Irish Rail increase parking charges.

Lapin

From next Monday.

Daily charge set to rise from €2 to €3.
Weekly charge up from €8 to €10.

Nicely sneaked in just before the budget.

http://www.irishrail.ie/news_centre/news.asp?action=view&news_id=1256

SandyfordGuy

Good day to bury bad news

D'Peoples Voice

Lapin wrote: »

From next Monday.

Daily charge set to rise from €2 to €3.
Weekly charge up from €8 to €10.

Nicely sneaked in just before the budget.

http://www.irishrail.ie/news_centre/news.asp?action=view&news_id=1256

all depends on how you read it

While machine charges for daily and weekly parking will increase, customers can ensure that the price of parking is unchanged by switching to ParkByText where there will be no increase.

Monthly charges will effectively be reduced for all customers

dmcronin

I'll just continue to park OUTSIDE the car park at my local station, that's my middle finger to car park charges.

dowlingm

Railway stations (the public bits like ticket offices and car parks) should be transferred to the local authority to operate as transit hubs. In that way, IE no longer has direct responsibility for what is charged and if the car park costs so much it causes illegal parking then the LA has the obligation to fix the problem by enforcement, by fee reduction or by offering a shuttle service so people don't have to drive there in the first place. By the same token, fees from the car park or ancilliary activities like a newsagent or other co-located retailer can go directly to local station upkeep and feeder service, not redirected into the black hole of CIE.

Lapin

dowlingm wrote: »

Railway stations (the public bits like ticket offices and car parks) should be transferred to the local authority to operate as transit hubs.

My local station has been upgraded in recent years. Extended platform, new lifts, nice lick of paint, flowers and plants etc.

I dread to think what would happen if my local authority were given responsibility for it.

Rushwan

It's disgraceful that they are sneakily bringing in increased charges.It will make people change to 33X which will be cheaper than combined rail/parking charges-raging over this!!

Lapin

Whats 33X ?

mickydoomsux

Rushwan wrote: »

It's disgraceful that they are sneakily bringing in increased charges.It will make people change to 33X which will be cheaper than combined rail/parking charges-raging over this!!

Sneaking it in by putting it on the website and offering people the same rate if they use ParkByText?

Captain Chaos

Lapin wrote: »

Whats 33X ?

A bus route.

Cookie_Monster

mickydoomsux wrote: »

Sneaking it in by putting it on the website and offering people the same rate if they use ParkByText?

no by announcing it at the same time as the budget so it's not picked up by tv/radio/papers as much

glassmullan

anyone have Irish rail email address where we can send several hundred email complains

glassmullan

only ones i see are info@irishrail.ie and IECustomerRelation@irishrail.ie

lil5

Lapin wrote: »

... nice lick of paint, flowers and plants etc. ...

= core competencies of Irish Rail

Cookie_Monster

lil5 wrote: »

= core competencies of Irish Rail

:pac:

TonyStark

Lapin wrote: »

My local station has been upgraded in recent years. Extended platform, new lifts, nice lick of paint, flowers and plants etc.

I dread to think what would happen if my local authority were given responsibility for it.

I see the past few weeks they have been doing works at my local station. IMHO using up budgets so they can get them again next year. Cynical perhaps on my part.

robd

Lapin wrote: »

Daily charge set to rise from €2 to €3.
Weekly charge up from €8 to €10.

To be honest, this is hardly surprising. This is outside the remit of the DOT so they don't have to get an order giving them permission. They can just do it, and they have. Money has to come from somewhere, given public service obligation grant is being reduced.

Of course would be better if DOT leaned on them to introduce a package of efficiencies and redundancies to reduce costs, but that would require balls which I don't see.

schemingbohemia

robd wrote: »

To be honest, this is hardly surprising. This is outside the remit of the DOT so they don't have to get an order giving them permission. They can just do it, and they have. Money has to come from somewhere, given public service obligation grant is being reduced.

