"Leap" into the unknown: The feedback thread

goingnowhere

coylemj wrote: »

Plus the IR Smartcard is designed to only hold cash credit whereas the Leap card is designed to hold credit and as a carrier for certain ticket types (e.g. Travel90) which will be rolled out in 2012, the two cards are completely different.

The Irish Rail smartcard can and does hold both period passes and cash at the same time and chooses which to use based on the situation. Place an annual or monthly tax saver issued smartcard in the TVM cradle and you get some interesting choices. The LEAP card is copying the current Irish Rail system as in Irish Rail's software will be running on the Luas machines too.

Try topping up on a bus...

coylemj

goingnowhere wrote: »

The Irish Rail smartcard can and does hold both period passes and cash at the same time and chooses which to use based on the situation. Place an annual or monthly tax saver issued smartcard in the TVM cradle and you get some interesting choices.

I accept that if you say so, the IR Smartcard website could do with an update because all it talks about is storing credit from which the fare for each journey is deducted, no mention about being used as a repository for the likes of monthly tickets etc.

Even the new IR website only says the following under 'What is Smart Card?'....

The Smart Card is used to store travel credit that is deducted as you travel by rail within the Short Hop Zone as far as Balbriggan, Maynooth, Kilcoole and Hazelhatch.

SandyfordGuy

What I heard rumoured a while ago, but I'm hoping is not the case, is that Irish Rail Smart cards might actually continue and be preferred to Leap. You may ask why they would do that. Commercially, fare collecting and revenue wise it would make a lot of sense.

If someone tops up an Irish Rail Smart card with 20 euro that is 20 Euro that Irish Rail get. If they top up a leap card by 20 euro at the same machine, that revenue will not necessarily all go to them, as it can be used on other transport modes. Irish Rail Smart card top ups give them direct cash, Leap does not.

Although as I said I can't imagine the NTA allowing such a thing to happen, as it would purely be putting ones own interests over the interests of the people who use public transport in this country. It also remains to see what happens regarding a shared purse when private operators come in.

Hopefully we have seen the last of the turf wars now though and everyone is thinking together and not trying to outdo each other. Ideally after an overlapping period I would like to see both the LUAS and Irish Rail smart cards be discontinued and replaced with leap

SandyfordGuy

If anyone thought the driver interaction was going to go away for launch then sadly your mistaken. When paying by cash this morning (left my leap card at home) I noticed that the card scanning area on the drivers ticket machine now has a sign on it saying (Touch Leap Card Here) covering the validator. Maybe it is on the self validator as well?

bk

SandyfordGuy I fear you are right about Irish Rail, I had the same thoughts, but no evidence of it other then what we see on the ground.

It would be quiet typical of Irish Rail carry on.

If true then the NTA should crack down on this immediately. There would be nothing worse to confuse passengers and give people a negative view of smart cards.

Irish Rail smart cards not working on LUAS/bus, Leap cards not purchasable at IE TVM's would be a disaster.

Aard

Sure on the new Irish Rail website, there's a flashy graphic given to the "Smartcard". It seems this comes in two forms: e-purse (cough...Leap...cough) and student/scholar. Now, while the latter isn't accommodated on the Leap cards yet, I can't for the life of me understand why they're still marketing the IR Smartcard E-PURSE! It's exactly the same as Leap, only non-integrated (whatever that means).

Poor form, IR, poor form.

monument

Aard wrote: »

Sure on the new Irish Rail website, there's a flashy graphic given to the "Smartcard". It seems this comes in two forms: e-purse (cough...Leap...cough) and student/scholar. Now, while the latter isn't accommodated on the Leap cards yet, I can't for the life of me understand why they're still marketing the IR Smartcard E-PURSE! It's exactly the same as Leap, only non-integrated (whatever that means).

Poor form, IR, poor form.

Because their cards are fully doing their job right now? The Leap card does not yet work with Irish Rail's TVMs, are only in testing / light launch, has no online top-up systems, and Irish Rail likely have have loads of their own cards left and people will be give a chance to switch over at a later date.

bk

monument wrote: »

Because their cards are fully doing their job right now? The Leap card does not yet work with Irish Rail's TVMs, are only in testing / light launch, has no online top-up systems, and Irish Rail likely have have loads of their own cards left and people will be give a chance to switch over at a later date.

However by the sounds of it Leap Card will be officially launched on Monday, before this new Irish Rail website goes live.

