Leap card over-charging on Dublin Bus express

a_ominous

SWMBO has her Leap card for a while. Uses it every month or so on Luas and Dublin Bus. Today when she used it on Dublin Bus, taking an express bus, terminus to terminus at 6pm, she was charged 4.00 euro, the fare for Nitelink. She spoke to driver on getting off the bus and he said one or two other people had mentioned it. Fare is supposed to be 2.90.
And of course, to get the over-charge refunded, you have to traipse into O'Connell Street. Why can't this be done on-line? Are they going to refund cash?

KD345

a_ominous wrote: »

SWMBO has her Leap card for a while. Uses it every month or so on Luas and Dublin Bus. Today when she used it on Dublin Bus, taking an express bus, terminus to terminus at 6pm, she was charged 4.00 euro, the fare for Nitelink. She spoke to driver on getting off the bus and he said one or two other people had mentioned it. Fare is supposed to be 2.90.
And of course, to get the over-charge refunded, you have to traipse into O'Connell Street. Why can't this be done on-line? Are they going to refund cash?

They were not overcharged. That is the correct fare. Traveling 2 zones on an Xpresso route is €4.00 with the Leap Card.

Also, the Nitelink Leap Card fare is €5.

noelfirl

KD345 wrote: »

Traveling 2 zones on an Xpresso route is €4.00 with the Leap Card.

I would have thought that too, but looking online at the Xpresso timetables, not all of them appear to have zonal fares anymore - some only list a single flat fare at the bottom, possibly the person was on one of those routes...

a_ominous

KD345 wrote: »

They were not overcharged. That is the correct fare. Traveling 2 zones on an Xpresso route is €4.00 with the Leap Card.

Also, the Nitelink Leap Card fare is €5.

I stand corrected; SWMBO said driver told her the 4 yoyos was nitelink fare. Just checked the current nitelink fares and it's a flat rate 5.70

noelfirl wrote: »

I would have thought that too, but looking online at the Xpresso timetables, not all of them appear to have zonal fares anymore - some only list a single flat fare at the bottom, possibly the person was on one of those routes...

Leap fare is listed on expresso timetable as 2.90.

KD345

Do we know what route the OP is querying?

KD345

a_ominous wrote: »

I stand corrected; SWMBO said driver told her the 4 yoyos was nitelink fare. Just checked the current nitelink fares and it's a flat rate 5.70




Leap fare is listed on expresso timetable as 2.90.

Do you know how she validated her ticket? If it was with the driver then she should have stated the fare, but if she used the validator to the right it will automatically deduct the full Xpresso fare of €4.

monument

a_ominous wrote: »

Just checked the current nitelink fares and it's a flat rate 5.70

It's €5 with Leap.

LXFlyer

What route was it?

Dravokivich

AFAIK, the validators by the doors are set to the maximum fare for the service type the bus is set up to, not the route.

AlekSmart

Dravokivich wrote: »

AFAIK, the validators by the doors are set to the maximum fare for the service type the bus is set up to, not the route.

Well spotted that man !!!!

Sadly,until the NTA get their act together regarding which form of Fare Structure they will fund we shall have to endure situations such as the PO's SWMBO...:o

Tarabuses

Dravokivich wrote: »

AFAIK, the validators by the doors are set to the maximum fare for the service type the bus is set up to, not the route.

So the validators are useless on certain routes? Surely if they are not appropriate for the route they should be closed off?

Dravokivich

Tarabuses wrote: »

So the validators are useless on certain routes? Surely if they are not appropriate for the route they should be closed off?

I think the idea was, that for people doing the full distance, they didn't need to interact with the driver, with the expectation that this would be the most used fare by leap card users, even though they were meant to be targetting it for casual short distance commuters.

TheChrisD

KD345 wrote: »

Do we know what route the OP is querying?

Not yet. If the route was the 33X, 66X, 67X or 84X, then the correct charge was taken by the validator (only four routes with 2 zones); otherwise they were overcharged.

a_ominous

TheChrisD wrote: »

Not yet. If the route was the 33X, 66X, 67X or 84X, then the correct charge was taken by the validator (only four routes with 2 zones); otherwise they were overcharged.