Of course would be better if DOT leaned on them to introduce a package of efficiencies and redundancies to reduce costs, but that would require balls which I don't see.

Have IE not reduced staff by a significant amount in the last few years? Probably need to lose a lot more but it's not like they haven't got rid of people.

robd

schemingbohemia wrote: »

Have IE not reduced staff by a significant amount in the last few years? Probably need to lose a lot more but it's not like they haven't got rid of people.

They did in 2009 versus 2008 but staff numbers actually went up in 2010. More significant is ratio of payroll to revenue which is shocking.

The reports are here:
http://www.irishrail.ie/about_us/annual_reports.asp

Staff numbers up
Average staff cost (includes pensions payments) significantly down
Revenue down
Payroll/Revenue slightly down.

134% when it was 107% only a few years before is totally unsustainable. To stay afloat they need to give 30% pay cut to every staff member across the board. Harsh but thats reality of how bad a situation they're actually in. Why staff numbers increased in 2010 is perplexing.

Of course we've no idea what they did in 2011 yet.

2010
Revenue: 190m
Payroll: 256m
Payoll/Revenue: 134%
Staff Numbers: 4431
Average Staff Cost: 57k

2009
Revenue: 197m
Payroll: 266m
Payoll/Revenue: 135%
Staff Numbers: 4254
Average Staff Cost: 62k

2008
Revenue: 221m
Payroll: 266m
Payoll/Revenue: 120%
Staff Numbers: 4906
Average Staff Cost: 54k

2007
Revenue: 230m
Payroll: 247m
Payoll/Revenue: 107%
Staff Numbers: 4845
Average Staff Cost: 50k

mickydoomsux

Cookie_Monster wrote: »

no by announcing it at the same time as the budget so it's not picked up by tv/radio/papers as much

This is a non-story so it wouldn't have been picked up on even the slowest of slow news days.

mickydoomsux

robd wrote: »

To be honest, this is hardly surprising. This is outside the remit of the DOT so they don't have to get an order giving them permission. They can just do it, and they have. Money has to come from somewhere, given public service obligation grant is being reduced.

Of course would be better if DOT leaned on them to introduce a package of efficiencies and redundancies to reduce costs, but that would require balls which I don't see.

None of this is relevant considering that the parking has been contracted out by IE. I think NCPS run it in all stations that have paid parking and the way it works is that they pay IE a set amount every year to run pay and display in a station and that's it after that, any money made goes to NCPS. So, any fines for clamping and any parking ticket sales including any under this new raised rate go directly to NCPS with no extra money going to IE.

Email NCPS to complain because if you email IE they're going to tell you to do that anyway.

robd

mickydoomsux wrote: »

None of this is relevant considering that the parking has been contracted out by IE.

It's relevant if the upped the price of the contact which they likely did upon review. Most of the IE carparks I see along the DART line are overflowing each day.

In regard to complaining. I'm not complaining as I'm not a user of the carparks, just pointing out what I see. Typical mé féin attitude of course.

Losty Dublin

Back in the late 1940's when CIE formed, they had a staff level of over 6 men per mile of track, with many branch line services only running 2-3 trains on a 6 day weeks, some even ran once a week or mont yet with full staff employment! Today, it's down to about 4 per mile but with a higher frequency service on almost all services compared to even 20 years ago so the headcount in real terms is lower, no bones about it.

One source for higher staff numbers in the last few years is the effective ban on overtime with EU working time directive limiting driver hours to 48 hours on a 6 day week but it doesn't explain such a high rise. CIE wages were unaffected by public sector cuts but they did rise to compensate for the less overtime in the last decade.

In relation to the income and expenditure side, it's a well beaten drum but if the DSP paid a fairer share for tickets made via free travel pass trips then all 3 CIE carriers would be a hell of a lot healthier. If FG wish to sell off the CIE group as has been the long time rumour then they need to look closely at this, very closely as it's one of the biggest mill stones around CIE's neck.

robd

Losty Dublin wrote: »

One source for higher staff numbers in the last few years is the effective ban on overtime with EU working time directive limiting driver hours to 48 hours on a 6 day week but it doesn't explain such a high rise. CIE wages were unaffected by public sector cuts but they did rise to compensate for the less overtime in the last decade.

