Dublin Bus Smartcards

Celtise

I recently have started taking DB more than expected and due to my consistent lack of change, have been wondering what the deal is with DB smartcards. Is there anyone that I can top up and just use whenever I need it?

I'm thinking like the luas card where you tag on/off and there's nothing about having to use credit within 30 days or such nonsense ideas. There's not one that does for both by any chance?

I have looked at DB website but have found it lacking in clarity and updated information. Any help appreciated.

Victor

Not just yet, but it is expected during 2011.

At the moment, your best options are likely to be the 5 and 30 day tickets that are valid on any 5 or 30 days - they need not be consecutive.

AlekSmart

Celtise wrote: »

I recently have started taking DB more than expected and due to my consistent lack of change, have been wondering what the deal is with DB smartcards. Is there anyone that I can top up and just use whenever I need it?

I'm thinking like the luas card where you tag on/off and there's nothing about having to use credit within 30 days or such nonsense ideas. There's not one that does for both by any chance?

I have looked at DB website but have found it lacking in clarity and updated information. Any help appreciated.

Depending on your status and your journey requirements the Student Rambler or Travel90 may offer an economic solution for you.

It`s worth pointing out that the "Smart" Dublin Bus products will usually have a very long validity period,for example current Travel 90 stock doesn`t expire until 2013,so most folks will manage to use their tickets within that timeframe.

Trampas

Celtise wrote: »

I recently have started taking DB more than expected and due to my consistent lack of change, have been wondering what the deal is with DB smartcards. Is there anyone that I can top up and just use whenever I need it?

I'm thinking like the luas card where you tag on/off and there's nothing about having to use credit within 30 days or such nonsense ideas. There's not one that does for both by any chance?

I have looked at DB website but have found it lacking in clarity and updated information. Any help appreciated.

I wish they had this also but the downside is you need to rely on the driver having the right stage in the machine which can be very hard for some of them to do.

Stevek101

You won't be relying on the driver. Dublin Bus smart card will be flat fare with a daily weekly and monthly cap. It is also considering/applying for a flat fare for cash users too.

antoinolachtnai

stevek, I don't think that is correct.

If it is, then the flat fare will be a fare hike for current passengers making short journeys, and this will mean a big fare increase for around half the customers, maybe more.

You will end up with the same fare between Rathmines and George's Street as another passenger pays between Bray and the city centre.

This will mainly effect the customers who can most easily switch to other modes, i.e., walking or cycling.

The people who will benefit from the price cut will mainly be people who have no choice but to use the bus.

It will also discourage the short discretionary journeys and drive those journeys away from the bus and onto foot and bike and car. These short journeys are critical to making routes viable.

The end result would be that any flat fare would destroy the Dublin Bus revenue base. Any new fare scheme which requires an increase in the subvention is just not going to be acceptable to the NTA and the Department of Transport. The only way it could be done is through massive internal savings.

From what the ITS team have told me, there is no monthly cap on the ITS smartcard as currently conceived, although I agree it is a good idea.

Stevek101

That's the latest info from DB. They will have flat fare on smart card and have requested a flat cash fare or a fare increase if that is not allowed. The multi modal cap on daily and weekly is already sorted with Luas and CIE. Monthly is still under negotiation but it is envisaged.

AlekSmart

Stevek101 wrote: »

That's the latest info from DB. They will have flat fare on smart card and have requested a flat cash fare or a fare increase if that is not allowed. The multi modal cap on daily and weekly is already sorted with Luas and CIE. Monthly is still under negotiation but it is envisaged.

Good Stuff SteveK101.

However at this (late) stage in the entire Integrated Ticketing process I feel that terms such as "under negotiation" and "envisaged" simply should not be appearing.

The ITS programme is already a masterclass in how not to address a programme such as this.

It was flawed from the start by the somewhat bizzarre policy decision to allow any Operator to develop or commission whatever system they wished as long as they committed to integrating their system with the others "at a future date".

It remains beyond my understanding that Senior Civil Servants who presided over this lunacy were allowed to retire on full pensions with added benefits after sleepwalking their way through an entire career only to dump this skip-full of impossible to administer stuff at our feet !

Stevek101

In fairness the fact that there is a multi modal cap for daily and weekly journeys should be celebrated!

