Cost of public transport in Dublin/Ireland

homerjay2005

does anybody have stats to show our standing in terms of cost of Public transport in Dublin, compared to rest of Europe? have to say, having been in almost every City in europe, i find that Dublin offers the least value for money and must be up there with the most expensive. would be interesting to see how we compare...

an average 20 minute return bus journey costs €4.80 here, i went 4 stops on the dart last weekend and it cost me €4.40 return, and i had 47 minutes worth of waiting time before i could get on both darts with a 32 minute delay northbound.

for me, our public transport system is disgracefully high cost for what we get.

devnull

Dublin Bus single fares are not bad compares to say the UK and the cheapest fare is pretty competitive with a lot of operators and the city center fare type generally doesn't exist in the UK.

Monthly and yearly tickets are much more expensive than they are for cities of a similar size in the UK and this is my main gripe with Dublin Bus prices, not big enough discounts for regular customers.

However if you can avail of taxsaver tickets the second point is not so much of an issue.

dfx-

homerjay2005 wrote: »

an average 20 minute return bus journey costs €4.80 here, i went 4 stops on the dart last weekend and it cost me €4.40 return, and i had 47 minutes worth of waiting time before i could get on both darts with a 32 minute delay northbound..

Depends on what ticket you buy, with regards the bus anyway. As no doubt lxflyer will ask: Are you paying cash? Is it any cheaper with a Leap card? Maybe it's better overall value to have a non-consecutive Rambler ticket?

If you pay cash, it will be more expensive.

coylemj

homerjay2005 wrote: »

an average 20 minute return bus journey costs €4.80 here

Can't help with the Dart fares but a Travel90 ticket (€25 for 10 journeys) would have reduced the cost of that trip to €2.50.

The Travel90 ticket allows you to go virtually anywhere on the Dublin Bus network (incl. multiple hops) for €2.50. You validate the ticket every time you board a bus. On the first bus the machine will deduct one trip, then as long you are within 90 minutes of that first validation, you can use the ticket as often as you like and on every subsequent validation within 90 minutes of the first, the machine will say that's it's a 'free transfer'. You can use it for a multi-hop trip across town or for a quick return trip and it will cost you all of €2.50.

bk

T90 is a great ticket, however it has gotten a little too expensive recently due to the massive hike to it by the NTA, plus it really should be on the leap card by now.

coylemj

bk wrote: »

T90 is a great ticket.............plus it really should be on the leap card by now.

Easier said than done.

Say I have a T90 ticket on my leap card and a positive cash balance. I do a multi-hop journey across town and validate the Leap card against the onboard reader each time.

On the first trip, the machine doesn't know if I'm going to do a single trip or a multi-hop journey so I'd assume it defaults to docking the cash fare. I then board another bus within 90 minutes of the first trip so the machine in the second bus should be able to detect that I've done a very recent trip and therefore it makes sense to use one of the journeys on the T90 ticket so 'in theory' it should now refund the cash fare onto the card and deduct one of the T90 trips instead.

In theory.

Ideally the data would be uploaded overnight and the system could calculate the correct deductions but if I am only using DB, there is no way to give me back money so the machines on the buses need to be able to handle cash and tickets in an intelligent manner so that the customer pays the correct fare on the day without waiting for credits to be put back on the card because currently the DB machines cannot do this.

bk

Well the solution to this can be easy.

First make the cost of a T90 the same as a maximum leap fare €2.40

If you present your leap card to the right hand reader, a €2.40 T90 is deducted. You then just use the T90 at the right hand reader as per normal on the next bus within 90 minutes.

On the other hand if you put the leap card on the drivers reader, you can either ask for the normal leap fare or the T90 fare.

Of course if you follow this logic, really T90 should be scrapped all together and a maximum fare made a T90 by default. As in you don't have to pre-buy T90 tickets.

How this would work, any time you get a maximum fare €2.40 ticket, either from the driver or the right hand validator, you automatically get 90 minutes to use it again on another bus.

Really I can't think of any reason why they wouldn't do it this way.

noelfirl

coylemj wrote: »

Easier said than done.

Say I have a T90 ticket on my leap card and a positive cash balance. I do a multi-hop journey across town and validate the Leap card against the onboard reader each time.