Wasn't any of those, so SWMBO was overcharged. She used validator, so in future, she's not going to use them but go to driver and use card that way to avoid getting ripped. It'll slow things down, but if DB can't get system set up right, so be it.

KD345

a_ominous wrote: »

Wasn't any of those, so SWMBO was overcharged. She used validator, so in future, she's not going to use them but go to driver and use card that way to avoid getting ripped. It'll slow things down, but if DB can't get system set up right, so be it.

From the Dublin Bus website:

When using the Leap Card to travel on Xpressos
Travel within one zone
Please pay at the Drivers Ticket Machine* as follows:
1. Hold your Leap Card to the target on the driver’s ticket
Machine.
2. Tell the driver your destination.
3. The correct fare will be deducted from your Travel Credit.
* If you pay using the Validator you will be charged the higher value flat fare of €4.00

LXFlyer

Why all the secrecy about the route number??

AlekSmart

lxflyer wrote: »

Why all the secrecy about the route number??

The route number is irrelevant really,as the remote Smart Card Reader will apply the maximum Xpresso €4 fare irrespective of the actual route.

It's far from ideal,but that's the price we are paying for a less than well thought out half-hearted Integrated Ticketing Product.

That said,it has to be pointed out that the actual overcharging was done by the customer themselves...the driver had no role in this,and the instructions on the Expresso page are clear enough ....

When using the Leap Card to travel on Xpressos
Travel within one zone
Please pay at the Drivers Ticket Machine* as follows:
1. Hold your Leap Card to the target on the driver’s ticket
Machine.
2. Tell the driver your destination.
3. The correct fare will be deducted from your Travel Credit.
* If you pay using the Validator you will be charged the higher value flat fare of €4.00

Tarabuses

Dravokivich wrote: »

I think the idea was, that for people doing the full distance, they didn't need to interact with the driver, with the expectation that this would be the most used fare by leap card users, even though they were meant to be targetting it for casual short distance commuters.

Yes, but it seems that on certain routes a passenger travelling the full distance will be overchasrged by the validator.

AlekSmart

Tarabuses wrote: »

Yes, but it seems that on certain routes a passenger travelling the full distance will be overcharged by the validator.

True,if the passenger chooses to use the remote validator.

_Kaiser_

KD345 wrote: »

From the Dublin Bus website:

When using the Leap Card to travel on Xpressos
Travel within one zone
Please pay at the Drivers Ticket Machine* as follows:
1. Hold your Leap Card to the target on the driver’s ticket
Machine.
2. Tell the driver your destination.
3. The correct fare will be deducted from your Travel Credit.
* If you pay using the Validator you will be charged the higher value flat fare of €4.00

Now just as an outside point of view, this says it all to me about Leap and it's ongoing problems.

Might as well just say "Shure just go to the driver coz we can't set this new thing up right so you'll just get ripped off - technology eh? :rolleyes:"

Side note: €5.70 for a Nitelink these days??! :eek:

KD345

Tarabuses wrote: »

Yes, but it seems that on certain routes a passenger travelling the full distance will be overchasrged by the validator.

It really depends on the bus route you're using. On outer suburban routes (33, 33a, 65, 84 and 184) the right hand validator will not charge the highest fare, you must ask the driver instead.

While it is confusing, the Dublin Bus website does go into great detail explaining how best to use the Leap Card.

http://www.dublinbus.ie/en/Fares--Tickets/Fare-Information/Fares/

It's also worth mentioning Dublin Bus is working on a simplified fare structure which will hopefully eliminate many of these problems.

foggy_lad

KD345 wrote: »

It really depends on the bus route you're using. On outer suburban routes (33, 33a, 65, 84 and 184) the right hand validator will not charge the highest fare, you must ask the driver instead.

