandem with the new coinage.

And simple it would have been,with only 3 fares within the Cityzone boundary.

In one of the oddest,yet sadly predictable interventions ever in CIE affairs,the Dept of Transport cried foul but only after some waffling from differing political sources on a variety of good reasons NOT to simplify the current arrangements.

One of the arguements advanced was the usual guff about imposing hardship on the disadvantaged and elderly etc.....forgetting that the DSFA Free Travel Scheme is there to satisfy the needs of those very "disadvantaged" people.

Not content with instructing BAC to withdraw the new structure the "Powers that Be" prevailed on the company to run Two "Free Fare" Saturdays as "Compensation" to its traumatised customers,a great many of whom would have benefited greatly from the new structure.

If anybody wants to talk Fares,then don`t bother to talk to BAC....they do what the Dept INSTRUCTS......Remember too...we simply HAVE to keep that underlying inflation curve as flat as we can......don`t we.....

antoinolachtnai

The stages system doesn't really make a lot of difference to implementing an integrated ticketing system.

The original point of the integrated ticketing system is to allow you to change buses without having to pay two full fares, and then to somehow allocate the revenue between the two routes. Whether you use the zone system or a stage system makes no real difference to the difficulties. (Zones would make calculating the fare a little simpler, but would do nothing to figure out the division of revenue.)

Capt'n Midnight

AlekSmart wrote: »

Whilst very few are prepared to admit it,Bus Atha Cliath are running one of the CHEAPEST urban bus services in the EU.
In terms of single cash fares you will travel a country mile before finding an EU capital city with a €1 busfare.......

Rome ?

many cities in europe have fixed price fares unlike here where it's €1.90 or higher per bus depending on the journey

The government subsidy barely covers them for the loss of revenue due to traffic jams, which are in part caused by a lack of public transport because said government won't give them money to buy buses.

How does our one day travel all zones on all public transport compare with other cities ?

Capt'n Midnight

popebenny16 wrote: »

abolish fares.

I'm not kidding.

~180m per year
Luas would have paid for it for 4 years
or the western rail corridor
or a fraction of the NRA's budget for linear car parks

John R

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

Rome ?

many cities in europe have fixed price fares unlike here where it's €1.90 or higher per bus depending on the journey

And in many of these cities the flat fare is close to €1.90. The flat fare in London is approx €2.90, ther purpose of which is to discourage cash payment in favour of smart card and season ticket use.

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

The government subsidy barely covers them for the loss of revenue due to traffic jams, which are in part caused by a lack of public transport because said government won't give them money to buy buses.

That is the heart of the matter which people conveniently forget when blaming transport operators for poor services. You cannot run a good service if the infrastructure outside your control is in a mess and Dublin is a perfect example of that.

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

How does our one day travel all zones on all public transport compare with other cities ?

It doesn't because there isn't one available, bus and rail, bus and luas or rail and luas but no ticket for all 3 and don't even mention the private bus operators.

The one day bus (in pack of 5) at €3.60 compares well, especially considering the coverage the DB network gives. The rail only, luas only and the 3 multi-modal options are not so good, rail-luas and rail-bus at €8.20 and €8.80 in particular. An all-mode ticket at those prices would be on the high side but for a ticket that leaves out one mode they are overpriced.

It is just another in a long line of politically motivated fudges that added another layer of crap to the ticketing system. When the Luas was started it should have been either Bus or Train for the purposes of multi-modal tickets. Instead a third category was added and the accompanying pissing match between the RPA and CIE over revenue split left us with the current stupid.

paulm17781

John R wrote: »

And in many of these cities the flat fare is close to €1.90. The flat fare in London is approx €2.90, ther purpose of which is to discourage cash payment in favour of smart card and season ticket use.

But with an Oyster card it's a flat fare of 90p!

Slice

This in today's IT, by Olivia Kelly;

No integrated transport ticket until 2010

The long-awaited integrated ticketing system for public transport will not be fully operational until 2010, the Railway Procurement Agency (RPA) has told Dublin City Council.

Councillors from all parties last night said they were shocked and disappointed the single ticketing scheme for buses, Dart, Irish Rail, Luas and metro systems will be delayed for at least three years, and that €13 million of the €50 million budget for the project has already been spent.

Tim Gaston, director of the project, said the RPA hoped to launch limited integration with the "smartcard" for use on both Luas and rail services in September 2009, but a fully integrated card for all journeys on any type of public transport and some private buses would not be available for at least a year after that.