On the first trip, the machine doesn't know if I'm going to do a single trip or a multi-hop journey so I'd assume it defaults to docking the cash fare. I then board another bus within 90 minutes of the first trip so the machine in the second bus should be able to detect that I've done a very recent trip and therefore it makes sense to use one of the journeys on the T90 ticket so 'in theory' it should now refund the cash fare onto the card and deduct one of the T90 trips instead.

In theory.

Ideally the data would be uploaded overnight and the system could calculate the correct deductions but if I am only using DB, there is no way to give me back money so the machines on the buses need to be able to handle cash and tickets in an intelligent manner so that the customer pays the correct fare on the day without waiting for credits to be put back on the card because currently the DB machines cannot do this.

Somehow I doubt it'll be that complicated. I may be wrong but I believe the rule of thumb from Oyster and other similar cards is to first check if an appropriate ticket is loaded, if not deduct travel credit. I'd imagine that for the T90, if the ticket is loaded the right hand validator will automatically use that.

etchyed

noelfirl wrote: »

Somehow I doubt it'll be that complicated. I may be wrong but I believe the rule of thumb from Oyster and other similar cards is to first check if an appropriate ticket is loaded, if not deduct travel credit. I'd imagine that for the T90, if the ticket is loaded the right hand validator will automatically use that.

But you may be taking a journey on which you don't want to use a Travel 90, if, for example, the journey only has one leg.The NTA's recent increase in the price of a Travel 90 to €2.50 means that for the majority of passengers, Travel 90 has returned to its original purpose, being for multi-leg journeys, rather than a cheap prepay ticket.

For anyone taking a single-leg journey 13 stages or less, Leap PAYG is now cheaper. As such, if you had some Travel 90 journeys on your Leap Card, you may not want to use them. So it would all be pretty complex. Maybe they'll somehow integrate Travel 90 into the fare structure when/if DB reform it next year.

antoinolachtnai

Just for clarity, you are talking about the *price* of public transport, not the *cost*. There is a difference, which is made up by subsidies. Subsidy per vehicle kilometre is pretty substantial in Ireland and has not really declined in the recession.

And as you rightly mention, it isn't just about the money, it's also about the quality, which includes things like the frequency, speed and simplicity.

etchyed

antoinolachtnai wrote: »

Subsidy per vehicle kilometre is pretty substantial in Ireland and has not really declined in the recession.

Any chance of some links?

antoinolachtnai

Don't have any great links for you. You will find some stuff in old threads, but here's a paper I prepared for a few budgets ago. (Attached as PDF)

You can check the figures again to compare with the most recent Dublin Bus annual reports. In general, I think the figures have stayed the same. Cutbacks and drops in patronage have cancelled each other out (though I have not checked this for a while). You can check this easily enough by looking at the figures in the Dublin Bus annual report and following the method in the paper.

The first page covers the subsidy for every km driven and every bus on the road.

The second page covers the amount of money that needed to be tied up in capital (buying buses, track works, etc) in order to provide a service per customer. Note that this is not an expenditure figure, I am not saying that it costs €11.12 to move a passenger, I am saying that €11.12 worth of capital items for CIE to serve one customer.

You could check this spreadsheet to compare costs/km in Ireland with costs/mile in Britain. http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CDEQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fassets.dft.gov.uk%2Fstatistics%2Ftables%2Fbus0408.xls&ei=QBF_UcHdJeb6igLa1oCQDQ&usg=AFQjCNHPcTywpsdsO09SAuOLdE0JXs7Mfg&sig2=6C_UBjlVIXcFjTsP_FgcRA

noelfirl

etchyed wrote: »

But you may be taking a journey on which you don't want to use a Travel 90, if, for example, the journey only has one leg.The NTA's recent increase in the price of a Travel 90 to €2.50 means that for the majority of passengers, Travel 90 has returned to its original purpose, being for multi-leg journeys, rather than a cheap prepay ticket.

For anyone taking a single-leg journey 13 stages or less, Leap PAYG is now cheaper. As such, if you had some Travel 90 journeys on your Leap Card, you may not want to use them. So it would all be pretty complex. Maybe they'll somehow integrate Travel 90 into the fare structure when/if DB reform it next year.