While it is confusing, the Dublin Bus website does go into great detail explaining how best to use the Leap Card.

http://www.dublinbus.ie/en/Fares--Tickets/Fare-Information/Fares/

It's also worth mentioning Dublin Bus is working on a simplified fare structure which will hopefully eliminate many of these problems.

What do passengers do if they have no pc or smartphone and have never been to the dublin bus website?

AlekSmart

foggy_lad wrote: »

What do passengers do if they have no pc or smartphone and have never been to the dublin bus website?

They could ask the Busdriver...?

AlekSmart

KD345 wrote: »

It really depends on the bus route you're using. On outer suburban routes (33, 33a, 65, 84 and 184) the right hand validator will not charge the highest fare, you must ask the driver instead.

While it is confusing, the Dublin Bus website does go into great detail explaining how best to use the Leap Card.

http://www.dublinbus.ie/en/Fares--Tickets/Fare-Information/Fares/

It's also worth mentioning Dublin Bus is working on a simplified fare structure which will hopefully eliminate many of these problems.

It's also of some importance on such long-haul routes to note the following...

When using your Leap Card to pay for an Adult Outer Suburban 2 Fare or a Child Outer Suburban 1 and 2 Fare:
Please pay at the Drivers Ticket Machine* as follows:
1. Hold your Leap Card to the target on the driver’s ticket machine, as shown
here
2. Tell the driver your destination.
3. The correct fare will be deducted from your Travel Credit.
* If you pay using the Validator you will underpay and not have a valid ticket for travel and inspection.

The New,Improved (and previously denied) simplified Fare Structure cannot vome soon enough !!

stop

AlekSmart wrote: »

It's also of some importance on such long-haul routes to note the following...



The New,Improved (and previously denied) simplified Fare Structure cannot vome soon enough !!

So the system is set up for two types of routes - xpresso and regular.
Why didn't they make other categories for single zone xpresso outer suburban, flat fare etc?

Dravokivich

Tarabuses wrote: »

Yes, but it seems that on certain routes a passenger travelling the full distance will be overchasrged by the validator.

Whooops, must of glazed over the tail end of your earlier post. There are still tickets avail to purchase that would need to use that validator. It's not solely for the leap card.

AlekSmart wrote: »

It's also of some importance on such long-haul routes to note the following...

The New,Improved (and previously denied) simplified Fare Structure cannot vome soon enough !!

Wow, now that I didn't see before. they really did spend too much time trying to simplify their slogans that they've forgotten what they need to tell their user base.

stop wrote: »

So the system is set up for two types of routes - xpresso and regular.
Why didn't they make other categories for single zone xpresso outer suburban, flat fare etc?

There's other services such as the nightlink and from Heuston to the airport that have their own fares on the door validator as well.

foggy_lad wrote: »

What do passengers do if they have no pc or smartphone and have never been to the dublin bus website?

To be frank, I have a smartphone and PC and wouldn't of had the gist of this stuff if I wasn't a regular commuter. Tragically, that's not who the leap card is meant to be aimed at. Another simpler way to tell people how to use the card needs to be brought forward without attempts to be quirky. But I think they might be hedging their bets on what ever comes out of auto-topup, capping and whatever tickets that can be loaded onto the card. As in making the use of ePurse redundant.

LXFlyer

The fares system in Dublin needs a complete overhaul and the NTA have recognised this, with the following quote appearing in the recent fare determination report:

Beyond 2013, Dublin Bus is planning to move to a simplified fares structure, however, this is beyond the scope of the current determination

And also from the NTA site, the following on integrated fares, which gets to the real nub of the problem in the final paragraph:

http://www.nationaltransport.ie/public-transport-services/fares/integrated-fares/

Integrated Fares

The National Transport Authority has now launched the Leap Card. In its initial stages, this ‘smart card’ will enable transport users to pay fares, electronically across all public transport providers in the Greater Dublin Area.

