Heads up Re: combined bus & rail tickets

maggy_thatcher

I've an annual Bus&Rail ticket (issued by Irish Rail - so it's the one with the photo printed on the card). After a mere 15 days of its 365 days, it stopped working at any train station (either 'UNREADABLE' or 'FAILED' error messages appearing at the turnstiles), so I went to the TaxSaver office to get it replaced. The woman there told me that there's a known issue with using the combined ticket on buses (a high number of ticket failures).

As such, if you have one of these cards and take the bus, if possible, try just showing the ticket to the driver rather than putting it through the machine - otherwise you may have go and get your ticket replaced (requires a trip to Connolly on a weekday between 8:30 and 5).

foggy_lad

are they not going to replace these faulty tickets with ones that work properly? Or maybe they could charge 20euro to replace them as a handy revenue earner!

schemingbohemia

I thought it was the other way around!

That means both versions aren't working properly. I have a Dublin Bus issued combined that can't be read by the Rail ticket machines so have to show it to the ticket office or the 'minder' at the gates in Pearse.

maggy_thatcher

foggy_lad wrote: »

are they not going to replace these faulty tickets with ones that work properly? Or maybe they could charge 20euro to replace them as a handy revenue earner!

They replace the tickets with new ones for free (just fill in a form and they'll reprint it for you there and then), but the new ones are supposedly still unreliable. Their IT staff are supposedly "working on the problem"

robd

maggy_thatcher wrote: »

They replace the tickets with new ones for free (just fill in a form and they'll reprint it for you there and then), but the new ones are supposedly still unreliable. Their IT staff are supposedly "working on the problem"

The major issue is the way the technology currently works. Each time you put the ticket through either an Irish Rail turnstyle or Dublin Bus validator, information is written to the ticket about the event. This stops you using the ticket in another machine for a configured period. The writing is horrendously unreliable. AFAIK, it actually re-writes the whole ticket info as part of the event. A slight error from one of the machines and the card is busted.

Of course the tax saver office give you all this speal about keeping it in Irish Rail protective case; keeping it away from mobile phones due to magnectic interference; etc.. All rubbish, it's the 20 year old machines nuking the info on the magnetic strip.

Integrated smart cards will eventually fix the problem but don't expect them anytime soon.

thomasj

yep its an issue of the irish rail issued one not working on buses and the dublin bus issued one not working at the ir turnstiles at stations

I have the db issued one and despite the ir warnings i insert it into the readers at the stations a number of times with no problems but i have had one close call so probably better just showing it to the ticket clerk at stations

maggy_thatcher

thomasj wrote: »

yep its an issue of the irish rail issued one not working on buses and the dublin bus issued one not working at the ir turnstiles at stations

The problem I had was that the physical act of putting the IR ticket into a DB reader caused it to no longer function at the train turnstiles (it did however still appear to work on the buses).

thomasj

its annoying because sometimes you show the driver your pass and they tell you to stick it in the machine.

The better of the two is the db issued one because it works on the buses and you dont have to stick it in the rail readers because of the issue.

loyatemu

I've had my IR-issued ticket die after putting it through an IR turnstyle, so its not just the buses - they're crap technology basically, it annoying that they're not replacing them with smartcards.

Breezer

loyatemu wrote: »

I've had my IR-issued ticket die after putting it through an IR turnstyle

I've had ones that have been dead before they've gone through at all. I'd buy a smartcard if it wasn't going to cost me an absolute fortune.