In relation to the income and expenditure side, it's a well beaten drum but if the DSP paid a fairer share for tickets made via free travel pass trips then all 3 CIE carriers would be a hell of a lot healthier. If FG wish to sell off the CIE group as has been the long time rumour then they need to look closely at this, very closely as it's one of the biggest mill stones around CIE's neck.

The thing is I specifically chose to focus on the ratio as regardless of anything else this ratio should remain constant. DSP didn't go through the roof in the last few years, it's been a problem for some time and is a separate issue. Revenue has plummeted and payroll has crept up. This is unsustainable. Fare enough on staff numbers due to directive but given recession and revenue cut overtime should have simply been cut not awarded as part of base salary to compensate. Genuinely, Irish Rail are in serious trouble if they don't bring down their payroll as state doesn't have the money to cover the difference. 21m service obligation grant being removed from CIE group this year alone and it looks like the same again in 2012 and again in 2013. So prob about 10m from Irish Rail each year.

Sierra Oscar

Iarnród Éireann will also be announcing rail fare price increases later this week following a reduction in funding from the government in the budget.

robd

Sierra Oscar wrote: »

Iarnród Éireann will also be announcing rail fare price increases later this week following a reduction in funding from the government in the budget.

Iarnród Éireann also announcing redundancies and across the board pay cuts for staff. Oh wait, that's on a different planet.

DWCommuter

mickydoomsux wrote: »

This is a non-story so it wouldn't have been picked up on even the slowest of slow news days.

Ah nice one Micky. In the depths of a huge recession a story that involves an increase in commuting costs (to those lucky enough to be still doing it) is in your view an absolute non story.

Do you drive to work? Do you pay for your parking space?

mickydoomsux

DWCommuter wrote: »

Ah nice one Micky. In the depths of a huge recession a story that involves an increase in commuting costs (to those lucky enough to be still doing it) is in your view an absolute non story.

Do you drive to work? Do you pay for your parking space?

If you actually read the press release there is no increase in cost if you use the ParkByText facility which you would presumably use if you were commuting daily.

I pay nothing for my parking but i don't park in the public carparking area so it's irrelevant to the discussion other than a pathetic attempt at point scoring on your behalf.

DWCommuter

mickydoomsux wrote: »

If you actually read the press release there is no increase in cost if you use the ParkByText facility which you would presumably use if you were commuting daily.

I pay nothing for my parking but i don't park in the public carparking area so it's irrelevant to the discussion other than a pathetic attempt at point scoring on your behalf.

I did read it. I'm aware of park by text and your presumption that every commuter will do this is a long way short of reality and really just a ...presumption. However I think the biggest issue that irks you is my question about where you park in the station you work in. My point being that you don't pay for parking, so you don't have that additional cost from your wage packet, that is generously protected by all sorts of political entanglements.

Put simply, don't be so insensitive and nonchalant about an issue that doesn't effect you. Study the financial figures of your employers and count yourself lucky to still have a job. Furthermore any attempt I make to point score against as you, as you put it, isn't pathetic. Once again look at the figures.

mickydoomsux

DWCommuter wrote: »

I did read it. I'm aware of park by text and your presumption that every commuter will do this is a long way short of reality and really just a ...presumption. However I think the biggest issue that irks you is my question about where you park in the station you work in. My point being that you don't pay for parking, so you don't have that additional cost from your wage packet, that is generously protected by all sorts of political entanglements.

Put simply, don't be so insensitive and nonchalant about an issue that doesn't effect you. Study the financial figures of your employers and count yourself lucky to still have a job. Furthermore any attempt I make to point score against as you, as you put it, isn't pathetic. Once again look at the figures.

Point scoring it is then.