It is the ambition of the Authority to ensure that fares are simplified across all modes and that fares do not penalise those passengers who change services in their journey. In the Authority’s Draft Transport Strategy 2011-2030 Measure INT 3 states:

“The Authority will implement a simplified fares system for the Greater Dublin Area, covering bus, rail, LUAS and Metro services, and will develop a fare arrangement within the Metropolitan Area that facilitates multi-leg and multi-modal journeys”

The mechanisms to achieve the Authority’s strategy include flat fares, fare capping (by time or distance), fare rebates and zonal fares.

The Authority is currently examining the feasibility of introducing single operator daily and weekly capping at an early stage. This would mean that there would be a maximum charge per day or week for the journeys done with one public transport operator. The next phase would be to introduce a cap across all operators for daily and weekly journeys. A fare rebate is where the public transport customer pays a reduced amount for second or multiple journeys within a particular time frame. The feasibility of introducing this fare on a single and multi-operator basis is also being examined.

Zonal fares schemes are most successful where the public transport customer tags on and off to complete their journey such as with Irish Rail and LUAS. However Dublin Bus does not operate a tag off on their smartcards so there is no way of knowing the length of the journey in order to apply a zonal fare. In some cities a flat fare on buses can accompany a zonal fare on other operators.

While the ambition of the Authority is stated above, it is important to note the financially constrained environment in which we are currently operating. Further integrated fares measures must be introduced without resulting in the overall revenue from fares being reduced. The key benefit of the introduction of the Leap Card is that it provides the platform to introduce any of these integrated fare schemes in the future.

The fundamental issue that has prevented this happening is one of funding. The bottom line is that to introduce a simplified fare structure, the new structure must maintain fare box revenues, as that is what the operators require to run the business. It's very easy to say "we should have a flat fare", but if that has a negative impact on fare box revenues then that is a serious issue, as government is not going to bridge it. This is evidenced by the fact that the operators had to bear the costs of operating LEAP, which is costing DB over €2m extra to do.

Either way it is plain daft that validators are set up this way. It has to be possible for the validators to be set up to cope with a lower fare where the €4 fare does not apply.

bk

No, no not fecking zonal fares.

Zonal fares will do nothing to solve the issue on Dublin Bus. With zonal fares you will still need to interact with the driver to tell him how far you are going.

DB needs to either be flat fare or tag-on/tag-off, ideally charged per km like in Amsterdam.

Are the NTA really going to get this so wrong again!

stop

Is there any chance that when auto stage updating is implemeted, that auto max fare for the rhs validator may come with it?

LXFlyer

bk wrote: »

No, no not fecking zonal fares.

Zonal fares will do nothing to solve the issue on Dublin Bus. With zonal fares you will still need to interact with the driver to tell him how far you are going.

DB needs to either be flat fare or tag-on/tag-off, ideally charged per km like in Amsterdam.

Are the NTA really going to get this so wrong again!

Read it again - it does not say that they are implementing zonal fares, it says that that is one of the options under consideration, along with flat fares.

As I said there are two main issues to resolve here:
1) Funding - Farebox revenue has to be maintained
2) Simplification - The system needs to be simple and easy to understand

devnull

lxflyer wrote: »

Either way it is plain daft that validators are set up this way. It has to be possible for the validators to be set up to cope with a lower fare where the €4 fare does not apply.

From a friend who uses one of the routes that have two zones, they were told the validator was set up to deduct two zones automatically because of a fear of fare evasion from DB. EG, if you made it one zone, people travelling through two could just scan their ticket there and pay a lower fare than required, which is the same reason you can only pay the furthermost fare on the validator on regular routes.

However as AlekSmart points out, that is not the case on the Outer Suburban fares where the validator does not take the furthermost fare charge and instead takes a lower one, so perhaps it might be wrong what the friend was told.

Charging per KM is not going to work as that is going to make many multiple fare levels, even more than there is now, for example some routes are going to be between 1km and 15km, do you then have 15 fares to cover this? Passengers then have to work out how far there is between bus stops, which many are not going to know, and tourists are going to be confused as hell. Then how does the bus driver work things out? There would be even more variables than stages which is what we need to get away from.

