Dublin Bus Travel 90 bus tickets

lola1

I always have one of these in my purse but I only use them occasionally and it really irritates me that I can never tell how many journeys I have left until I actually get on the bus - by then I might find I have none left and I may not have the correct change if I end up having to pay. The previous design showed date and time of each journey so you always knew how many you had left.

January

You can ask the busdriver to check how many journeys are left

lola1

Of course I can! I can also scan it when I get on the bus but that is not the answer. I feel it should be obvious when I look at the ticket how many journeys I have left - before I get on the bus. The last design worked - and if it ain't broke, why fix it?

dudara

Moved to Commuting & Transport

dudara

snappieT

lola1 wrote: »

The last design worked - and if it ain't broke, why fix it?

It was broke - cards would frequently not read, the time for the card to go in and out of the reader was longer, etc. etc.

Bring an Argos pen with you and mark off your journeys on the card yourself if its that important to you. Surely as long as you have one journey left, you're fine. When the reader says that this is the last journey, just buy a new one.

lola1

Ah, if only life were that simple! I generally use my bus tickets on a Saturday evening to go into town for a meal/few drinks. At that stage I certainly don't feel like having to go traipsing around the newsagents looking for a bus ticket.........

January

Then buy a few at a time and when you've one left buy another few... seriously, technology on the busses is moving on, you should too.

Michael Collins

This is clearly a valid point. The problem is I don't see any way of fixing this, short of having an LCD panel on the card telling you the number of journeys left. It's a bit easier with the Luas Smartcard as you're always near a top-up point and can top up when it's convenient.

Maybe eventually there'll be a more permenant "smartcard" for all transport services, that you can check your balance and top-up online. Or text "balance" to some number and get a reply.

Michael Collins

adrieanne__x wrote: »

Then buy a few at a time and when you've one left buy another few... seriously, technology on the busses is moving on, you should too.

I think the poster's problem is that the technology has moved on, but it has lost a useful feature.

lola1

Yes Michael Collins, I absolutely agree. Technology has certainly moved in in some ways but they have eliminated a very useful feature on these cards and have not replaced it with anything better. That is not technology moving on! These cards are fine if you are a commuter and using them every day; you then always know how many you have left. I only use them occasionally so there is no way I can remember how many trips I have left on my card. I have actually started bringing a pen with me to mark off the number of journeys but honestly, is that not going backward???

snappieT

lola1 wrote: »

not replaced it with anything better

As I've already said, its been replaced with something that is both more reliable and is faster in use.

mrsdewinter

lola1 wrote: »

The last design worked - and if it ain't broke, why fix it?

I've been buying Travel 90 tickets for about five years now, and I don't remember a feature which showed remaining journeys at a glance. The model before the current ticket had the metallic strip down the centre, right?

Thanks to adrienne_x for the tip on asking the driver, by the way. Didn't know you could do that...

KC61

Well from next year it will be replaced by a smartcard that you should be able to check at LUAS stops, Iarnrod Eireann stations and on a driver's ticket machine, and possibly online.

For the moment you can always ask any bus driver to check on his machine without using the ticket.

I do find it a minor inconvenience and also liked the way you could give one of the tickets to a friend or whatever. But I also remember the problems with old tickets - sometimes they wouldn't read and the driver would have to write the date and time on it with a pen.

I always keep one on me and when I see that it's on its last trip I separate it from my other cards so I don't forget.

mrsdewinter

mrsdewinter wrote: »

I've been buying Travel 90 tickets for about five years now, and I don't remember a feature which showed remaining journeys at a glance. The model before the current ticket had the metallic strip down the centre, right?

With the old system you had ten separate tickets.

jack presley

I preferred the old cards. When they didn't work, most drivers were too lazy to take it off you and write that you'd taken a journey on it so you got a trip for free.

Michael Collins

mrsdewinter wrote: »

I've been buying Travel 90 tickets for about five years now, and I don't remember a feature which showed remaining journeys at a glance. The model before the current ticket had the metallic strip down the centre, right?

You had a seperate card for each 90 minute journey, they came in a pack of 10. The time the first journey commenced would then be printed on the ticket. So now you have the convenience of only one ticket for 10 journeys, but can't tell how many you have left at a glance.

Carawaystick

I remember they had ten single journey tickets, that cost the price of 8 or 9 journeys back in '99.

the ticket machine printed a time and date at the start of each trip so you could see how much trips were left.

I think transfer 90 also printed the start journey time back then.

You could also get ten journey tickets for all journeys so you didn't hold up the show paying cash.

Now, it's cheaper to pay cash for journeys less than 1.85.
The tickets don't show how many journeys are remaining, or how long you have left on your ticket.

I'd call that a regression in customer service.

Somewhere on here it was said that the 10 journey tickets were withdrawn due to abuse. Not sure what that means exactly.

cast_iron

Carawaystick wrote: »

The tickets don't show how many journeys are remaining, or how long you have left on your ticket.

I'd call that a regression in customer service.

On those points, yes. But as said above, the service as a whole has improved on both reliability and speed issues.
I would say those benefits outweigh the drawbacks.

markpb

cast_iron wrote: »

I would say those benefits outweigh the drawbacks.

Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that the benefits to regular users outweigh the drawbacks to irregular users.

Polar101

I just mark the remaining trips on the ticket with a pen.. pretty simple.

Capt'n Midnight

I miss having the date/time printed on the ticket so you know whether to use the ticket again for a free transfer or should pay with change when it's a short journey

Zebra3

I'm always amazed at how few people know about these tickets.

anotherlostie

With the old system you could also split the cards so that more than one person could use the ticket from the same pack of 10 - the new system only allows you to use one journey per card. I remember this almost causing me a problem first time I tried to use it like this with my other half and neither of us had any suitable change. Driver did the decent thing and let us off which was much appreciated on a wet night after a 15min walk to the stop.