Playing devils advocate I'd say there will be an advisory that if you intend on only making one journey or wish to make a shorter journey to get the driver to deduct the fare from travel credit on his machine and not use the Travel 90 ticket. I may be proven wrong though, practically nothing is known of the future fare system and how it will affect things like the Travel 90

etchyed

noelfirl wrote: »

Playing devils advocate I'd say there will be an advisory that if you intend on only making one journey or wish to make a shorter journey to get the driver to deduct the fare from travel credit on his machine and not use the Travel 90 ticket. I may be proven wrong though, practically nothing is known of the future fare system and how it will affect things like the Travel 90

Yeah, but if that means using the right hand validator for Travel 90, you'd have to keep track of how many journeys you have left, or risk paying the maximum fare when they run out and you touch on on the right hand side. This would be very customer-unfriendly, even more so than the current system, which is saying something.

Much as I've just been arguing the unlikelihood of it happening in another thread, Leap on Dublin Bus is in need of some serious simplification.

etchyed

antoinolachtnai wrote: »

Don't have any great links for you. You will find some stuff in old threads, but here's a paper I prepared for a few budgets ago. (Attached as PDF)

You can check the figures again to compare with the most recent Dublin Bus annual reports. In general, I think the figures have stayed the same. Cutbacks and drops in patronage have cancelled each other out (though I have not checked this for a while). You can check this easily enough by looking at the figures in the Dublin Bus annual report and following the method in the paper.

The first page covers the subsidy for every km driven and every bus on the road.

The second page covers the amount of money that needed to be tied up in capital (buying buses, track works, etc) in order to provide a service per customer. Note that this is not an expenditure figure, I am not saying that it costs €11.12 to move a passenger, I am saying that €11.12 worth of capital items for CIE to serve one customer.

You could check this spreadsheet to compare costs/km in Ireland with costs/mile in Britain. http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CDEQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fassets.dft.gov.uk%2Fstatistics%2Ftables%2Fbus0408.xls&ei=QBF_UcHdJeb6igLa1oCQDQ&usg=AFQjCNHPcTywpsdsO09SAuOLdE0JXs7Mfg&sig2=6C_UBjlVIXcFjTsP_FgcRA

Thanks for this. It doesn't provide information on Dublin Bus cost per km though, or indeed any details of subsidies in other countries. I may get back to you on this if I have time.

antoinolachtnai

Sure. Cost/km is a complicated thing anyway because it is partly constrained by congestion.

You really need to calculate it from the annual report. The method is more or less to divide the expenditure on PSO services by the number of vehicle-kilometres travelled. Coming up with the proper expenditure figure is a little tricky because of the way the accounts are structured, which might most kindly be described as 'innovative'.

munchkin_utd

homerjay2005 wrote: »

does anybody have stats to show our standing in terms of cost of Public transport in Dublin, compared to rest of Europe? have to say, having been in almost every City in europe, i find that Dublin offers the least value for money and must be up there with the most expensive. would be interesting to see how we compare...

an average 20 minute return bus journey costs €4.80 here, i went 4 stops on the dart last weekend and it cost me €4.40 return, <snip>

if you want to compare to the continent, an city of comparible size and population is Munich.
The last I looked, a short hop (or whichever it is) to Balbrigan valid on bus and rail was almost to the cent as the same monthly product in Munich.

A single ticket in Munich is €1.30 for 2rail or 4bus stops, and for journies within the city €2.60 cash or €2.50 cash car , so equivalent of City Centre to Blanchardstown (10km approx) which in Dublin is €2.80 cash or €2.45 leap card.
A equivalent rail journey from Tara Street to Clonsilla is 2.80 or 2.30 respectively.
So in Dublin again almost exactly the same as abroad in a similar sized city.

I never understand what the fuss is about the Dublin transport system and people questioning its value for money because to my eyes it does a pretty good job, in a sprawling badly planned city, for a relatively small subsidy.

monument

homerjay2005 wrote: »

does anybody have stats to show our standing in terms of cost of Public transport in Dublin, compared to rest of Europe? have to say, having been in almost every City in europe, i find that Dublin offers the least value for money and must be up there with the most expensive. would be interesting to see how we compare...

an average 20 minute return bus journey costs €4.80 here, i went 4 stops on the dart last weekend and it cost me €4.40 return, and i had 47 minutes worth of waiting time before i could get on both darts with a 32 minute delay northbound.

for me, our public transport system is disgracefully high cost for what we get.

