Taxsaver Tickets to become Personalised Leap Cards

LittleBook

We've just been informed by our employer that from October, Dublin Bus will not be distributing monthly TaxSaver tickets through them (our employer pays for them).

Instead we will be issued with a Personalised Leap Card and monthly TaxSaver tickets will have to be collected from Payzone outlets.

I'm finding it hard to imagine how this will work and how our employer will continue to pay for the TaxSaver tickets? For example, will I be able to go to a Payzone outlet on 25th of September to get my "October ticket" and it will be paid for by my employer (somehow)?

I'm a bit dubious having read about (and seen) many problems with Leap Cards and the person who receives the tickets here is in the dark. Does anyone have anymore info on this?

dudara

Moving this to Commuting & Transport, as they might be the best guys to answer questions on Leap

dudara

LeftBlank

All that's changing here is how the ticket is issued. I would imagine that your employer will continue to pay the Dublin Bus taxsaver office as usual for the ticket, the DB office will then tell Leap that you have a monthly ticket and this will be fed down to the Payzone outlets. All that's changing is that rather than issuing the tickets, DB are just going to tell the Leap system that you have a ticket.

Daemonic

Is the change only for monthly tickets or does it affect annual taxsaver tickets as well?

LittleBook

LeftBlank wrote: »

All that's changing here is how the ticket is issued. I would imagine that your employer will continue to pay the Dublin Bus taxsaver office as usual for the ticket, the DB office will then tell Leap that you have a monthly ticket and this will be fed down to the Payzone outlets. All that's changing is that rather than issuing the tickets, DB are just going to tell the Leap system that you have a ticket.

It may be as simple as that, hopefully it will be. I just wonder can there be an overlap of two months or would it always have to be done on the first of the month before travel. Again, just not enthusiastic about Leap Cards from viewing other experiences.

Daemonic wrote: »

Is the change only for monthly tickets or does it affect annual taxsaver tickets as well?

According to the letter we received, yes it will affect annual and monthly.

loyatemu

my new annual rail ticket was automatically loaded onto my existing card when I tagged-on on Monday (i.e. I didn't have to get a new card) - I'd imagine this will be something similar - the system will recognise your card and automatically load the new ticket onto it.

Vahevala

Will it affect combined tickets like Bus and Luas?

LXFlyer

LittleBook wrote: »

It may be as simple as that, hopefully it will be. I just wonder can there be an overlap of two months or would it always have to be done on the first of the month before travel. Again, just not enthusiastic about Leap Cards from viewing other experiences.



According to the letter we received, yes it will affect annual and monthly.

Such as?

LittleBook

Vahevala wrote: »

Will it affect combined tickets like Bus and Luas?

Yes.

lxflyer wrote: »

Such as?

People boarding, claiming they've recharged the credit but the card being refused ... which is why I'm mostly concerned about how the card is re-charged and when/how it will have to be done.

It's not for a while yet, presumably we'll get more info. I don't like change.

LeftBlank

loyatemu wrote: »

my new annual rail ticket was automatically loaded onto my existing card when I tagged-on on Monday (i.e. I didn't have to get a new card) - I'd imagine this will be something similar - the system will recognise your card and automatically load the new ticket onto it.

You can't top up on the bus yet though - hence the need to go to a Payzone outlet (or presumably you could use the IR gates etc...)

LXFlyer

Nor are you going to be able to top up on a bus - it needs a live connection at a station, TVM or payzone outlet.

This is no different to Oyster in London where you have to top-up in a shop, or in a station.

What will be able to be done on a bus will be auto-top-up for the pay-as-you-go element.

Dravokivich

lxflyer wrote: »

Nor are you going to be able to top up on a bus - it needs a live connection at a station, TVM or payzone outlet.

It doesn't need to be live. The problem constantly referenced with Dublin Bus, was a lack of memory on the device.

devnull

Maybe I'm being silly, but if for example you go to work on the 31st July, and the next day on 1st August you get on a bus first on your early morning commute where there is no train station, luas stop or open payzone outlet, how will you get your monthly ticket for August when you cannot get it from a bus?

goingnowhere

Irish Rail have been doing this with monthly Taxsaver tickets for over a year now

The next months ticket is 'available' about a week before the end of the month, in Irish Rails case the customers don't even know what is going on in the background, it just works and the card is updated as the passenger tags on or off

devnull

Yes but what about bus - see the above example I give.

How will they get their tickets when they don't even encounter any Irish Rail ticket gate or machine or Luas ticket machine or card reader.

How do they even know when to collect their monthly ticket, since they can't do it on the morning of the new month since the payzone shop even if they have one near them which most don't, won't be open.

Do they really have to try and go into a payzone shop which could be a long detour every day in the hope it might be there?

