Confusion about picking up Leap topup at a DART station

coylemj

I logged on to www.leapcard.ie tonight with the intention of topping up my Leap card. I mainly use the card on DB so topping up is a bit of a hassle.

On the website it asks you to nominate your 'Load Location' and one of the options is 'DART/Commuter Rail - Any validator/Gate/Ticket Machine'

Which suggests to me that I can collect a topup at one of the ticket machines in Dun Laoghaire Dart station where there are two machines only a few feet off the public footpath.

However in the FAQ section, it says the following...

What is a 'load location'?

A load location is the network you nominate to collect your online Top Up.

You can choose to collect your online Top Up at:

• Any Leap Card Agent
• Luas Validators
• DART/Commuter Rail Validators and Gates in the Short Hop Zone

If you are collecting your Top Up on Luas or DART and Commuter Rail you can do so at the Gates or Validators only.

So why does the dropdown box on the 'Load Location' selection menu mention 'Ticket Machine'?

goingnowhere

You can collect at a ticket machine.

Due to the mess that was leap card Irish Rail ticket machines did not support leap until last Summer, so couldn't do collection until the upgrade happened.

Irish Rails own smart card system always allowed for collection at ticket machines, Luas does not currently.

coylemj

goingnowhere wrote: »

You can collect at a ticket machine.

Due to the mess that was leap card Irish Rail ticket machines did not support leap until last Summer, so couldn't do collection until the upgrade happened.

Irish Rails own smart card system always allowed for collection at ticket machines, Luas does not currently.

Have you purchased a Leap topup online and picked up the credit at a Dart station ticket machine?

That's the cash/credit card machine where you can add credit to an IR Smartcard?

steve-o

Unless you need to use someone else's credit card there's no point in topping up online and collecting at a ticket machine - just go to the machine and do it all there.

coylemj

steve-o wrote: »

Unless you need to use someone else's credit card there's no point in topping up online and collecting at a ticket machine - just go to the machine and do it all there.

Sorry but there is a point. Given the option of using my credit card at a machine (Dun Laoghaire Dart station) which has been the subject of reported tampering whereby the keyboard (where you enter your PIN number) can be read by a hidden camera, I prefer to topup from the comfort and security of my own home and when I go to the station, I only have to whack my Leap card against the reader to collect the topup.

http://www.independent.ie/national-news/roma-gang-linked-to-latest-station-thefts-3312117.html

Dravokivich

All you have to do is slide it into the card holder, when it updates to display your balance the topup should apply.

Should be the same on both Irish Rail and Luas. Once you've decided either of them to be the load location.

goingnowhere

Collection ONLY works at an Irish Rail ticket machine, Luas machines are not able to handle collection

Dravokivich

hasn't been published on the leapcard site, but i have heard it does.

coylemj

Would love to hear from someone who can say that they have actually managed to do it - collect credit from a ticket machine at a Dart station and I don't mean the card reader at the gate/turnstile.

The Leap website says you can't....

If you are collecting your Top Up on Luas or DART and Commuter Rail you can do so at the Gates or Validators only.

goingnowhere

Go try it, its the only way you will truly believe

I have collected an Irish Rail top up at a ticket machine and Irish Rail have never admitted that features exist

Dravokivich

Their customer care says you can pickup from a tvm when getting an Irish Rail refund and since a refund is sent out like a topup, you can.

That website is hardly ever updated.

steve-o

coylemj wrote: »

Sorry but there is a point. Given the option of using my credit card at a machine (Dun Laoghaire Dart station) which has been the subject of reported tampering whereby the keyboard (where you enter your PIN number) can be read by a hidden camera, I prefer to topup from the comfort and security of my own home and when I go to the station, I only have to whack my Leap card against the reader to collect the topup.

A fair point. It takes a bunch of criminals to make online top-up useful for bus users!

AndrewJD

I still don't understand why "collection" of a top up is necessary?

LXFlyer

The card needs to make contact with a live terminal - how else will the money get onto it?

The terminals on the buses are not live as such - they are downloaded each night.

Dravokivich

AndrewJD wrote: »

I still don't understand why "collection" of a top up is necessary?

Your balance needs to be loaded onto the card's memory in order for it to be usable. They have no connectivity other than with validators, payzone units and TVMs configured for Leap.

The issue with Dublin Bus was their validators did not have enough memory to hold complete a topup list on each bus.

Auto topup is meant to get around that when it comes out. No due date set on it yet though.

coylemj

AndrewJD wrote: »

I still don't understand why "collection" of a top up is necessary?

In fairness, the same applies to the Oyster card in London. They owe me £3.10 for an overcharge earlier this year and in order to collect it, I have to nominate a Tube station a few days before my next trip to London, then I have seven days within which I can pickup the credit when I validate the Oyster card on one of the gates at that station.

bk

One thing I don't like is the way you have to nominate the pick up location as either Luas green line, Luas Red line, Payzone or Dart.