AlekSmart

In fairness the fact that there is a multi modal cap for daily and weekly journeys should be celebrated!

Crikey SteveK101,don`t get me wrong,I`ll quite willingly celebrate those very worthwhile elements....I retain however,the right to feel downright anger at how long this has taken and how much it has cost to get us to even this baby-step.

Stevek101

AlekSmart wrote: »

Crikey SteveK101,don`t get me wrong,I`ll quite willingly celebrate those very worthwhile elements....I retain however,the right to feel downright anger at how long this has taken and how much it has cost to get us to even this baby-step.

I agree its taken forever and cost a fortune but it is hardly a small step. The most important features will be implemented from day one. The system behind ITS is actually pretty impressive. I'm told it is well more capable then the Oyster system.

It will be possible to not only have integration with GDA transport but national transport as well as taxi's and even Dublin Bikes!

AlekSmart

SteveK101: It will be possible to not only have integration with GDA transport but national transport as well as taxi's and even Dublin Bikes!

This aspect of ITS is of course why we required it in the first place.

However,one of the biggest impediments to achieving this goal remains the decision at the outset to allow Operators to go-it-alone vis-a-vis their ticketing systems as long as they committed to backward integration at a suitable vague later date.

With this "later date" now approaching it remains to be seen how many of the operators are actually ready to integrate and what level of integration they will operate at.

Even the much quoted TfL Oyster Card continues to experience problems with it`s interface with Surface Rail Operations in London an issue which ran for several years and was resolved only by some serious Political Hardball with the various Train Operating Companies.

However I do agree that just as with E-Voting and many other next-best-ideas the mistakes have been made and nobody has,or will,be held accountable,it`s just not in our psyche to seek accountability,so it`s best to forge onwards and hope it works this time round ?

antoinolachtnai

Stevek101 wrote: »

That's the latest info from DB. They will have flat fare on smart card and have requested a flat cash fare or a fare increase if that is not allowed. The multi modal cap on daily and weekly is already sorted with Luas and CIE. Monthly is still under negotiation but it is envisaged.

Who said this in DB?

From my information, there are only two types of cap in ITS (well, 4 if you include there being weekly and monthly)

integrated, cross-operator cap across all operators, weekly and daily. Presumably this would be implemented by means of a Section 59 fare scheme.

Single-operator cap, weekly and daily.

No cross-operator cap has been agreed, nor have their even been negotiations as far as I know, certainly not multilaterals.

'Bilateral' caps, i.e., between two operators such as Luas and Dublin Bus, are outside the scope of the ITS.

This is nothing new. This has been the scope of the scheme for at least five years.

A flat fare is all well and good, but how are Dublin Bus going to sell it to the people whose fares will need to be increased (at least half of them).

AlekSmart

antoinolachtnai
A flat fare is all well and good, but how are Dublin Bus going to sell it to the people whose fares will need to be increased (at least half of them).

I rather suspect that "marketing" phase has already begun with ITS Project Director Tim Gaston`s outlining of the benefits inherent to the project.....

http://www.herald.ie/national-news/city-news/smart-card-will-push-up-commuter-fares-2384096.html

The most important line in the Herald`s piece is....

And an insider revealed that fares are likely to rise rather than offering a discount on the 'smart card' prices.

I`d be inclined to believe that in the context of the Interview that remark would be thrown out with a "Dont Quote Me on this" or some similiar unattributable prefix.

It`s quite a successful tactic as I can attest from the number of resigned enquiries I recieve every day as to "when ( not If) are the fares goin up".

My belief is that in the current disasterous economic climate the State itself should strive to keep Public Transport Fares low or betyter still REDUCE them whilst,at the very least,maintaining the current level of Services.

With rampant unemployment combined with seriously reduced incomes amongst the "contributing classes" I suggest it is very much in The National Interest that the State ensures the Nations Public Transport systems are not swimply thrown on the scrap-heap.

The availibility of a well managed ITS system combined with a Universal Social Service Card is but one way of ensuring this.

LXFlyer

antoinolachtnai wrote: »

A flat fare is all well and good, but how are Dublin Bus going to sell it to the people whose fares will need to be increased (at least half of them).