Following the integration of the scheme, which Mr Gaston said would be used by some 250,000 passengers a year, cash customers would pay more for their journeys than those using smartcards, he said. Smartcards could be topped up in shops, online, at station kiosks or from a user's bank account.

Integrated ticketing was proposed in a report by an Oireachtas transport committee in the late 1990s. In November 2000, then minister for public enterprise Mary O'Rourke approved a plan for the introduction of the smartcard system from late 2002.

However, little progress was made and the project was handed over to the RPA, which was due to introduce the scheme in 2005.

When in 2006 there was no sign of a smartcard, the RPA appeared before another Oireachtas transport committee and said it had begun a procurement process to find a company to develop the cards the previous year. Confusion arose when it emerged Dublin Bus was simultaneously seeking companies to develop its own smartcards.

In July 2006, then minister for transport Martin Cullen established the Integrated Ticketing Project Board to develop the project.

Dublin Bus will still be introducing its smartcards in the coming months, Mr Gaston said. All participants would now "build" their own system, he said, and a separate company would be established to integrate them.

This would collect the revenue when a customer buys or tops up a smartcard, and distribute the proceeds to the owners of whichever mode of transport the customer uses, within 24 hours of the journey.

What a surprise

markpb

There's no political will to make this happen.

spacetweek

Dublin Bus will still be introducing its smartcards in the coming months, Mr Gaston said. All participants would now "build" their own system, he said, and a separate company would be established to integrate them.

That's absolutely awful. That's the worst way of going about it. It will take waaay longer that way.

Slice

There was a more in-depth article on integrated ticketing in the latest issue of Business & Finance where it explored some of the issues delaying the project. There were two points in the article that were most interesting;

The original intention to make the smart card useable nationwide seemed to be discredited as impractical. The point made was that someone using the card to travel one stop on say the Dublin-Cork line would need to have a minimum balance on their card equal to the maximum cost of the longest journey on that line which would be in the region of €60 to ensure they don't go into a negative balance in case they choose to travel the full length of that line. If people were allowed to go into a negative balance of such an amount what can be done to ensure they don't subsequently stop using the card, get themselves a new card and never pay the difference? The point made was that a requirement to have a minimum balance of €60 to make a one-stop journey on the IE network would be enough to discourage anyone from using the card in this way.

The other point made in the article is that in order to make the smart card attractive to public transport users some sort of discount would need to be offered over the normal cost of the journey for people not using the smart card. The question is who should take the hit on the discount? CIE obviously don't believe they should take the hit and the counter argument that any reduction in revenue would be offset by the increase in patronage - however given that this increase in patronage is likely to occur during peak time when most CIE services are operating at capacity any means that they can't benefit from this increase in use.

The article also pointed out that most other cities that have introduced smart cards have done so at very high cost. It noted that the subvention to London's Oyster card operators for the discount on fares over normal cash fares amounts to £6 billion over a 25 year period.

antoinolachtnai

The first problem can be resolved easily enough. You can only travel as far on the service as you have credit for. It takes whatever you have as deposit and you can only travel as far as it will bring you. You are subject to inspections same as it is now and if you have exceeded your money, you get fined.

The issue of the discount is pretty obvious. Who pays for pretty much everything else? Anyway, you'll make up the money through reduced dwell time. That's the theory anyway.

This is not a new issue in any case. The whole original concept of the smartcard was to allow discounts when you switched bus. It was a given that discounts would be required from the very beginning.

These are really not the show stoppers as far as I can see.

AlekSmart

Quote Anton O L

" You are subject to inspections same as it is now and if you have exceeded your money, you get fined. "

THIS is The most important issue here for ANY PT Operator attempting to impliment or enforce Revenue Protective measures.
The reality is that under current Social Conditions an Operator will be put through the hoops in any attempt to ensure compliance with a fare structure,particularly a cash based one.

At some point all revenue protection comes down to pursuing an offender through the courts if necessary for their fare or any penalty incurred by non-compliance.

This is presently a horrendously expensive procedure which can tie up human resources for days and produce no guarantee of success should a Judge form an opinion that the offender was simply unable to pay and especially if the miscreant is a customer of the Dept of Social and Community Affairs.

If I was attempting to introduce a service I would be making it very clear that Fare Evasion would simply NOT be tolerated and would result in IMMEDIATE eviction and ongoing refusal to carry such offenders......Not nice,socially inclusive or PC..but necessary for commercial survival in the Jungle !! :eek:

Slice

The first problem can be resolved easily enough. You can only travel as far on the service as you have credit for. It takes whatever you have as deposit and you can only travel as far as it will bring you. You are subject to inspections same as it is now and if you have exceeded your money, you get fined.