You've managed to turn a thread about the private company that operates the car parks in our stations raising their cash-only price on their own intiative into your usual IE staff bashing nonsense.

DWCommuter

mickydoomsux wrote: »

Point scoring it is then.

You've managed to turn a thread about the private company that operates the car parks in our stations raising their cash-only price on their own intiative into your usual IE staff bashing nonsense.

No. I merely challenged a member of IE staff to be not so dismissive of the news worthiness of the story.

dowlingm

robd wrote: »

Fare enough on staff numbers due to directive but given recession and revenue cut overtime should have simply been cut not awarded as part of base salary to compensate.

Way to miss the point. Basic salaries have risen because instead of getting a guy on overtime to do the extra work ANOTHER PERSON MUST BE HIRED TO DO IT INSTEAD. The other alternative is a service cut because of insufficient man-hours but then you'd be moaning about the revenue loss.

DWCommuter

dowlingm wrote: »

Way to miss the point. Basic salaries have risen because instead of getting a guy on overtime to do the extra work ANOTHER PERSON MUST BE HIRED TO DO IT INSTEAD. The other alternative is a service cut because of insufficient man-hours but then you'd be moaning about the revenue loss.

Still doesn't explain the staff rise. I think you have missed the point here.

Carawaystick

mickydoomsux wrote: »

Point scoring it is then.

You've managed to turn a thread about the private company that operates the car parks in our stations raising their cash-only price on their own intiative into your usual IE staff bashing nonsense.

Have you any evidence that ncps are allowed by CIÉ to set the price?

CIÉ/IÉ set the price, and get ncps to manage the car parks.

I can only see increasing the price of Rush and Lusk carpark as driving customers away and into the cheaper and faster 33x bus service.

mickydoomsux

Carawaystick wrote: »

Have you any evidence that ncps are allowed by CIÉ to set the price?

CIÉ/IÉ set the price, and get ncps to manage the car parks.

Where's your evidence of this?

Carawaystick

mickydoomsux wrote: »

Where's your evidence of this?

I've no evidence for the likely increase of passengers from Rush and Lusk not bothering their holes paying more than the cost of the a journey from the station in Lusk to Dublin city just to park their cars, and then pay more again to take a slow train where they will more than likely have to stand as against a bus service that is cheaper, faster, actually serves the towns of Lusk and Rush, will be able to seat the vast majority of customers ( >> 95%) apart from basic cop on


[1]

[2]
Irish rail only set the prices to reflect the maintenance and operational costs of the car parks. allegedly

mickydoomsux

So, i'm the only one who has to provide facts, which i already did but you decided to ignore them.

You can just make things up and that makes you the one who's right?

Carawaystick

mickydoomsux wrote: »

So, i'm the only one who has to provide facts, which i already did but you decided to ignore them.

You can just make things up and that makes you the one who's right?

I can't see anything about my evidence in [1] [2]
in your post

mickydoomsux

A price list for parking in each station with the name of the parking management company beside it on the Irish Rail website is suppose to do what other than show the prices and show who to complain to about disputes? You may as well post a Rail Gourmet menu and blame IE for profiteering on the price of a cup of tea.

Point 2 is on a website that has the exact same unreasonable attitude as a lot of posters here.

Give me once piece of actual proof that IE are the ones controlling the parking fee rather than NCPS who are contracted to do it and can do it if they so please.

For what it's worth, i don't even think that customers should be paying for parking but it is what it is.

penexpers

I would hope the thinking behind car parking charges is that it would get people to think about how they get to the train station. I am fairly certain that at the station I use on a daily basis, the majority of cars are coming from houses that are 10-15 minutes walk from the station which really isn't all that far.

Iarnrod Eireann

OK, we may regret this, but here goes!

This is an official Iarnród Éireann boards account.

We are going to trial the use of this account on this forum.

At this point, we will use it to occasionally add facts which may aid the understanding of a particular topic, or to correct factual inaccuracies in discussion on Iarnród Éireann issues.