How did TfL sell it for both the Underground (cash fare went up significantly) and the bus when a flat fare was introduced? I'm sure some fares went up for people when that was implemented in London?

antoinolachtnai

Alek, it could well be, but a fare increase in my mind is different from a total fare restructuring which is what introducing a flat fare would be.

Here is what I mean. At present, the lowest fare is 50c. The highest fare is 2.20. (Leaving out the outer suburbans and Xpressos)

How does the volume of tickets pan out from 50c to 2.20? I really don't know, you would have a better idea.)

Anyway, say you have decided to have a flat fare and you want the new flat fare to yield roughly the same amount of money as the current structure does, so that you have enough money to pay for the drivers and the diesel (to bring it down to brass tacks).

The new fare will be somewhere between 50c and 2.20. Let us say it is 1.70 for the argument's sake.

That will mean that a small proportion of passengers will have their fare trebled, a large proportion of passengers will face a very big increase in fares (up to 35 percent) and others will have a big decrease (up to about 25 percent).

It's easy to sell the decrease. How are you going to sell the increase? 1.70 to get from Rathmines to Town seems like an awful lot.

The ideal way to do this would be to move all the fares to 1.25 or 1.40 and get a subsidy for the rest. But that would entail maybe 30m or 40m in foregone revenue for the company as a whole.

Another variation would be to bring in a flat cash fare of (say) 3 euros, with a new capped smartcard fare of 3.70 a day. Again, you could hail this as a revolution and it would have many advantages, but you would still have the problems above with the revenue shortfall. And you would have to have complete, rock-solid confidence in the ticketing system.

I am not saying that a flat fare is not a good idea. It clearly has advantages. However, I do not understand how Dublin Bus can get it to work out financially when they have been told their subsidy is being cut. And anyway, is it really fair to have inner urban dwellers subsidising the outer-urban dwellers to that extent? This is a special problem for Dublin, because it is so spread out compared to other cities. What about people who are slightly further out and as a result have to pay twice or even three times the fare on Bus Eireann or the Outer Suburban fare as a result?

goingnowhere

I've read elsewhere * that its day and weekly caps only. Flat fare on the bus like London

* http://www.railusers.ie/forum/showthread.php?t=13237

AlekSmart

antoinolachtnai wrote: »

Alek, it could well be, but a fare increase in my mind is different from a total fare restructuring which is what introducing a flat fare would be.

Here is what I mean. At present, the lowest fare is 50c. The highest fare is 2.20. (Leaving out the outer suburbans and Xpressos)

How does the volume of tickets pan out from 50c to 2.20? I really don't know, you would have a better idea.)


The new fare will be somewhere between 50c and 2.20. Let us say it is 1.70 for the argument's sake.

It's easy to sell the decrease. How are you going to sell the increase? 1.70 to get from Rathmines to Town seems like an awful lot.

The ideal way to do this would be to move all the fares to 1.25 or 1.40 and get a subsidy for the rest. But that would entail maybe 30m or 40m in foregone revenue for the company as a whole.

Another variation would be to bring in a flat cash fare of (say) 3 euros, with a new capped smartcard fare of 3.70 a day. Again, you could hail this as a revolution and it would have many advantages, but you would still have the problems above with the revenue shortfall. And you would have to have complete, rock-solid confidence in the ticketing system.

I am not saying that a flat fare is not a good idea. It clearly has advantages. However, I do not understand how Dublin Bus can get it to work out financially when they have been told their subsidy is being cut. And anyway, is it really fair to have inner urban dwellers subsidising the outer-urban dwellers to that extent? This is a special problem for Dublin, because it is so spread out compared to other cities. What about people who are slightly further out and as a result have to pay twice or even three times the fare on Bus Eireann or the Outer Suburban fare as a result?

By far and away the greatest number of tickets I would isssue on a daily basis are €1.15 and €1.60.
At a guess I would suggest these represent 75% of my cash ticket issues.

The 50c fare I would disregard for this thread as it is a very specific CC Zone Promotion with limited relevance to ordinary commutes.

However in terms of Dublin Bus,you are spot-on in relation to the company being cauight in a bind regarding cash-fares.

Given the historical situation regarding cash vs pre-paid ticketing control it`s hardly surprising that the company has consistently reduced the differential between the two modes to secure income.