Do you mind me asking, around about where were you going to and from?

Victor

homerjay2005 wrote: »

does anybody have stats to show our standing in terms of cost of Public transport in Dublin, compared to rest of Europe? have to say, having been in almost every City in europe, i find that Dublin offers the least value for money and must be up there with the most expensive. would be interesting to see how we compare.

There are a few issues, not least that you are only comparing the direct costs to users buying cash tickets. Compare season tickets and Taxsaver and things may be quite different.

In France, you can find deductions of 1-2% of salary to help pay for transport and in the UK, where local authorities run public transport (directly or indirectly) part of the council charge and commercial rates will go towards transport. The City of London (population 11,700) alone is contributing hundreds of millions towards the CrossRail project, as it will make the city more attractive.

homerjay2005

monument wrote: »

Do you mind me asking, around about where were you going to and from?

south dublin into the city, 4 stops!

cant believe people are actually trying to defend the service here, other cities in europe are much cheaper. monthly saver tickets are grand, but for people who dont use it every day or tourists coming here, those are no good to them.

cson

homerjay2005 wrote: »

south dublin into the city, 4 stops!

cant believe people are actually trying to defend the service here, other cities in europe are much cheaper. monthly saver tickets are grand, but for people who dont use it every day or tourists coming here, those are no good to them.

In fairness you've had a pretty good comparison in costs example given with Munich. The service is about par for the course for a badly planned city that's under immense bugetary pressures.

dowlingm

Direct fare comparison is not invalid but it doesn't tell the whole story either. In North America a frequently used metric is proportion of operating costs covered by fares. If a system is covering more than 90% of operating costs from fares, to beancounters that sounds great but on the ground it usually means fares are high, users have little choice but to pay them as alternatives aren't usable and the operator takes few chances so off peak/counterpeak service is low or non-existent.

On the other hand some US systems can be as low as 25% because the network serves the suburbs and a failure to control density means high route miles and few punters, yet the operation requires much of the overhead of depots, managers and engineers of a crammed to the rafters urban system.

LXFlyer

homerjay2005 wrote: »

south dublin into the city, 4 stops!

cant believe people are actually trying to defend the service here, other cities in europe are much cheaper. monthly saver tickets are grand, but for people who dont use it every day or tourists coming here, those are no good to them.

I can only assume that you were travelling Booterstown-City Centre?

Cash fare on the train is €2.40 single, €4.30 return.
LEAP fare is €1.95 single, €3.90 return.

Single Bus fare for a similar journey (10 stages):
Cash - € 2.40
LEAP - € 2.10

A 30 day (non consecutive) rambler ticket is priced at € 125 bringing the cost down to €4.17 per day and that allows unlimited travel on the entire DB network.

That is hardly expensive?

Yet another example of someone not being bothered to research cheaper options that exist to paying cash.

As for the delays - what were they as a result of? They certainly sound excessive.

AlekSmart

homerjay2005 wrote: »

south dublin into the city, 4 stops!

Cant believe people are actually trying to defend the service here, other cities in europe are much cheaper.Monthly saver tickets are grand, but for people who dont use it every day or tourists coming here, those are no good to them.

Homerjay2005,could you clarify the journey you refer to once again ?

Taking "The City" as meaning City Centre,your description of 4 stops ! could see you boarding at,say,Merrion Square,from where you could avail of a City Centre Fare of 65c (55c Leapfare).

People are not "trying" to defend anything here,it's more a question of your assertion being nowhere near as clear-cut as initially portrayed.

dfx-

homerjay2005 wrote: »

south dublin into the city, 4 stops!

cant believe people are actually trying to defend the service here, other cities in europe are much cheaper. monthly saver tickets are grand, but for people who dont use it every day or tourists coming here, those are no good to them.

The non-consecutive nature of the Rambler ticket is tailor-made for people who don't use it every day or tourists. You don't have to use it every day - a 5 day ticket could last you a year, while still giving you access to the entire network to get around delays or diversions.