So that section should be linking you to leapcard.ie for people looking to buy a new smart card and should have info on how to exchange your existing Irish Rail smart card for a leap card.

monument

bk wrote: »

However by the sounds of it Leap Card will be officially launched on Monday, before this new Irish Rail website goes live.

So that section should be linking you to leapcard.ie for people looking to buy a new smart card and should have info on how to exchange your existing Irish Rail smart card for a leap card.

Will the Leap work on Irish Rail TVM on Monday? Bit useless to most Irish Rail users if not. It's a page on a test site, it can be replaced.

The_Wrecker

SandyfordGuy wrote: »

If anyone thought the driver interaction was going to go away for launch then sadly your mistaken. When paying by cash this morning (left my leap card at home) I noticed that the card scanning area on the drivers ticket machine now has a sign on it saying (Touch Leap Card Here) covering the validator. Maybe it is on the self validator as well?

The main reader (on passengers side) only does max fare. Lower fares must be deducted by the driver.

coylemj

SandyfordGuy wrote: »

If someone tops up an Irish Rail Smart card with 20 euro that is 20 Euro that Irish Rail get. If they top up a leap card by 20 euro at the same machine, that revenue will not necessarily all go to them, as it can be used on other transport modes. Irish Rail Smart card top ups give them direct cash, Leap does not.

+1 Functionally the Leap card doesn't do anything for Dart users who already have IR Smartcards plus if there is an ability to transfer your credit to Leap, IR will have to (1) hand over all of the outstanding credit to the Leap operator and (2) refund €5 to everyone who surrenders their IR SMartcard.

I can see that IR doesn't see itself getting much from Leap, no wonder they're slow to convert their machines to handle them.

SandyfordGuy

monument wrote: »

Because their cards are fully doing their job right now? The Leap card does not yet work with Irish Rail's TVMs, are only in testing / light launch, has no online top-up systems, and Irish Rail likely have have loads of their own cards left and people will be give a chance to switch over at a later date.

But Irish Rail, Dublin Bus, Bus Eireann, LUAS, the privates whoever need to realize that this project is not about turf wars and protecting each others vested interests, it's about providing a much better transport experience for the general public.

Promoting your own smart card over the general one as it increases your revenue stream and stops passengers from using topped up credit with other operators is called protecting your own vested interests over that of the general public.

The thing is with Irish Rail and Dublin Bus and Bus Eireann they are subsided by the taxpayer, they should not be able to try and put their own vested interests over what is a very important project for public transport in this country.

The bigger picture is far more important than any individual company.

AlekSmart

SandyfordGuy wrote: »

But Irish Rail, Dublin Bus, Bus Eireann, LUAS, the privates whoever need to realize that this project is not about turf wars and protecting each others vested interests, it's about providing a much better transport experience for the general public.

Promoting your own smart card over the general one as it increases your revenue stream and stops passengers from using topped up credit with other operators is called protecting your own vested interests over that of the general public.

The thing is with Irish Rail and Dublin Bus and Bus Eireann they are subsided by the taxpayer, they should not be able to try and put their own vested interests over what is a very important project for public transport in this country.

The bigger picture is far more important than any individual company.

Agreed,to a point,however,the entire issue with Leap focuses upon service integration.

That "Integration" was expected to be an integral part of the ITS programme as is now personalized by the Leap card.

What we now appear to be presented with is the inevitable outcome of an Integrated Ticketing Programme which did NOT start at the beginning,by Imposing a unified fare structure as its 1st premise.

Instead,and bizzarrely even admitted to by the RPA at the inception of ITS,it was decided to allow each operator to maintain their existing systems,even introducing new ones,and then at a suitable date in the future (ie:NOW) integrate the entire lot.

There has been some reference on this thread about Big Banging and it's desirability,but in reality the RPA/ITIB could and should have made the BIG BANG 10 years ago by forcing,if necessary,the entirety of the Public Transport Sector to get on board the Integrated Ticketing Bus.

Instead,in true Irish style,these highly skilled administrators advised by equally highly skilled technical consultants (c.€34 Million Worth) decided to have a Púc Fáda with the issue and hurl it continually down the road for some other eejit to address.

The former Sec General of the Dept of Transport,Julie O Neill,described ITS (In a submission to an Oireachtas Committee) as "the only issue in my career which had caused me to lose sleep",an admission of some import given the now well proven abilities of Senior Irish Civil Servants to doze at length for Érin.