The last example of this being the decision to increase the price of the Travel90 ticket to €18.50 which made it 5c more expensive that a €1.80 single journey...I`m sure the logic is there,but it`s well concealed.

However the entire fare issue remains one which needs consideration as a Civic Issue rather than a Dublin bus issue.

Antoin correctly points out the impossibility of attempting to operate an urban transit fare system when so many of your customers are,in reality,making an inter-urban style commute due to our somewhat individualistic interpretation of Urban Planning as a topic.

For sure,in the present fiscal climate,there is a need,be it putely social,to maintain a low level of fare,yet it appears that the relevant authorities are keen to see it increase.

I would go with your Daily Flat Fare cap proposal,say €4, with the relevant cash fare set at €2.20 with a 120 minute validity a lá Berlin.

One thing is clear however is the danger of losing out on the opportunity for REAL progressive change offered by the ITS scheme if we continue to cling to the cash-is-king notion.

antoinolachtnai

lxflyer wrote: »

How did TfL sell it for both the Underground (cash fare went up significantly) and the bus when a flat fare was introduced? I'm sure some fares went up for people when that was implemented in London?

Good question.

Basically, the answer is that the Underground is at the core of London's transport system, not the buses. The Underground has fantastic capacity, but it is an expensive system to run (a billion and really expensive to expand. Bus fares for longer bus journeys went down at the same time as underground fares went up, so people had some sort of alternative.

To go into detail, firstly, there is no overall flat fare for TfL.

There is a flat fare on the buses. (1.30 with smartcard)

There is a fare cap on buses (4.00 with smartcard)

There is also a fare cap between buses and Underground. However, the fare cap is different depending on what zones of the underground you use, (between 6.60 and 18.60 I think). As a result, the further you travel on Underground, the more you pay. http://www.tfl.gov.uk/tickets/14416.aspx .

I am open to correction on this, but all, or almost all, bus fares came down when the flat fare was introduced. The reason why this was worked was that the Tube and Rail lines were completely congested, and TfL were prepared to and had to do almost anything to encourage people to move from the Tube to the bus. At the same time, the congestion zone was introduced and this greatly improved bus travel times in central London.

Added to that, because the Underground is at the heart of London Transport, most bus journeys were not actually very long. This meant that cutting down to a low flat fare was not as big a hit proportionately as it would be in Dublin.

None of this is to say a flat fare is a bad idea in principle, but it is very difficult to implement in Dublin.

LXFlyer

antoinolachtnai wrote: »

Good question.

Basically, the answer is that the Underground is at the core of London's transport system, not the buses. The Underground has fantastic capacity, but it is an expensive system to run (a billion and really expensive to expand. Bus fares for longer bus journeys went down at the same time as underground fares went up, so people had some sort of alternative.

To go into detail, firstly, there is no overall flat fare for TfL.

There is a flat fare on the buses. (1.30 with smartcard)

There is a fare cap on buses (4.00 with smartcard)

There is also a fare cap between buses and Underground. However, the fare cap is different depending on what zones of the underground you use, (between 6.60 and 18.60 I think). As a result, the further you travel on Underground, the more you pay. http://www.tfl.gov.uk/tickets/14416.aspx .

I am open to correction on this, but all, or almost all, bus fares came down when the flat fare was introduced. The reason why this was worked was that the Tube and Rail lines were completely congested, and TfL were prepared to and had to do almost anything to encourage people to move from the Tube to the bus. At the same time, the congestion zone was introduced and this greatly improved bus travel times in central London.

Added to that, because the Underground is at the heart of London Transport, most bus journeys were not actually very long. This meant that cutting down to a low flat fare was not as big a hit proportionately as it would be in Dublin.

None of this is to say a flat fare is a bad idea in principle, but it is very difficult to implement in Dublin.

Good post.

The situation in London is (as I understand it) that there is a daily cap in operation (rising depending on how many underground/rail zones you use or a flat £4 if you just use buses).

Anything beyond that is covered by the appropriate weekly, monthly or annual travelcards which can be loaded onto the smartcard.