Whilst I see where the companies are coming from regarding farebox revenue being maintained, they also need to consider as well that if they make the system more friendly could likely attract new business and more regular custom from their existing customers also.

foggy_lad

AlekSmart wrote: »

They could ask the Busdriver...?

What is the point in going out of your way in getting a leap card when it presents nothing but hassle for you in your day to day bus use?

If not a complete withdrawl it should be withdrawn on dublin bus until they are compatible with each other and driver interaction is cut down to only when a card is rejected by the validator!


http://www.nationaltransport.ie/publ...egrated-fares/

Integrated Fares

The National Transport Authority has now launched the Leap Card. In its initial stages, this ‘smart card’ will enable transport users to pay fares, electronically across all public transport providers in the Greater Dublin Area.

It is the ambition of the Authority to ensure that fares are simplified across all modes and that fares do not penalise those passengers who change services in their journey. In the Authority’s Draft Transport Strategy 2011-2030 Measure INT 3 states:

Passengers are already being penalised for changing from one bus to another with the massive hike in the cost of the travel90 tickets so the NTA has Failed again even before they begin!

bk

devnull wrote: »

Charging per KM is not going to work as that is going to make many multiple fare levels, even more than there is now, for example some routes are going to be between 1km and 15km, do you then have 15 fares to cover this? Passengers then have to work out how far there is between bus stops, which many are not going to know, and tourists are going to be confused as hell. Then how does the bus driver work things out? There would be even more variables than stages which is what we need to get away from.

No it is actually a quiet simple and very fair and flexible system. However it would require tag-off on the bus to work. Here is how it works in Amsterdam:

- You tag-on the bus, the maximum fare of €4 is deducted
- You tag-off the bus when getting off the bus the difference between the fare and €4 is returned (same as dart and luas works).
- The fare is calculated as:
1) a Flat fare of 86c plus
2) 14c per km travelled.

The number of km you travel is calculated when you tag-off. No driver interaction is required (the whole point of this is too eliminate driver interaction).

- If you tag-on another bas/tram/metro within 35 minutes of tagging off, your not charged the flat fee of 86c again, just the 14c per km. This promotes multi-modal travel.

- The per km charge is actually different depending on mode of transport, so 14c for bus, 15c for tram, 16c for metro, etc. to reflect different running costs.

IMO this is pretty much the best fare system possible. It is very fair as you pay for how far you travelled in a very transparent way. They can have different per km fares to reflect different running costs. You could even charge different per km fares based on time (e.g. higher rate for nitelink, lower rate off-peak, etc.).

Cash fares would need to be set at a high flat fare e.g. €3 (it is €2.80 in Amsterdam), obviously this system doesn't work with cash fares.

This system works very well in Amsterdam.

foggy_lad

Would tagging on/off work with our bastardised card? Unlike other cards it must not be swiped but MUST be held against the reader for a time to work.

devnull

bk wrote: »

No it is actually a quiet simple system.

Simple is not the way I would call it, it's nearly impossible to work out what a fare would cost before you travel, because of the fact that how many people are going to know the distance between where they get on and they get off? Do you really think people are going to check online for this information. It's simply not going to happen.

1) a Flat fare of 86c plus
2) 14c per km travelled.

So if I asked you to work out about ten journeys all without looking at Google, any mapping system or any online resource, how much would they be you would be able to come up with an exact answer?

You wouldn't be able to work it out unless you had knowledge of the particular area, which makes it impossible for the average dog on the street to work out how much their fare is going to cost, a basic test of a fare system is one where you can simply understand how much it will be without having to do too much research.

The current Dublin Bus system fails because of the fact nobody knows how much a stage is. Still that means 5 fare levels which is too many by most peoples view. By adding this new system in you are creating even more fare levels.

The per km charge is actually different depending on mode of transport, so 14c for bus, 15c for tram, 16c for metro, etc. to reflect different running costs.

They can have different per km fares to reflect different running costs. You could even charge different per km fares based on time (e.g. higher rate for nitelink, lower rate off-peak, etc.).