What we are now seeing is a failure of Central Administration to appreciate the most basic of concepts surounding the IT brief.

I would suggest that the various CIE subsidiary managements are merely acting in the best interests of their respective companies and their customers,as if taken to it's limit,the eventual outcome of the current ITS thinking will be even further cutbacks and closures.

As it currently stands,ITS can be rescued by the Implimentation Group taking immediate charge of the project at it's most basic.

Secure agreement on the revenue stream,which needed to be secured a decade ago,rationalize the various individual non-cash products,and allow a seamless access by passengers to whichever product suits them.

What is happening currently resembles nothing less than a darkened cave full of neanderthals poking sticks at a flashing lightbulb :mad:

Carawaystick

Stevek101 wrote: »

In fairness you've been told before Irish Rail machines are not part of the trial.

I thought this was an integrated ticketing project....

LXFlyer

Carawaystick wrote: »

Stevek101 wrote: »

In fairness you've been told before Irish Rail machines are not part of the trial.

I thought this was an integrated ticketing project....

It's a *phased* project. Until a later phase both all of the existing products will remain available. Over the coming year they will on a *phased* basis switch over to LEAP.

Remember that there remains quite a lot of work on Leap yet when rebates and capping come into play.

Best to maintain the existing products with full functionality until each phase is fully tested and issues resolved.

markpb

lxflyer wrote: »

It's a *phased* project. Until a later phase both all of the existing products will remain available. Over the coming year they will on a *phased* basis switch over to LEAP.

This bit is absolutely true.

lxflyer wrote: »

Best to maintain the existing products with full functionality until each phase is fully tested and issues resolved.

This bit is absolutely wrong. Forcing the system to support an arcane list of operators, tickets, fares, stages and everything else made it more complicated and more expensive. Simplifying the fares later will not be simple - it will be a massive a change requiring lots of work, lots of testing and (probably) a big payout to the companies involved.

One of the core staff in the project said many months ago that cities who simplify their ticket systems before they integrate them have a far higher chance of implementing a workable, successful integrated ticket.

LXFlyer

No it is not wrong. Once the epurse is fully operational and all issues resolved, with capping/rebates fully working, then obviously the LUAS and IE epurses should go.

I fail to see the point in removing existing tickets/cards when LEAP has had only limited testing.

robd

coylemj wrote: »

+1 Considering that there is a machine in every Dart station capable of topping up IR Smartcards, it's nothing short of a disgrace that after all the money that's been spent on this project there still isn't a single railway station (if you exclude Easons in Heuston and the Luas machines outside) where you can topup a Leap Card.

Looks to me like IR are a unwilling guest at the party!

You still can't use an Irish Rail TVM. However you can now topup online (at leapcard.ie) using Laser/Visa/Mastercard and specify Irish Rail of pickup. Next train journey you take credit will be applied to you card. Better than having to use Luas TVM or find working Payzone provided you have a CC or Laser.

AlekSmart

markpb wrote: »

Forcing the system to support an arcane list of operators, tickets, fares, stages and everything else made it more complicated and more expensive. Simplifying the fares later will not be simple - it will be a massive a change requiring lots of work, lots of testing and (probably) a big payout to the companies involved.

One of the core staff in the project said many months ago that cities who simplify their ticket systems before they integrate them have a far higher chance of implementing a workable, successful integrated ticket.

An absolute blatantly obvious major issue in any system which featured Fare-Stages as it's default norm !

The REALLY serious issue here is that this was flagged from Day 1 and before a penny/cent was spent,but some genius decided to ignore this inconvienence and plough on anyway.

SandyfordGuy

robd wrote: »

You still can't use an Irish Rail TVM. However you can now topup online (at leapcard.ie) using Laser/Visa/Mastercard and specify Irish Rail of pickup. Next train journey you take credit will be applied to you card. Better than having to use Luas TVM or find working Payzone provided you have a CC or Laser.

Do we know what the reason is that Irish Rail are not going to support this phase? Would be interesting for someone to ask Leap Card and find out why, so we can find out if they are too busy looking after their vested interests or this was a plan.

If it is vested interests as they are worried about their income, then why are we paying them so much in subsidy to run a public service, when they turn around and then are more interested in running something to suit themselves rather than the public.

LXFlyer

SandyfordGuy wrote: »

robd wrote: »

You still can't use an Irish Rail TVM. However you can now topup online (at leapcard.ie) using Laser/Visa/Mastercard and specify Irish Rail of pickup. Next train journey you take credit will be applied to you card. Better than having to use Luas TVM or find working Payzone provided you have a CC or Laser.