I would have thought that that is what would have been planned here - a daily cap, and then the existing range of single/multi-mode travel passes as appropriate which could be loaded onto the smart card?

antoinolachtnai

Firstly, there is no plan at present as to what the integrated products should be, or even if there should be integrated products beyond the various bits and pieces that are available. I agree with you that this is an important matter, and it is worth writing to the NTA with your views, to let them know if you think this is important.

You could certainly roll out the products as you suggest.

However, I would suggest thinking about that carefully. The products quickly get very complicated. It is not simple the way London is, which has had a fairly well understood zone system for years, covering most services. On rail in Dublin, the weekly product can be different for every different round-trip, for instance. Weekly and monthly tickets sometimes represent a saving for people further out, but don't give any saving to people closer to the city.

Administering the products is also complex and expensive. All the people who are supposed to be able to sell them have to be trained up on them to some extent. That is fine for Dublin Bus short-hop tickets but when you start talking about the 'exotics' like the Collins's Coaches 5-day to Balrath and the various options for Skerries between rail, DB, BE and god knows what else, and it all starts to get pretty hairy. For the taxsaver scheme, the tickets all have to be administered through employers and the payroll system. When you look at the current system, you will see that students are actually subsidising commuters earning in the higher tax bracket in some cases. The whole thing becomes terribly twisted, bureaucratic, and expensive.

An alternative I would suggest would be to just have a system of caps and get rid of all the various types of products. That way, individual newsagents, bus drivers, etc. only have to know how to sell one type of credit. The employer no longer needs to be involved (and the need to pay them a 10 percent administration fee/PAYE reduction is removed). There is a good deal for tourists, without it being complex. There is guaranteed to be a discount for everybody in using public transport frequently.

But nothing has been decided on this as far as I know.

etchyed

Stevek101 wrote: »

The multi modal cap on daily and weekly is already sorted with Luas and CIE.

WHAT?!!! Has the sky fallen? How? When? Do you have any more details? This is amazing if true.

LXFlyer

antoinolachtnai wrote: »

Firstly, there is no plan at present as to what the integrated products should be, or even if there should be integrated products beyond the various bits and pieces that are available. I agree with you that this is an important matter, and it is worth writing to the NTA with your views, to let them know if you think this is important.

You could certainly roll out the products as you suggest.

However, I would suggest thinking about that carefully. The products quickly get very complicated. It is not simple the way London is, which has had a fairly well understood zone system for years, covering most services. On rail in Dublin, the weekly product can be different for every different round-trip, for instance. Weekly and monthly tickets sometimes represent a saving for people further out, but don't give any saving to people closer to the city.

Administering the products is also complex and expensive. All the people who are supposed to be able to sell them have to be trained up on them to some extent. That is fine for Dublin Bus short-hop tickets but when you start talking about the 'exotics' like the Collins's Coaches 5-day to Balrath and the various options for Skerries between rail, DB, BE and god knows what else, and it all starts to get pretty hairy. For the taxsaver scheme, the tickets all have to be administered through employers and the payroll system. When you look at the current system, you will see that students are actually subsidising commuters earning in the higher tax bracket in some cases. The whole thing becomes terribly twisted, bureaucratic, and expensive.

An alternative I would suggest would be to just have a system of caps and get rid of all the various types of products. That way, individual newsagents, bus drivers, etc. only have to know how to sell one type of credit. The employer no longer needs to be involved (and the need to pay them a 10 percent administration fee/PAYE reduction is removed). There is a good deal for tourists, without it being complex. There is guaranteed to be a discount for everybody in using public transport frequently.

But nothing has been decided on this as far as I know.

You raise another good point - how exotic does this smartcard get?

Taking other cities that I would be familiar with, such as London, Madrid and Barcelona, they tend to restrict the smart card/10 journey tickets/one day passes to city bus services and rail/underground/tram services within a certain radius - they rarely extend to interurban and long distance commuter services such as that referred to you above (Collins etc.).

AlekSmart

lxflyer wrote: »

You raise another good point - how exotic does this smartcard get?

Taking other cities that I would be familiar with, such as London, Madrid and Barcelona, they tend to restrict the smart card/10 journey tickets/one day passes to city bus services and rail/underground/tram services within a certain radius - they rarely extend to interurban and long distance commuter services such as that referred to you above (Collins etc.).

But this Xflyer is the nub of the issue,for the commutes described by Antoin are far too much now an integrated part of what is URBAN Dublin.