So you create yet more different fares for different types of journeys, how is the average person going to work out such fares when there are so many different permutations to consider. Remember that the vast majority of bus passengers are not going to know this and are simply going to get on the bus and try and travel and not look up beforehand.

As I said the main problem is you argue that the current Dublin Bus Fare system is too complicated, I agree that it is, but the new system you propose will create hundreds of different fare prices depending on when you are travelling, how far and what type of mode you are in, this then creates much more variables than the current system which you claim is too complicated.

Cash fares would need to be set at a high flat fare e.g. €3 (it is €2.80 in Amsterdam), obviously this system doesn't work with cash fares.

About the only point on your post I can agree with.

devnull

foggy_lad wrote: »

Would tagging on/off work with our bastardised card? Unlike other cards it must not be swiped but MUST be held against the reader for a time to work.

Seriously would you stop posting such things you know nothing about. I don't know of any smartcard system that works the way you mention but of course you know best.

Smart cards in virtually every city I've been in are held against the reader, it's the same with Oyster and always has been but again lets not mention that as it does not suit your agenda.

bk

Devnull I really don't see it being an issue. It certainly isn't in Amsterdam, a city with superb public transport and where this sort of system is a success.

For people who take the same journey every day, it isn't an issue, as they will know the fare anyway, it would always be the same.

For those taking an unusual journey, they will likely look up the Dublin Bus or NTA journey planner anyway to figure out what buses they need to take and these journey planners can then tell them the fare (this is the major missing element from our journey planners, I don't understand why they don't tell you the number of stages).

And to be honest it isn't all that important. The reason the current stage system is so confusing is because we actually expect passengers to know the fare before hand, have exact change and tell the driver the fare. With almost no way for the passenger to know this!

With this system all that confusion is gone, you don't need to know your fare, the correct fare will be automatically taken. It will be an amount between €1 and €2.50 (in Amsterdam) depending on how far you travel. The longer you go, the more you pay, pretty simple.

I really doubt many people will go, oh the journey will cost €2, I won't take it so! No what pisses people off about the DB system is that they are expected to know the price up front, with zero help from DB.

Mrs OBumble

AlekSmart wrote: »

They could ask the Busdriver...?

Nah, it'll never catch on.

KD345

bk wrote: »

No it is actually a quiet simple and very fair and flexible system. However it would require tag-off on the bus to work. Here is how it works in Amsterdam:

- You tag-on the bus, the maximum fare of €4 is deducted
- You tag-off the bus when getting off the bus the difference between the fare and €4 is returned (same as dart and luas works).
- The fare is calculated as:
1) a Flat fare of 86c plus
2) 14c per km travelled.

The number of km you travel is calculated when you tag-off. No driver interaction is required (the whole point of this is too eliminate driver interaction).

- If you tag-on another bas/tram/metro within 35 minutes of tagging off, your not charged the flat fee of 86c again, just the 14c per km. This promotes multi-modal travel.

- The per km charge is actually different depending on mode of transport, so 14c for bus, 15c for tram, 16c for metro, etc. to reflect different running costs.

IMO this is pretty much the best fare system possible. It is very fair as you pay for how far you travelled in a very transparent way. They can have different per km fares to reflect different running costs. You could even charge different per km fares based on time (e.g. higher rate for nitelink, lower rate off-peak, etc.).

Cash fares would need to be set at a high flat fare e.g. €3 (it is €2.80 in Amsterdam), obviously this system doesn't work with cash fares.

This system works very well in Amsterdam.

That sounds similar to how a taxi meter works. There is a base fare and you then pay per km traveled. There is some merit to this proposal, but the only problem I can see is that depending on the bus route you choose, it might not take the most direct journey. For example, how would the system take into account two routes such as the 65B and 77A. Both leave from Citywest, but the 77A takes a tour of Tallaght compared to the 65B which is more direct. Would that not upset the fairness of paying per km? If I was in a taxi which decided to do a loop of, for example, Beaumont Hospital each way, I'd be pretty annoyed having to cough up for it.

I think Devnull makes a good point about calculating fares. I don't think it's unreasonable to want to know the cost of your journey before you begin.