We do not at this point intend to engage in day-to-day debate, arguing as to why we are not the devil incarnate in corporate form etc. We do however keep an eye on boards.ie as any large organisation worth its salt does on relevant discussion boards.

This is not intended to be an alternative route for customer queries or complaints, and customers are advised to use the normal channels .


Specifically, we just wish to correct an post #19 above, which appears to have misread figures in our annual report for 2010. This appears to have been an honest error, in post #19, quoting year-end figures in some instances, and average employee figures for the full year in others.

The number of staff reduced from year end 2009 to year end 2010 from 4499 to 4254, and did not increase from 4254 to 4431 as stated in post #19.

The average staff through the year reduced from 4679 to 4431, reflecting the fact that many exits would have been towards the end of the year, giving full year savings this year.

Full details are in the table on page 32 of the 2010 annual report:
http://www.irishrail.ie/about_us/pdf/IE Annual Report 2010.pdf

Our current staff numbers (as of 6th November 2011) are 4161.

So from a staff numbers level of 6176 in 2001, our year end figures have been as follows:

2002: 5976
2003: 5833
2004: 5547
2005: 5376
2006: 5114
2007: 4933
2008: 4845
2009: 4499
2010: 4254
2011 (ytd): 4161

For many of these years, this coincided with a significant increase in the numbers of services provided.


In the interests of balance (and apologies to mickydoomsux who defends his employer valiantly here!), we should also correct the point in post #21 on the car parking charges.

Iarnród Éireann changed the car parking charges regime, not NCPS, and Iarnród Éireann will benefit should additional revenue be raised.

Within that change, we will also incur a small cost in ensuring that the parkbytext convenience charge which was previously charged on top of the parking charges will now be incorporated in the €2, €8, €30 parking charge via parkbytext, to ensure there is a differential and incentive for customers to switch to parkbytext.

The only ancillary charge for parkbytext is the monthly account charge of 50c, for those customers who choose the account option under parkbytext (normal SMS text costs apart).

However, as stated in post #39, RailGourmet do set their own pricing.

Hope this information is of help.

lil5

Iarnrod Eireann wrote: »

This is an official Iarnród Éireann boards account.

We are going to trial the use of this account on this forum.

Welcome & thanks for the info and clarifications.

TheChrisD

Iarnrod Eireann wrote: »

This is an official Iarnród Éireann boards account.

We are going to trial the use of this account on this forum.

At this point, we will use it to occasionally add facts which may aid the understanding of a particular topic, or to correct factual inaccuracies in discussion on Iarnród Éireann issues.

We do not at this point intend to engage in day-to-day debate, arguing as to why we are not the devil incarnate in corporate form etc. We do however keep an eye on boards.ie as any large organisation worth its salt does on relevant discussion boards.

If that is the case, it would help if you were to get the account changed to an Official Representative account, to alleviate the concern people may have that this account may be a troll

bk

Iarnrod Eireann you are very welcome to boards.ie and I think you will be pleasantly surprised at the overall warm reception you will get here.

In my experience of other forums on boards with official reps (Vodafone, Eircom, etc.), even though people are very critical of the company, they are generally very supportive and happy to engage with official reps.

Usually it ends up being a positive experience for all, with the companies getting valuable feedback.

However if you haven't done so already, I recommend you contact the forums mods, just to make sure it is ok and to make sure everyone understands the limits of interaction. Also they can officially verify your account.

Lapin

lil5 wrote: »

= core competencies of Irish Rail

Sarcastically overlooking the point of my comment to gain a few thumbs up and a cheap laugh. :rolleyes:

Losty Dublin

Iarnrod Eireann wrote: »

The number of staff reduced from year end 2009 to year end 2010 from 4499 to 4254, and did not increase from 4254 to 4431 as stated in post #19.

The average staff through the year reduced from 4679 to 4431, reflecting the fact that many exits would have been towards the end of the year, giving full year savings this year.