This is part of the destruction which was visited upon Dublin as a functional Capital City by some of the seediest questionable public representatives on this planet.

These creepy crawlies have bequeath us an unholy mess in terms of attempting to provide a Public Transport system as their plans were all premised upon the 3 bed semi with two cars per household to provide for all transport requirements.....this in turn enabled the likes of Noel Dempsey to enter into highly secretive Road Tolling arrangements based entirely upon thousands of these cars rolling through the Toll Facilities each and every day.

Faced with this political and social vandalism,introducing a workable and affordable Public Transport ticketing system was always going to be difficult !!!

Stevek101

etchyed wrote: »

WHAT?!!! Has the sky fallen? How? When? Do you have any more details? This is amazing if true.

Check the Rail Users Ireland link above. That is what I have been told and even more.

Fair play for the link!

antoinolachtnai

Well, the smartcard has all the services servicing the Greater Dublin Area as its scope (Dublin, Wicklow, Meath, Kildare). The plan is ultimately to make it nationwide.

Balrath is not an 'exotic' destination, nor is it a long distance from Dublin even if the ticket is exotic. It is within the GDA too, which puts it well within what the system is supposed to cover. It is less than 40km from the city centre.

The problem is that the Dublin population is spread all over the place. It is a lot different from London or Barcelona or whatever in that way.

There is no particular problem in principle with having it in an electronic purse.

There is a problem if you want to be able to buy the product just anywhere though, you are right.

But this isn't just a problem for private operators or even for the outer destinations. Weekly DART tickets similarly fall into the 'exotic' bracket. Check out the fare matrix on http://www.railusers.ie/passenger_info/fares_matrix.php .

Tens of thousands of people commute from the GDA on Bus Eireann too. Try to work out their fare structure for yourself. It could make you cry. They had to outsource the part of their website that shows the fares to a company in the UK. http://www.buseireann.ie/inner.php?id=236

The whole thing is some mess.

goingnowhere

antoinolachtnai wrote: »

But this isn't just a problem for private operators or even for the outer destinations. Weekly DART tickets similarly fall into the 'exotic' bracket. Check out the fare matrix on http://www.railusers.ie/passenger_info/fares_matrix.php

If you start at Tara Street and plot the Irish Rail suburban fares on a map you actually do get a zonal system expanding outwards so its no more messy than the zones on the London Underground or on the RER/Metro in Paris

Long distance fails outside the maximum deductible fare requirement which has to be less than 5 euro. In that case its preloaded weekly, monthly tickets and a rambler options which are far superior to the paper system in place currently. You won't be able to get a train or bus from Dublin to Cork on the purse but you should be able to travel Cobh - Cork on the same pruse as you used for Bray Pearse when fully implemented

antoinolachtnai

Sure, but that's just the fare structure. The weekly tickets themselves are bespoke, specific, i.e., if you buy a weekly from Lansdowne to Dun Laoghaire, you cannot use the ticket to travel between, say, Lansdowne and Grand Canal Quay, even though the ticket would cost the same amount.

So there is a zonal fare structure, but the tickets aren't zonal. To issue the ticket, the assistant in the shop needs to know your stations.

The issue with the 5 euro limit on ticket prices - that's an issue with tag-on, tag-off. In practice, this is an issue on trains where the full fare to the last station on the track is more than 5 euros. There is no reason you can't sell a 40 euro ticket on the ITS although whether this would be desirable is another question.

AlekSmart

A highly interesting thread,with contributions from individuals who are obviously involved to a degree with the actual ITS consultation and implimentation process.

However,I am seeing so many issues being raised which appear to be ongoing with no actual end-process in place to address them.

This,to me,is somewhat scary as I had a belief that €36 Million and 10 Years After would see me operating an ITS that was fit-for-purpose.

I do accept the various points regarding Fare Combinations and permutations but I also know that the least planned for element is most likely the first one to hop out and render your system breathless.

As we head out of Q1 2011,the timetable appears to be somewhat questionable,yet again,and I would be worried about budgetary constraints entering the equation tet again.

antoinolachtnai

Well, first, if the system delivers its proposed scope within the 36m budget, it will actually be pretty cheap by global standards. Anything under 60m would be pretty cheap. No one seems to want to say in public how much the Dutch system has cost, for instance. However, it will not be that simple. A substantial marketing budget, in particular, will be needed to roll the thing out to the public.