Personally, I would prefer a zone system. A city centre zone inside the canal belt, a suburban zone between the canal and the M50, and a third outer suburban zone for routes beyond the M50. There could be a further zone for places beyond Bray/Swords etc. The fare is then calculated on how many zones you travel in. It's simple and familiar to the majority of passengers.

AlekSmart

devnull wrote: »

.

The current Dublin Bus system fails because of the fact nobody knows how much a stage is. Still that means 5 fare levels which is too many by most peoples view. By adding this new system in you are creating even more fare levels.


Remember that the vast majority of bus passengers are not going to know this and are simply going to get on the bus and try and travel and not look up beforehand.

As I said the main problem is you argue that the current Dublin Bus Fare system is too complicated, I agree that it is, but the new system you propose will create hundreds of different fare prices depending on when you are travelling, how far and what type of mode you are in, this then creates much more variables than the current system which you claim is too complicated.

The current BAC Fare-Stage system is,in fact,a very flexible and easily understood system for Cash Fare payment,BUT only if the Individual Fare Stages are clearly identified on-street for both customers and staff to see.

It completely defies my understanding why Dublin Bus very comprehensively obliterated ALL ON-STREET FARE-STAGE MARKINGS.

This decision effectively rendered the Fare-Stage system inoperable for the vast majority of customers,not to mention a significant number of Bus Staff also.

( It also,In my opinion,renders a fare-evasion prosecution quite likely to fail,should a defence of be offered,that the Company,by removing the Fare-Stage Markings,was effectively abandoning the operation and monitoring of the system)

The NTA should IMMEDIATELY Instruct (Not request) to reapply all Fare-Stage Markings.

This simple and low-cost expedient alone,would improve the commute for huge numbers of customers along with making the working day a LOT less stressful for Busdrivers !

This is surely worth a Facebook Campaign or a Twitterfest or some mass media campaign ?? :rolleyes:

schemingbohemia

AlekSmart wrote: »

The current BAC Fare-Stage system is,in fact,a very flexible and easily understood system for Cash Fare payment,BUT only if the Individual Fare Stages are clearly identified on-street for both customers and staff to see.

It completely defies my understanding why Dublin Bus very comprehensively obliterated ALL ON-STREET FARE-STAGE MARKINGS.

This decision effectively rendered the Fare-Stage system inoperable for the vast majority of customers,not to mention a significant number of Bus Staff also.

( It also,In my opinion,renders a fare-evasion prosecution quite likely to fail,should a defence of be offered,that the Company,by removing the Fare-Stage Markings,was effectively abandoning the operation and monitoring of the system)

The NTA should IMMEDIATELY Instruct (Not request) to reapply all Fare-Stage Markings.

This simple and low-cost expedient alone,would improve the commute for huge numbers of customers along with making the working day a LOT less stressful for Busdrivers !

This is surely worth a Facebook Campaign or a Twitterfest or some mass media campaign ?? :rolleyes:

Whilst I agree with Fare-Stage Markings, how would this actually happen? Would each stop not need a number of stages depending on each route that serves that stop? Or am I misinterpreting it?

bk

The issue with a zonal system is that it would still require driver interaction for Leap (tell him/her how many ones you are travelling). Which defeats the whole purpose of Leap card.

devnull

Why would it? Surely the validator would work that out based on the zone you tag on in and the zone you tag off in by looking up the stops the zones are in and then calculating the fare based on that.

Surely that is similar to how the per km system works, where the validator looks at a list of stops, works out the distance between where you tag on and tag off from the list, and then calculates the fare.

noelfirl

The technical limitation posed by most of the fleet only having one door (and indeed the insanely slim doors on the VTs) is, IMO a significant issue posed to any system that requires tag on and tag off. The rebuttal may be, that with no actual driver interaction, there'll be a straightforward stream of people getting of the bus first, then a stream getting on and this will result in reduced dwell time. I'd love to believe that, but observation of the behaviour of people at bus stops "queuing", getting on and getting off lead me to think the gains in dwell time would be minimal.