I'm a supporter of leap, and would like to see it replace taxsaver for monthly rail, luas, rail and luas, rail and bus and luas and bus straight away since they could easily pick up the monthly tickets. But what is a bus user to do?

Dravokivich

By the sounds of the op, it doesn't look like they get to nominate an alternative pickup point either.

bk

God, I'm sure the shops will be delighted with queues of taxsaver holders coming in every month to have their card checked and not buying anything.

Again it shows a need for Dublin Bus to get new ticket machines.

SteM

devnull wrote: »

Maybe I'm being silly, but if for example you go to work on the 31st July, and the next day on 1st August you get on a bus first on your early morning commute where there is no train station, luas stop or open payzone outlet, how will you get your monthly ticket for August when you cannot get it from a bus?

I can't believe that DB would put people in this situation. You're example isn't crazy by the way, it would be a regular occurrence for a lot of people. Technology is supposed to simplify people's lives, Leap and the way it's been implemented doesn’t do that.

LittleBook

devnull wrote: »

Yes but what about bus - see the above example I give.

How will they get their tickets when they don't even encounter any Irish Rail ticket gate or machine or Luas ticket machine or card reader.

How do they even know when to collect their monthly ticket, since they can't do it on the morning of the new month since the payzone shop even if they have one near them which most don't, won't be open.

Do they really have to try and go into a payzone shop which could be a long detour every day in the hope it might be there?

I'm a supporter of leap, and would like to see it replace taxsaver for monthly rail, luas, rail and luas, rail and bus and luas and bus straight away since they could easily pick up the monthly tickets. But what is a bus user to do?

This is more or less my concern but this seems to be the answer:

goingnowhere wrote: »

Irish Rail have been doing this with monthly Taxsaver tickets for over a year now

The next months ticket is 'available' about a week before the end of the month, in Irish Rails case the customers don't even know what is going on in the background, it just works and the card is updated as the passenger tags on or off

OK, not as convenient for bus only cardholders as they will have to actively seek out a paypoint, and certainly not as convenient as having it sent to me directly. But, if there IS that week overlap, at least we'll have time to get to a paypoint.

Dravokivich wrote: »

By the sounds of the op, it doesn't look like they get to nominate an alternative pickup point either.

Letter from Dublin Bus wrote:

The Personalised Leap Card will allow for Dublin Bus monthly and annual TaxSaver tickets to be collected at: -
• Over 400 Payzone outlets city wide
• At all Luas Ticket Vending Machines
• Or from any of Irish Rail Ticket Vending Machine or Entry Gate

So I guess, even though I'm a bus only cardholder, I can go to the Luas stop outside my office and get my next month's travel validated?

Dravokivich

LittleBook wrote: »

So I guess, even though I'm a bus only cardholder, I can go to the Luas stop outside my office and get my next month's travel validated?

If it's gonna be avail at TVM's, all you need to do is put it into the cardholder on the machine to collect it. You won't need to make a journey. Seems you may have a choice where to pickup. A lot of Luas TVMs on the streets in town, so they may be the handiest for most people.

AlekSmart

LittleBook wrote: »

So I guess, even though I'm a bus only cardholder, I can go to the Luas stop outside my office and get my next month's travel validated?

Yet another brightly burning example of the incredible ability of Irish Administrators to dig a hole and then fall into it....:rolleyes:

As a Bus Only Leapcard user LittleBook should be able to collect any Leap product from a small remote validator mounted onto the already hard-wired RTPI poles,of which there are a few......and worse again,these RTPI poles tend to be at or near Bus Stops :eek: .....perhaps the NTA view this as being a wee bit TOO Customer Friendly ...or then again,perhaps they just don't use Buses much.....:rolleyes:

devnull

Unfortunately if they were put on RTPI poles I'm sure that they wouldn't last very long in certain areas.

bk

devnull wrote: »

Unfortunately if they were put on RTPI poles I'm sure that they wouldn't last very long in certain areas.

Just a simple reader + small lcd screen to show your balance.

Had they thought about it up front, they could have even built it into the body of the poles to make it more vandal proof.

Dravokivich

If it were so easy to make something vandal proof that works, there'd be validators at Broombridge.

loyatemu

Dravokivich wrote: »

If it were so easy to make something vandal proof that works, there'd be validators at Broombridge.

How many RTPI poles have been vandalised, or parking-meters for that matter? Big difference between infrastructure on the street and at a remote railway halt in bandit country.

devnull

The RTPI poles are much higher up which makes it much more difficult to vandalize them.

AlekSmart

devnull wrote: »

Unfortunately if they were put on RTPI poles I'm sure that they wouldn't last very long in certain areas.