Currently with Luas smart cards you are deducted the cost of the maximum journey and credited the difference when you tag off. They have no way of ensuring you don't travel a distance exceeding the amount you have credit for and random inspections only serve as a deterrent and not any kind of insurance that people don't abuse the system. Also, with the Luas smart cards you have a "purse" value of €4 in case you exceed the credit on your card but this wouldn't work if you had the potential to exceed the credit on your card by as much as €60 for obvious reasons. So the question of how you ensure people don't travel further than they have credit for remains unanswered. If it rolls out nationally are we talking about installing card validation machines in every station across the country and hiring staff to man all stations?

The issue of the discount is pretty obvious. Who pays for pretty much everything else? Anyway, you'll make up the money through reduced dwell time.

Reduced dwell time for Dublin Bus services yes but in the case of IE the number of people waiting to board a train doesn't really influence dwell time. The reduction in dwell time for BE routes wouldn't really be significant either as they don't stop anywhere near as frequently as city busses.

At some point all revenue protection comes down to pursuing an offender through the courts if necessary for their fare or any penalty incurred by non-compliance.

Exactly, if the costs of pursuing someone for fare evasion is greater than the lost revenue from not getting the fare then it doesn't make sense beyond a doing so as a matter of principle - unfortunately principles don't really add much to the bottom line.

bk

Slice wrote:

So the question of how you ensure people don't travel further than they have credit for remains unanswered. If it rolls out nationally are we talking about installing card validation machines in every station across the country and hiring staff to man all stations?

Well first off all this is only be rolled out in the dublin area, most of the dart stations already have gates compatible with the cards.

Simply tag on at the start of the journey and tag off at the end of the journey.

The same can be done for commuter trains, just like the DART, you charge the maximum fare at the start and only reduce the cost when the person tags off.

Obviously intercity would be different, perhaps make people buy a ticket at the machine outside the stations (ticket gets put on the smart card) and then on board have the ticket inspectors inspect the ticket like done on most intercity trains at the moment.

IMO the trains and darts are the easier case, buses are more difficult.

You would have no problem putting currently multi use passes, like weekly, monthly tickets on the smart card, but how would you do single journeys?

Does the person tag on when getting on the bus and tag off when getting off the bus again? Sounds like it could really slow things down.

markpb

bk wrote: »

You would have no problem putting currently multi use passes, like weekly, monthly tickets on the smart card, but how would you do single journeys?

If they used the middle doors and had two readers, people could tag off on the way out without being much slower. Obviously it would be much easier (but less politically expedient) to move to a fixed fare system, even if only for card holders.

bk

markpb wrote:

If they used the middle doors and had two readers, people could tag off on the way out without being much slower.

DB seem to be against this, because of fare evasion by all the scum in Dublin.

Anyway most buses are single door now, so this solution while good, would take many years to implement (phasing out old buses).

markpb wrote:

Obviously it would be much easier (but less politically expedient) to move to a fixed fare system, even if only for card holders.

Actually that is quite a good, simple solution, I like it a lot.

Cash fares continue to pay in the normal way, but for smart card you get one low cost for any journey (say €1 or even €1.40) and transfer with 90 minutes, this would help attract people to getting the smart card and would work in a similar way to London Bus.

bk

bk wrote: »

DB seem to be against this, because of fare evasion by all the scum in Dublin.

Even the new EV class are single door, I think the last double door buses were the Airlink AVs. So pretty much every bus with the exception of the RVs and AWs have a single door, so yep, won't happen any time soon.

I think this country needs someone new in government and I'm not talking Fine Gael or Labour, someone completely new. I've never been abroad so haven't seen the system in other countries but I hear a lot of interesting stories. Right now the only useful thing to me is the Travel 90 tickets, probably the only form of "integration" we have, if it even counts.

markpb

bk wrote: »

DB seem to be against this, because of fare evasion by all the scum in Dublin.

I doubt fare evasion has anything to do with it. I regularly see drivers on the 17A using the middle door and no-one can tell me that Finglas, Ballymun, Coolock and Kilbarrack are scum free areas! The other reason, not being able to pull in (around badly parked cars) so both doors are in line with the kerb is probably more important but the gardai are never going to ticket people for parking in a bus stop.