If we had the previous An Lárist network in place, where people were (mainly) picked up in dribs and drabs in the suburbs and then chucked out en masse in the city centre (and vice versa) then it might run relatively efficiently. With the current system of heavily used cross-city routes that pick up, set down, pick up going through the city centre, there would, in my mind not be substantially reduced dwell times. I say that as a daily passenger of Nassau St., where the 46a and 145 take time to dump their inbound passengers before being able to take on more. I'd imagine the same may apply to the other super routes in the rest of the city centre area.

I'd also be inclined to agree with devnull that people like to have an idea of the fare they are paying, and although that is a behavioral aspect that might change over time, I can see people pausing as they tag off to check their balance, and inquiring from the driver before tagging on what sort of fare they're going to incur.

A flat fare sounds nice, but a single one is going to be fundamentally unfair to some sections of the population - people living in Balbriggan, Kildare and North Wicklow paying the same as those only going from city to within the M50 isn't exactly brilliant in my mind. Again, maybe if the routes were organised to give proper, limited stopping, more expensive Xpresso services, then it might work.

Personally, I think a simple zonal system like KD345 would be best, but I would see if it could be combined with tag-on, tag-off. Completely hypothetical, but say a flat maximum fare is taken at tag-on in zone A, but if you tag-off again within zone A or zone B, part of the fare is returned. If you continue all the way out to zone C or zone D, no fare is returned, even if you tag-off. This would reduce the number of passengers required to tag-off (those travelling longer distances) while giving some element of fare equality to those taking shorter journeys. The RTPI poles could also be possibly equipped with panels for off-bus tag-off at busy stops. Now whether the Wayfarer and validators could handle this, is another question altogether, as it would require them to recognise defined zones and quickly figure out whether a return is due at tag-off.

Honestly, as the easiest thing to do, I personally see them simplifying the fare system to less fare bands, but I can imagine they'll retain at least an upper and lower band, so I doubt a complete move away from talking to the driver will happen too soon.

bk

Aha, zone system in conjunction with tag-on/tag-off. Sure that is fine then it would work.

Frankly even the existing fare structure could work if it was combined with tag-on/tag-off.

What both systems lack is nice multi-modal integration.

Polar101

KD345 wrote: »

Personally, I would prefer a zone system. A city centre zone inside the canal belt, a suburban zone between the canal and the M50, and a third outer suburban zone for routes beyond the M50. There could be a further zone for places beyond Bray/Swords etc. The fare is then calculated on how many zones you travel in. It's simple and familiar to the majority of passengers.

Maybe, but wouldn't that be the same as the current stage system - with the exception that people might actually know where the different stages are?

I'd imagine for most commuters it doesn't really matter what the system is, just as long there's a good daily/weekly/monthly/annual option available. I don't personally like tag on/tag off at all - I don't use the train or luas very often so I've no idea on what the actual fares (that get deducted off the leap card) are.

Julius Seizure

RE driver interaction, in some trams in belgium the validator has a keypad that you hit in the zone while validating. Big, bright buttons

bk

Dubhaltach wrote: »

RE driver interaction, in some trams in belgium the validator has a keypad that you hit in the zone while validating. Big, bright buttons

Sounds slow if used on a single door bus. Can understand using it on a train, once you have already boarded.

Carawaystick

As I understand the leap and expresso issue:
If I get the 33x in the evening, I tag the rhs validator, and have no dealings with the driver,but if I stay in Dublin late, and get a 33, I should do the opposite and have to interact with the driver and tag the dodgy lhs validator, even though in both cases I'm going to the same place?

And this was decided recently, on purpose?
not grandfathered in following some arcane tram routes?

AlekSmart

Carawaystick wrote: »

As I understand the leap and expresso issue.......
..................And this was decided recently, on purpose?
not grandfathered in following some arcane tram routes?

WEll,not exactly recently......12 years ago,and €40 million ago,the Government directed the NTA to embark upon a comprehensive Integrated Ticketing process and this is what resulted.....Is there a problem :rolleyes: ?