Zebra3

Zebra3 wrote: »

I'm always amazed at how few people know about these tickets.

Same here. I travel out to Ballyfermot a lot so if it weren't for these I'd be paying €1.15 into the city centre and then €1.80 out there (or €2.20 to Clondalkin which I do once every 3 weeks). I also remembered using one back in 2008 (when they were €17) to go from Drumcondra to the centre, then out to Ballyogan. Cash fare would have been a total of €2.05 at the time (€1.05 and €1.90), my friend paid the €1.90 cash fare while I used my Travel 90 which I had already used on the 16 earlier.

AlekSmart

I preferred the old cards. When they didn't work, most drivers were too lazy to take it off you and write that you'd taken a journey on it so you got a trip for free.

Indeed Jack Presley,any customer in their right mind would prefera card that alowed them to travel for free on perhaps 50% more journeys.

The essence of the "problem" as raised by the OP is the changeover from Magnetic Stripe technology to Contactless RFID.

The old Wayfarer Mag Card Validator is simply well gone beyond it`s service life now.

Thsee machines are incredibly complex inside and particularly of late became ever more unreliable,leading to ever increasing amounts of bad reads,stuck tickets and free or unrecorded journeys.

Additionally they are at the end of their manufacturers support lines also and parts are becoming ever more difficult to source.

Replacing thse with a "Smart Reader" which has NO moving parts and a failure rate of miniscule proportions and the term No-Brainer becomes apposite.

The lack of physical journey record is not something which DB engineered.
It`s simply part and parcel of the Operating System and as others have said outweighed by the benefits of Contactless Technology.

I would be regularly asked to check a Cards validity on the Ticket Machine Reader and have no problem doing it and supplying a print-out if required...so If in Doubt...Ask (Nicely )

However all that aside,the issue of Fares generally brings us all back quite neatly to the Department of Transport....:)

mrsdewinter

Karsini wrote: »

With the old system you had ten separate tickets.

Of course: now I remember. Little books of tickets. Dear me. How could I forget? Thank you!

Carawaystick

AlekSmart wrote: »

Replacing thse with a "Smart Reader" which has NO moving parts and a failure rate of miniscule proportions and the term No-Brainer becomes apposite.

The lack of physical journey record is not something which DB engineered.
It`s simply part and parcel of the Operating System and as others have said outweighed by the benefits of Contactless Technology.

If the radio in the Dublin bus is anything like the radios used in IÉ or tram tickets, then "Miniscule" is hardly the adjective I'd use to describe the failure rate - I've had to try get through 7 gates at Connolly station before one'd open with my ticket, while I've had my tram ticket not read at the redcow stop at all four readers.


The fact DB engineered away the record of journeys taken and the time the present journey started at tells a story about their customer service. RATP and MTA both use magstripe technology, and RATP anyway give a record of the time a ticket was used.

cast_iron

Carawaystick wrote: »

The fact DB engineered away the record of journeys taken and the time the present journey started at tells a story about their customer service.

The machine tells you the number of journeys left as you flash the ticket.

Incidentally, I had to purchase one of these tickets this evening and it failed to read 5 times on 2 different buses.:P
Finally read the 6th time..

noelfirl

I've been using the contactless cards since introduction and the only two fails I've ever had were 1) my own fault in having two tickets in close proximity in my wallet and 2) the reader was turned off. An awful lot of people I've seen with failed readings appear to have them because they don't actually place the ticket properly, usually waving it briefly about an inch away from the reader. Tapped straight up against the target for about half a second, I've never had any issue.

The magstripe Wayfarer machines by comparison were horrible for not printing the details, getting stuck and needing a reboot, and firing the ticket back out so fast afterwards that it ended up half way across the floor.

Michael Collins

Yeh it is somewhat annoying that the bus reader has a problem reading the card when I have a Luas Smartcard in my wallet too. (The Luas reader never has a problem when the situation is reversed).

AlekSmart

An awful lot of people I've seen with failed readings appear to have them because they don't actually place the ticket properly, usually waving it briefly about an inch away from the reader. Tapped straight up against the target for about half a second, I've never had any issue.

Bingo Noelfirl....I think a big mistake was made in not giving the system a name tag...something like the BULLSEYE Card...which is what I refer to the Reader as.

People still regfer to them as "Swipe" cards which they are not.

As you say,treat the Reader (Not the Driver) as a Target and all will be well

However Carawaystick is only partially correct here....

The fact DB engineered away the record of journeys taken and the time the present journey started at tells a story about their customer service. RATP and MTA both use magstripe technology, and RATP anyway give a record of the time a ticket was used.

The hard-copy journey record simply is`nt possible with the RFID card,unless you want to combine the worst aspects of the Old Mag-Stripe with the benefits of contactless...if so why bother with contactless at all ?

As Cast_Iron sez,you DO get a quick snapshot of journeys left but you need to pay attention to the reader display rather than the card itself...It`s a matter of getting comfortable with the differing aspects of the new technology.

cast_iron

AlekSmart wrote: »

Bingo Noelfirl....I think a big mistake was made in not giving the system a name tag...something like the BULLSEYE Card...which is what I refer to the Reader as.

I made sure I put it flat up against the reader as I flashed it this morning....another 3 bad reads.
The driver takes the ticket, put it far too close to his nether regions than I was comfortable with (to warm it I guess) for a few secs and lays it on his reader. He said it was fine, so I tried once more and it worked no problem. Go figure.

Andremac96

you should be able to log in only and type your ticket number in to check