At one point I would have said yea to this,but just as Dublin Bikes have demonstrated,quite a bit of this is folk-myttery.

For sure I would avoid obvious lost-planets such as Broombridge,but even the very act of enabling ALL of the RTPI poles gives a HUGE increase in LuasCard's user friendliness index.

The actual SCV Unit is fully solid-state with no moving parts and very little to actually be smashed.

For me,it's a no brainer,so much so that I question the NTA's actual level of committment to the ITS principle,something reinforced by the current fiasco with BAC's Wayfarer machines.

Dravokivich

AlekSmart wrote: »

The actual SCV Unit is fully solid-state with no moving parts and very little to actually be smashed.

The issue would be regarding the thickness of what ever is the device is encased in. The field for a Leap Card isn't really all that much.

Polar101

I guess there wouldn't be any chance for the TaxSaver tickets changing so that they don't need the employer to buy them any more? The people I work for found the system too complicated, and stopped buying them for us non-car-owning plebs.

Dravokivich

loyatemu wrote: »

How many RTPI poles have been vandalised, or parking-meters for that matter? Big difference between infrastructure on the street and at a remote railway halt in bandit country.

Bus stops let alone shelters are regularly vandalised, even in areas that are considered well enough off. RTPI poles don't seem to feature to much around where there's been a history of such vandalism.

LXFlyer

Again, I'd point out that this is no different to London where people get their Oyster card updated with a new monthly/annual pass by walking into a local shop or rail/tube station.

People there seem to manage that - is there any particular reason we in Ireland should be any different?

Even before the taxsaver scheme arrived, people somehown managed to walk into a local shop to get a new ticket in advance of the renewal date.

devnull

The problem is that the tube network is so vast and is the primary mode of transport in London and the chances are that someone is going to use a tube journey at some point during their commute.

Here in Dublin, Bus is the primary transport method and many people will use a bus without even having the chance to use a luas or a train service simply as these modes of transport simply do not serve the areas they are going to and from.

The difference is there are many Dublin Bus ticket agents, but the number of shops that offer payzone are much less, for example my local shop sells Dublin Bus tickets, but it doesn't do leap, and I'm sure that I'm not the only one in such situation.

the groutch

I assume this would tie-in somewhat with all Ramblers having an expiry date of Dec 31st, proabably a similar Leap integration planned for those too.

Mrs OBumble

Looking forward to this, and leap, extending to the far reaches of the whest.

Walking into a shop at my convenience any time during a week will be no harder than finding my HR person at her desk.

markpb

devnull wrote: »

The difference is there are many Dublin Bus ticket agents, but the number of shops that offer payzone are much less, for example my local shop sells Dublin Bus tickets, but it doesn't do leap, and I'm sure that I'm not the only one in such situation.

The number of Payzone shops in Dublin is about 400. The number of Dublin Bus agents is about the same, possibly 20-30 higher. There's not a huge difference between them. I'd be surprised if many people in Dublin were more than a few minutes walk from a Payzone/Leap shop.

devnull

Remember that not all Payzone outlets support leap, even some that the Payzone said supports leap actually doesn't since they don't have the leap readers.

I don't live in central Dublin so I don't have a huge amount of choice in the places I would go unless i fancy a 30-40 minute walk.

markpb

devnull wrote: »

Remember that not all Payzone outlets support leap, even some that the Payzone said supports leap actually doesn't since they don't have the leap readers.

Which ones don't?

I don't live in central Dublin so I don't have a huge amount of choice in the places I would go unless i fancy a 30-40 minute walk.

What about where you work? (Just out of curiosity)

Dravokivich

I think the 3*-6 days of availability for the next ticket before the current ticket isn't really good enough. Someone could easily find themselves out of Dublin during that period and coming back late, no payzone shops available to pickup next months ticket. They need to pay fare's until they can get to collect it.

*that is unless they adjust the availability period for February.

smallerthanyou

Would this reduce the fee for replacement of annual taxsaver. Recently paid 90e for replacement and can only get replaced once in a year. So with leap can they just cancel your lost card and replace it for a tenner or whatever new card costs? Seems like a good thing for annual holders anyway, to me.

Vahevala

markpb wrote: »

The number of Payzone shops in Dublin is about 400. The number of Dublin Bus agents is about the same, possibly 20-30 higher. There's not a huge difference between them. I'd be surprised if many people in Dublin were more than a few minutes walk from a Payzone/Leap shop.