Do we know what the reason is that Irish Rail are not going to support this phase? Would be interesting for someone to ask Leap Card and find out why, so we can find out if they are too busy looking after their vested interests or this was a plan.

If it is vested interests as they are worried about their income, then why are we paying them so much in subsidy to run a public service, when they turn around and then are more interested in running something to suit themselves rather than the public.

I really think you are reading far too much into this. It is a phased project and all of the operators are (per the NTA) fully committed to the project.

Just because you heard a "rumour" does not mean it's true. In fact most of the rumours posted here in this forum have turned out to be completely wrong or only half-right.

I really cannot see this being snything more than phasing in the product across all of the modes.

SandyfordGuy

Just sharing an opinion and what is going around, generally that is what happens on discussion boards. Sorry if you don't like it, maybe boards is not for you?

Some people spin, some people have conflicts of interest and don't declare them too, whilst other people have more than one account.

LXFlyer

SandyfordGuy wrote: »

Just sharing an opinion and what is going around, generally that is what happens on discussion boards. Sorry if you don't like it, maybe boards is not for you?

Some people spin, some people have conflicts of interest and don't declare them too, whilst other people have more than one account.

I am merely saying that I think you are reading far too much into this.

LXFlyer

SandyfordGuy wrote: »

Just sharing an opinion and what is going around, generally that is what happens on discussion boards. Sorry if you don't like it, maybe boards is not for you?

Some people spin, some people have conflicts of interest and don't declare them too, whilst other people have more than one account.

I am merely saying that I think you are reading far too much into this. I'm not sure what the latter part of your post has to do with any of my post above.

SandyfordGuy

You were talking about that a lot of things were generated by rumors on this board that may not have foundation, but there are also other things which are happening on this board to muddy the water so I thought we would bring them all up seeing as you started this conversation.

I would encourage anyone no matter on what side they ar e to post their views however, and not feel they need to go into hiding, or heaven forbid sign up to another username because they feel they cannot make their own views on what is after all a discussion board which should allow open discussion rather than one sided.

LXFlyer

SandyfordGuy wrote: »

You were talking about that a lot of things were generated by rumors on this board that may not have foundation, but there are also other things which are happening on this board to muddy the water so I thought we would bring them all up seeing as you started this conversation.

I would encourage anyone no matter on what side they ar e to post their views however, and not feel they need to go into hiding, or heaven forbid sign up to another username because they feel they cannot make their own views on what is after all a discussion board which should allow open discussion rather than one sided.

My point was related to the various rumours about bus routes being cut completely over the past 18 months that were told by drivers to passengers that just turned out to be completely false simply because they only had part of the story.

I don't know anything more about the phasing of this than you but I have seen on the NTA website their declaration that IE and all other operators are fully complying with the process.

AlekSmart

lxflyer wrote: »

I don't know anything more about the phasing of this than you but I have seen on the NTA website their declaration that IE and all other operators are fully complying with the process.

And that assurance for my 2c worth,cuts to the nub of the issue.....The PROCESS,such as it is,remains fundamentally flawed in it's approach to INTEGRATED ticketing.

The ITIB was set up as a Heavy Hitter from day one,yet it never appeared to recognize the sheer scale of what It could have achieved had it flexed its muscles at that early stage.

The first,and now continuing mistake,was made in allowing each and every operator to continue with operating (and even introducing new) systems and travel products...with some loosely defined committment to "Integrate" them all at some future point in time......Always seemed dodgy to me....:rolleyes:

markpb

lxflyer wrote: »

No it is not wrong. Once the epurse is fully operational and all issues resolved, with capping/rebates fully working, then obviously the LUAS and IE epurses should go.

I fail to see the point in removing existing tickets/cards when LEAP has had only limited testing.

Apologies, you said products so I thought you meant products, not cards. The IR and Luas cards should definitely be kept until they can safely be phased out. My problem is with the retention of the Luas zonal system, the Irish rail zonal system, the DB stage system, the list of DB, IR, Luas and multi-operator tickets and whatever comes next in phase 2 (the half assed support for BE springs to mind).

bk

Sigh just double charged on the bus again

AlekSmart

bk wrote: »

Sigh just double charged on the bus again

Sigh.....Did you seek an annulment ?

Remember you need to do this at the point of issue,an process which a simple Flat Fare would render unnecessary...:rolleyes: