Rail fare zones getting smaller?

n97 mini

On the recent NTA fare determination for Irish Rail, it would appear from Appendix A - Reclassification of Origin-Destination pairings in the Short Hop Zone that rail zones have been made smaller.

The knock on effect of this is people travelling to the other end of an existing zone may now find that they're travelling into the next zone and that their fare has gone up considerably. From skimming over it it would appear to affect the Maynooth line a bit more than the others.

For example Leixlip Confey to Lansdowne Road Leap has gone up a fare band, from €2.75 in 2013 to €3.40, a total of 23% as opposed to the indicated 10.9% increase.

In my opinion this is quite cynical.

Aard

Just as a comparison: In Paris, they've been progressively getting rid of outer fare zones on the RER. So far-flung areas have been subsumed into closer fare zones. The long-term strategy is to work towards a single-fare for annual tickets in the Île-de-France. The analogue for Dublin would be having a single fare zone for somewhere between County Dublin and the GDA (Dublin, Wicklow, Klidare, Meath).

LXFlyer

n97 mini wrote: »

On the recent NTA fare determination for Irish Rail, it would appear from Appendix A - Reclassification of Origin-Destination pairings in the Short Hop Zone that rail zones have been made smaller.

The knock on effect of this is people travelling to the other end of an existing zone may now find that they're travelling into the next zone and that their fare has gone up considerably. From skimming over it it would appear to affect the Maynooth line a bit more than the others.

For example Leixlip Confey to Lansdowne Road Leap has gone up a fare band, from €2.75 in 2013 to €3.40, a total of 23% as opposed to the indicated 10.9% increase.

In my opinion this is quite cynical.

I haven't gone through it in detail but what they have said is that they are trying to eliminate anomalies in the fare structure and make sure that fares for the same distances in the Dublin Commuter area are the same.

It could be that the Confey/Lansdowne Road fare was lower than fares for similar distances across the suburban network. I don't know, but I'm guessing that's the reason.

Victor

The Irish Rail fare bands are a mess, with huge distortions - some shorter journeys costing the same or more than some longer journeys on the same train, e.g. Balbriggan to Donabate is the same price as Balbriggan to Kilcoole.

While there may be some justification for differences between different service qualities, e.g. commuter -v- intercity or frequent -v- infrequent services, these are just anomalies.

I've asked for a copy of the new matrix. The current matrix is here: http://www.railusers.ie/passenger_info/fares_matrix_2013.php

Victor

Up to date Rail Users Ireland fare calculator

cson

€3.40 from Confey to Lansdowne is quite good I would think for the distance travelled.

carveone

Cynical is the word. They've moved 72 origin-distance pairings from Zone C to Zone E. Meanwhile they can say officially that they've only raised Leapcard fares by 3% (C to C) and 3.4% (E to E).

However my (leapcard) return fare went from €6.60 to €9.00 (to Maynooth). That's 36%.


Edit: which is 90 times the official/fictional rate of inflation.

Infini

Return from portmarnock to bray: €10.50
Return from MALAHIDE to bray:€ 8.00

I smell a troll somewhere.....

n97 mini

carveone wrote: »

Cynical is the word. They've moved 72 origin-distance pairings from Zone C to Zone E. Meanwhile they can say officially that they've only raised Leapcard fares by 3% (C to C) and 3.4% (E to E).

However my (leapcard) return fare went from €6.60 to €9.00 (to Maynooth). That's 36%.


Edit: which is 90 times the official/fictional rate of inflation.

And what's the bets Murphy, Stagg, Lawlor or Durkan don't know the first thing about it.

Victor

The fare system was broken, it is now absurd.

n97 mini

Is that distance by rail or as the crow flies?

Victor

Distance via rail - it would be unfair on the operator to measure as the crow flies between Dún Laoghaire and Howth, but I think it could be considered elsewhere.