Mahogany

You're absolutely right OP, public transport here is ridiculously dear in comparison to other countries. The idea that it's cheaper to take a bus/train and drive is slowly slipping away here, €2.40 now standard fare on the bus, such a joke, with the same journey you get with €2.40, you could probably do with that amount of petrol at this stage.

When I went to France last summer, in the space of two days I went from paying a 24 quid aircoach ticket (Greystones to Airport) to paying €1.50 on a similar journey in the south of France. I must mention though, ramblers are quite handy and you do be saving a good bit of dosh, same with weekly Dart tickets.

Darts are so steep as well, pretty much a tenner into town and back for me, I mean come on! Getting a Dart late at night depending on the station, you could get away with no ticket as they close the stations around 11 with some of them, so when you've bothered your h**e to pay like a good little citizen, you find out you shouldn't have paid at all!


Rant over, 30% in all Bus and Train fares please.

BenShermin

Mahogany wrote: »

When I went to France last summer, in the space of two days I went from paying a 24 quid aircoach ticket (Greystones to Airport) to paying €1.50 on a similar journey in the south of France.

I don't think the grass is always greener on the other side though. Outside of RATP services in Paris and the excellent TGV network I've found public transport in France to be very poor or non-existent. For example; in my travels around Brittany and Normandy I found it very hard to find inter-urban trains or buses that ran after 1630 in the afternoon in a lot of cases.

Three years ago I would have said that Dublin Bus fares represent good value for money, that was until Network Direct destroyed my local bus service and DB decided to increase fares along side the deteriation in service to rub salt to the wounds. I only use DB these days if I'm going out for a few pints, but even then the nitelink fare of €5 on Leap is a complete rip-off.

Intercity bus services represent great value for money IMO, but where there's no competition there is some serious fare discrimination going on. You can get a Dublin to Cork (258KM) return online for €18 on Aircoach, but Cork to Killarney (85KM) costs €29.92 online with Bus Éireann.

I won't even comment on intercity rail fares:P!

I travel 170km a day for €11, fine with me. :pac: If I lived in Dublin I'd use the rambler tickets and when I had exams that were out of the way I'd buy a 5-day rambler then, I think it was €15 for the 5-day (student) ticket at the time, again, fine with me!

MGWR

homerjay2005 wrote: »

Does anybody have stats to show our standing in terms of cost of Public transport in Dublin, compared to rest of Europe? Have to say, having been in almost every city in Europe, I find that Dublin offers the least value for money and must be up there with the most expensive. would be interesting to see how we compare...

An average 20 minute return bus journey costs €4.80 here, i went 4 stops on the dart last weekend and it cost me €4.40 return, and i had 47 minutes worth of waiting time before i could get on both darts with a 32 minute delay northbound.

For me, our public transport system is disgracefully high cost for what we get.

The title of this thread made me think that it was about the actual costs to the public of mass transport in terms of government subvention (including fare recovery ratio) instead of the fare rates. Since a comparison with the "rest of Europe" has been broached, how much other major cities across the continent subsidise their bus and rail systems in order to make their fares nominally "affordable" (read: cheap) has now been brought in question.

LXFlyer

AlekSmart wrote: »

Homerjay2005,could you clarify the journey you refer to once again ?

Taking "The City" as meaning City Centre,your description of 4 stops ! could see you boarding at,say,Merrion Square,from where you could avail of a City Centre Fare of 65c (55c Leapfare).

People are not "trying" to defend anything here,it's more a question of your assertion being nowhere near as clear-cut as initially portrayed.

Alek - it was four stops on the DART not the bus!!!

Hence it must be Booterstown as that's where the fare rises.

LXFlyer

homerjay2005 wrote: »

south dublin into the city, 4 stops!

cant believe people are actually trying to defend the service here, other cities in europe are much cheaper. monthly saver tickets are grand, but for people who dont use it every day or tourists coming here, those are no good to them.

There are 3 day passes that suit tourists perfectly. There are as I mentioned above the Dublin Bus non-consecutive rambler tickets that facilitate occasional users also, as these tend to be valid for 18 months.

LEAP pay-as-you-go is designed specifically for occasional users or those making short journeys.

For everyone else there are an entire range of season tickets, weekly, monthly and annual that will in time migrate to the LEAP card.

As I said above - a large number of Irish people have a complete fixation with paying for public transport by cash when other (usually cheaper) options are available.