The deep problems are to do with how the business of public transport is organized. Thankfully, there is now legislation, in the form of Section 59 of the Dublin Transport Authority Act, 2008, to bring this issue to a resolution. It will need a lot of will and vision though to push it through.

It is unbelieveable the stress our transport system is under, business-wise. Most operators are losing passengers and subsidy but they are under pressure to at least pretend that they are continuing to deliver the same level of service while they cut.

It is very hard for the people responsible for somehow working through this financial catastrophe to find the time to have a vision for the future. If you are so inclined, it is worth getting out the pen and paper to urge the NTA to move forward with developing a fare scheme for the Greater Dublin Area.

AlekSmart

antoinolachtnai wrote: »

The deep problems are to do with how the business of public transport is organized. Thankfully, there is now legislation, in the form of Section 59 of the Dublin Transport Authority Act, 2008, to bring this issue to a resolution. It will need a lot of will and vision though to push it through.

It is unbelieveable the stress our transport system is under, business-wise. Most operators are losing passengers and subsidy but they are under pressure to at least pretend that they are continuing to deliver the same level of service while they cut.

It is very hard for the people responsible for this financial catastrophe to find the time to have a vision for the future. If you are so inclined, it is worth getting out the pen and paper to urge the NTA to move forward with developing a fare scheme for the Greater Dublin Area.

Indeed Antoin,it`s very believable,even for a foot soldier such as myself.

It`s obvious that there is only so much a Public Transport System or the component Operators within that system can do before some element of General Policy direction and active support becomes necessary.

One only has to view the situation within the Taxi business to see how the introduction of a smoothly suited new Regulatory framework complete with bells & whistles can often dazzle itself with it`s own reflection,whilst it`s area of responsibility implodes.

I would suggest that a comprehensive,affordable and sustainable Public Transport Network is as much an integral part of this country`s recovery plan as any notions of Cloud Computing or Rural Mega-Casino developments...as Antoin sez....It`s the NTA`s ball game now....lets hope the Taxi workload has`nt overwhelemed them !!!

goingnowhere

antoinolachtnai wrote: »

Sure, but that's just the fare structure. The weekly tickets themselves are bespoke, specific, i.e., if you buy a weekly from Lansdowne to Dun Laoghaire, you cannot use the ticket to travel between, say, Lansdowne and Grand Canal Quay, even though the ticket would cost the same amount.

Weekly tickets are automatic through the capping system (http://www.railusers.ie/forum/showthread.php?t=13237) so you won't be able to buy a weekly ticket for a smartcard its dynamically allocated based on your actual use

antoinolachtnai

Yes, I would agree that that would be a good idea as a way of coping with the complexity of the existing system. I think the same thing would make sense for Dublin Bus in the short term.

However, that is not what is proposed as I understand it. I understand that there is a single cap per operator as a whole, not multiple caps depending on the maximum number of zones you travel through in the period. So you cannot have multiple zone caps, in the manner of LU. I think that there may be a way to work this, but it is not necessarily in-scope at this stage. I am not sure about this.

LXFlyer

So surely the existing bus/rail, bus/luas, and rail/luas, and Medium/Long/Giant Hop (DB/BE/IE) weekly tickets will continue or not?

Their abolition could unfairly penalise users of those products?

antoinolachtnai

This is the basic hard intellectual issue. Everybody agrees a simpler system would be better, but no one wants to pay more than they are paying now.

It's the same as the thing with having a flat fare on Dublin Bus. That would certainly make things simpler, but it would mean an increase in the fare for a lot of the passengers.

BDSC1964

I'm new to the DB commute if I want flexibility in my commute say bus to bike on sunny days and have a flat fare one way of €1.65. Is it best to buy a monthly non consecutive ticket, rambler, smartcard or just stick with the coins bearing in mind I wouldnt be spending more than €65-70 a month with coins pay as you go.

the groutch

there is no smart card that really caters for short journeys, the only time I ever use one for a €1.65 is the Travel 90 because I can get to where I want, do my shopping and be on a bus home within the 90 minutes