There are no shops that accept Payzone where I live in Dublin (plus no shops open at that time), so I would have to pay to use the bus in order to activate this. I really hope this doesn't go ahead for the combined tickets :mad:

markpb

Vahevala wrote: »

There are no shops that accept Payzone where I live in Dublin (plus no shops open at that time), so I would have to pay to use the bus in order to activate this. I really hope this doesn't go ahead for the combined tickets :mad:

Where do you live? I find it hard to believe that none of the 400 payzone shops are close to you. Have you used to agent finder on the froth page of the Payzone website to check - there may be one nearby that don't advertise that they're a Payzone shop.

Polar101

devnull wrote: »

I don't live in central Dublin so I don't have a huge amount of choice in the places I would go unless i fancy a 30-40 minute walk.

Same for me in Dublin 15, the nearest Payzone shop is a 20-minute walk away. The local shop sells Dublin Bus tickets, but don't do anything with a Leap card.

Well, this isn't a problem for me - just pointing out that there isn't a Payzone shop around every corner.

Vahevala

markpb wrote: »

Where do you live? I find it hard to believe that none of the 400 payzone shops are close to you. Have you used to agent finder on the froth page of the Payzone website to check - there may be one nearby that don't advertise that they're a Payzone shop.

I live in Dublin 15, I do not have a car and there is only one shop close to me and that does not do Payzone.

Alun

devnull wrote: »

The problem is that the tube network is so vast and is the primary mode of transport in London and the chances are that someone is going to use a tube journey at some point during their commute.

Watching the Routemasters programme the other night, they said that 6.5 million journeys a day are made by bus, twice as many as the tube, and more than the rest of the bus network in the UK put together.

Losty Dublin

Vahevala wrote: »

I live in Dublin 15, I do not have a car and there is only one shop close to me and that does not do Payzone.

Then top up at one elsewhere around the city; you are not confined to using your local agent.

Dravokivich

Losty Dublin wrote: »

Then top up at one elsewhere around the city; you are not confined to using your local agent.

The onus really shouldn't be on the user to go out of their way to make this work for them. The reason people refer to their locality here is because they are thinking, "where am I starting from each morning? Where will I be in the days that lead up to the end of the month when I'm meant to activate my next ticket?" They could also go through town without getting off near a payzone agent that is set up for leap. Bringing in extra steps, does not make the usage of Leap convenient and results in making it sound more complicated than it is.

Losty Dublin

Dravokivich wrote: »

The onus really shouldn't be on the user to go out of their way to make this work for them. The reason people refer to their locality here is because they are thinking, "where am I starting from each morning? Where will I be in the days that lead up to the end of the month when I'm meant to activate my next ticket?" They could also go through town without getting off near a payzone agent that is set up for leap. Bringing in extra steps, does not make the usage of Leap convenient and results in making it sound more complicated than it is.

All they need to do is find a Payzone outlet in Dublin to validate the pass. That is not a big ask in all honesty, especially if you are traveling to and from work on a daily basis, not to mention day to day shopping.

devnull

Losty Dublin wrote: »

All they need to do is find a Payzone outlet in Dublin to validate the pass. That is not a big ask in all honesty, especially if you are traveling to and from work on a daily basis, not to mention day to day shopping.

And what if they don't generally go through the city center or change somewhere other than the city center, they would have to take a detour. Believe it or not, not everyone travels to or from the city center.

I'm sure that the people may do day to day shopping at the shops around them, as far as I'm aware supermarkets don't support leap with very few exceptions, neither do the shops that people buy groceries in. If supermarkets did start doing that then it would make a big difference.

The only places that tend to do it are convenience stores and like the previous poster, there isn't one near me but there is one shop that does offer Payzone, but like a lot of payzone outlets on the suburbs, they don't have the leap card readers,

Losty Dublin

devnull wrote: »

And what if they don't generally go through the city center or change somewhere other than the city center, they would have to take a detour. Believe it or not, not everyone travels to or from the city center.

There are only 400 Leap agents in Dublin, most of which are outside of the city centre.

Mrs OBumble

Vahevala wrote: »

I live in Dublin 15, I do not have a car and there is only one shop close to me and that does not do Payzone.

But you do have an all-you-can-eat bus ticket. Hard to believe you wont be anywhere near an outlet in the last week of every month.

Its still a good deal better than the monthly tix for people who aren't working for a company that does Taxsaver. Til my co started doing it, i had to visit the bus station on the last saturday of each month, cos that was the only time i coild get there when they were open.

LXFlyer

I really think people are making a mountain out of a molehill here and coming up with every barrier to change possible!

The reality all of us would pass by an outlet at some stage in the previous week somewhere that we could call into.

Just because it's not beside your house/workplace doesn't mean you won't pass one somewhere when you're out and about.

As for being away - well then I'd ask how did you cope before when you went away? Did your ticket magically appear on your doorstep?

Remember you can top up at the shops in the airport.

People are going to just have to change their habits a little.