Full details are in the table on page 32 of the 2010 annual report:
http://www.irishrail.ie/about_us/pdf/IE Annual Report 2010.pdf

Our current staff numbers (as of 6th November 2011) are 4161.

So from a staff numbers level of 6176 in 2001, our year end figures have been as follows:

2002: 5976
2003: 5833
2004: 5547
2005: 5376
2006: 5114
2007: 4933
2008: 4845
2009: 4499
2010: 4254
2011 (ytd): 4161

Hi Mr/Miss Irish Rail Rep

In relation to the annual figure for payroll costs specified in the annual report, does that include those ex staff and widows who have pensions drwn from Irish Rail?

LXFlyer

Pensions of ex-employees are an expense of the pension fund and not the company. They are funded while they are employees.

foggy_lad

Losty Dublin wrote: »

Back in the late 1940's when CIE formed, they had a staff level of over 6 men per mile of track, with many branch line services only running 2-3 trains on a 6 day weeks, some even ran once a week or mont yet with full staff employment! Today, it's down to about 4 per mile but with a higher frequency service on almost all services compared to even 20 years ago so the headcount in real terms is lower, no bones about it.

One source for higher staff numbers in the last few years is the effective ban on overtime with EU working time directive limiting driver hours to 48 hours on a 6 day week but it doesn't explain such a high rise. CIE wages were unaffected by public sector cuts but they did rise to compensate for the less overtime in the last decade.

In relation to the income and expenditure side, it's a well beaten drum but if the DSP paid a fairer share for tickets made via free travel pass trips then all 3 CIE carriers would be a hell of a lot healthier. If FG wish to sell off the CIE group as has been the long time rumour then they need to look closely at this, very closely as it's one of the biggest mill stones around CIE's neck.

Back in those horrid times there were weekly/daily deaths due to unsafe work practices and thousands worked on the actual railways as well as in goods yards loading and unloading coal and other freight. a single train could have up to a dozen staff and each station had much more staff to deal with freight, coal, water, locomotives, shunting, level crossings, porters, signalmen etc etc

If one train employed so many people back then and now the same train only employs a few people for driving, conductor, trolley dolly, few cleaners, few maintenance men for diesel and water and emptying the loo tanks etc how has the total stayed so fantastically high?

mickydoomsux wrote: »

If you actually read the press release there is no increase in cost if you use the ParkByText facility which you would presumably use if you were commuting daily.

I pay nothing for my parking but i don't park in the public carparking area so it's irrelevant to the discussion other than a pathetic attempt at point scoring on your behalf.

The park by text service incorporates a facility to charge a "CONVENIENCE FEE" at any time in the future.

Do you know how many free parking spaces Irish Rail has for their many overpaid and underworked staff?

Losty Dublin

foggy_lad wrote: »

Back in those horrid times there were weekly/daily deaths due to unsafe work practices and thousands worked on the actual railways as well as in goods yards loading and unloading coal and other freight. a single train could have up to a dozen staff and each station had much more staff to deal with freight, coal, water, locomotives, shunting, level crossings, porters, signalmen etc etc

If one train employed so many people back then and now the same train only employs a few people for driving, conductor, trolley dolly, few cleaners, few maintenance men for diesel and water and emptying the loo tanks etc how has the total stayed so fantastically high?

You are incorrect on so many points here than frankly it's a waste of time pointing them all out to you; even then you won't take any of them on board. Come back when you can back up some of your points and we may take you at your word the odd time.

corktina

I should also like to welcome Iarnrod Eireann to Boards (assuming it isnt a troll or imposter of course)

I don't expect you will want to engage in a lot of the discussions on here but I hope there are times when you will be able to add "horses-mouth" info to a debate.

As bk says, you may be surprised at the welcome, many of us are supporters of Rail even if often it seems the opposite!

-Chris-

Iarnrod Eireann wrote: »

OK, we may regret this, but here goes!

This is an official Iarnród Éireann boards account.

We are going to trial the use of this account on this forum.

Welcome to boards, someone will be in contact in due course to verify your account/identity.