Would have been better and more "integrated" if you could pick it up at any location and thus removed this complexity.

Of course even better again if you could top-up on Dublin Bus. Hopefully this will be possible in future when DB upgrade their ticket machines to a model with more memory.

Dravokivich

bk wrote: »

One thing I don't like is the way you have to nominate the pick up location as either Luas green line, Luas Red line, Payzone or Dart.

Would have been better and more "integrated" if you could pick it up at any location and thus removed this complexity.

Of course even better again if you could top-up on Dublin Bus. Hopefully this will be possible in future when DB upgrade their ticket machines to a model with more memory.

That would probably require NTA taking ownership of the equipment.

On top of that, will then mean Dublin Bus would need to have even more memory on any additional devices they may roll out, as they'd have to include topups for Irish Rail users, Luas users, Payzone users.

bk

Dravokivich wrote: »

On top of that, will then mean Dublin Bus would need to have even more memory on any additional devices they may roll out, as they'd have to include topups for Irish Rail users, Luas users, Payzone users.

True, but even with tens of thousands of top-ups a day, I'd be shocked if such a file was more then a few megabytes in size. Even a hundred thousand entries should be less then 10 MB's

If DB ordered new ticket machines that didn't have enough memory to handle a 10MB file in this day and age, when you can buy 7" touch screen tablets with 16GB of memory for €200 then someone at DB should be shot.

Dravokivich

yeah, but they aren't always collected the following day. Used to be a 7 day pick up period, then extended to 21. They wouldn't have done that without a reason.

Mentioning 16 GB tablets is all well and good, but for Dublin Bus to go for them in future with upgrades all depends on whether or not they consider it to be cost effective. The need for online topup on Dublin Bus is dependant on the effectiveness of auto topup.

goingnowhere

bk wrote: »

One thing I don't like is the way you have to nominate the pick up location as either Luas green line, Luas Red line,

Red and Green are actually the same action list currently but may split in the future.

Bear in mind in London you have to pick the specific station

bk

Dravokivich wrote: »

Mentioning 16 GB tablets is all well and good, but for Dublin Bus to go for them in future with upgrades all depends on whether or not they consider it to be cost effective. The need for online topup on Dublin Bus is dependant on the effectiveness of auto topup.

Just to point out that the NTA are currently trialling a new ticket machine with a private operator that uses a Motorola Android 10" Tablet with 16GB of memory.

I assume this is a small trial before eventually rolling out a similar solution to DB.

goingnowhere wrote: »

Bear in mind in London you have to pick the specific station

Sure, but the London is a vastly larger system and also a much older system. There is really no good reason for this division on a much smaller system like Dublin and also a much more modern system. Large amounts of memory is cheap nowadays.

europhile

How soon can you validate top up at a machine after buying it online? The website days "up to 48 hours" which seems madness. And is it just a case of inserting it into the pocket?

Dravokivich

If you want to use a TVM, put it in the pocket.

But that's depending on what you selected to collect the topup, you can only choose 1 of, Irish Rail, Luas, Payzone shop.

It's usually avail the next day.

AlekSmart

Dravokivich wrote: »

If you want to use a TVM, put it in the pocket.

But that's depending on what you selected to collect the topup, you can only choose 1 of, Irish Rail, Luas, Payzone shop.

It's usually avail the next day.

Given that there are c.500 RTPI installations currently live in Dublin,I cannot fathom why a single Smart Card Reader cannot be affixed to each and used as a Top-Up dispenser.

This simple expedient would revolutionize the Leapcard Top-Up regime for BUS users,which is currently leaving an unpleasant taste in many Leap Customers mouths.

Enabling Auto Top-Up will,I suspect,be a non-runner with many Bus Leapcard customers,as the €30 Minimum top-up is WAY extreme for day-to-day users.

The current Leapcard administration appear to be somewhat divorced from their own Customer base,to the extent of total inability to see the damage being done to Leapcards own reputation.

hardCopy

I can't understand why the buses weren't just brought online to begin with.

markpb

hardCopy wrote: »

I can't understand why the buses weren't just brought online to begin with.

The DB ticket machines don't have enough memory to hold the action lists from the back-end system. I think their storage capacity is less than 1MB most of which is already taken up by the application and DB fare data.

Going online for each transaction would require a data connection which is both unreliable (in parts of the DB network) and slow. The entire system - not just the DB component - is offline for that reason - when you hold a card against a reader, you should be able to move it away in less than 500ms which isn't enough time to negotiate a protocol between card and reader, authenticate one to the other, go online, wait for a response, update the card and issue the ticket.

It might seem like silly design but it's an issue in every situation where contactless smartcards are deployed remotely. The solution is to use auto-topup for DB but unfortunately the DD and high-minimum issues might discourage people from using it.