LEAP CARD - Updated Summary of Cards/Functionality Available - September 2014

Mrs OBumble

what_traffic wrote: »

Any idea's of launch date in Galway City Mrs OBumble?

TFI just told me it's live now:



My guess is that next month's TaxSavers will be personalised Leaps, and that the public launch may be in a few weeks. But the 2nd part of that is pure guesswork.

what_traffic

Mrs OBumble wrote: »

TFI just told me it's live now:



My guess is that next month's TaxSavers will be personalised Leaps, and that the public launch may be in a few weeks. But the 2nd part of that is pure guesswork.

Thanks for that. Hopefully this will speed up the bus services. Currently a lot of delays on the Bus Eireann buses with drivers giving out change in Galway City; even though more and more people over the last few years are availing of the day and weekly tickets. Hopefully media and launch campaign will be substantial.

LoonyLovegood

Bus Éireann just announced on twitter that Leap will be accepted on Galway City Services from September 28th.

Carawaystick

CTYIgirl wrote: »

Bus Éireann just announced on twitter that Leap will be accepted from September 28th.

I thought you can use leap already on certain BÉ services?

It's a desperate indictment of leap that lxflyer can post more up to date information than leapcard.ie

Their future transport operators webpage is (C)2011 ....

schemingbohemia

hibby wrote: »

How long after touch-on is a leap card valid for travel on the Luas?

How long after I touch on will a touch result in another touch-on instead of a touch-off?

Are these questions answered anywhere on the leap card website?

Thanks!


Just in case my questions are hard to understand, let me give an example:
- Touch on at Charlemont and board southbound Luas;
- Get off at Balally without touching off;
- Spend an hour shopping in Dundrum;
- Return to Balally and board southbound Luas without touching on;
- Get off at Cherrywood. Touch the card to the card reader. 85 minutes have elapsed since I touched on in Charlemont.

1) Is this a legal and acceptable use of the Luas card? If so/if not; at what time does it become unacceptable?
2) What happens when I touch the card to the reader at Cherrywood: does it touch off or touch on again? At what elapsed time does it change from touch off to touch on?

For single tickets it states the following
Single tickets are valid 90 mins from time of issue, for one trip only. No breaks in journey are permitted. - See more at: http://www.luas.ie/single-and-return-tickets.html#sthash.vQESaKW5.dpuf

If you are stopped on a tram after breaking your journey and asked for your leap card I would presume you could be fined as your tag-on time would indicate that you commenced that journey a good bit before the current tram you were on and just broke your journey contrary to the conditions of your ticket.

LoonyLovegood

Carawaystick wrote: »

I thought you can use leap already on certain BÉ services?

It's a desperate indictment of leap that lxflyer can post more up to date information than leapcard.ie

Their future transport operators webpage is (C)2011 ....

I messed up, I meant in Galway on city services.

what_traffic

CTYIgirl wrote: »

I messed up, I meant in Galway on city services.

Further information re LEAP on Bus Eireann services in Galway City posted in a similar thread in the Galway City forum
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=92337839&postcount=18

Victor

bk wrote: »

'm very tired of hearing your excuses for the debacle that is LEAP, in particular on Dublin Bus.

Honestly lxflyer, all I ever hear from you is excuses why things can't be fixed. You NEVER criticise CIE companies or their lack of professionalism. It is always just excuse after excuse and it is very tiring.

Constructive posts only. It is not your place to criticise an individual like this.

If you want to do something about a problem, do something constructive. Don't just criticise a third party.

Moderator

Victor

http://www.nationaltransport.ie/news/leap-card-now-in-galway-fares-up-to-16-cheaper/

Leap Card now in Galway – fares up to 16% cheaper
30/09/14

The National Transport Authority’s Leap Card integrated ticketing scheme is now live in Galway City on Bus Éireann services and on City Direct services (from Cappagh to the West and Oranmore and Parkmore to the East of the City).

Customers can choose an Adult, Student or Child Leap Card for better value and more convenient travelling. It is a pay-as-you-go smart card that pays for public transport services. Leap fares are 16% cheaper than the corresponding cash single ticket on Bus Éireann services (routes 401 – 410), and are the same price as cash fares on City Direct services (routes 411 – 413).

In addition, commuters and more frequent travellers can upload a range of time-period tickets onto their Leap Card – 24-hour tickets, 7-day tickets, month-long tickets.

Cards are available to buy and top-up in a range of Payzone agent shops in Galway (see www.payzone.ie for full details), or on our own dedicated website: www.leapcard.ie .

Since its launch in Dublin in December 2011, the Leap Card has become an integral part of many people’s daily travelling behaviour. Some 700,000 cards are now in circulation, with 70 million journeys paid for by Leap since its launch. The card was launched for bus services in Cork earlier this year, and future plans include adding the cities of Limerick and Waterford and also incorporating new products and operators in the scheme.

For more information on Leap Card, visit www.leapcard.ie

BonnieSituation

Something has been bugging me about this for a while and I still can't figure it out:

What is the point of the load location on a Leap Card? Surely if I have to go to a shop to activate the top-up then I may as well just top it up in the shop anyway?

bk

BonnieSituation wrote: »

Something has been bugging me about this for a while and I still can't figure it out:

What is the point of the load location on a Leap Card? Surely if I have to go to a shop to activate the top-up then I may as well just top it up in the shop anyway?

The load location depends on which one you select:

- Luas Validator
- Irish Rail/Dart Validator
- Payzone outlet

Note it can't be topped up on Dublin Bus.

So yes, you are correct, online top-ups are primarily only for people who use DART or Luas regularly. Dublin Bus users would be better off just buying the topup in the payzone shop or instead using auto-topup which does in fact work on Dublin Bus.

The reason it doesn't work on DB, is because DB's tickets machines are too old, with too slow processing power and memory to properly support Leap card and online top-ups. Online top-ups on buses are absolutely possible, as they have been doing on buses in Atlanta since 2006!

BonnieSituation

That still doesn't answer why it needs to be set up as so.

Eg. when I top up my phone online or transfer money between accounts, shop on Amazon etc It happens generally instantaneously in most cases.

Why can't I have €20 lobbed onto my leap card from the internet to the account without me having to go near a validator?

I remember complaining about the Presto Card (Ontario's version of Leap) where it takes more than 24 hours for credit to top up onto your card when topping up online.

Strikes of madness to me.

---

Also auto top-up only allows a minimum top-up of €30 which again I can see no reason for. As a student leap user I have no need for such a high top-up amount.

AlekSmart

BonnieSituation wrote: »

Why can't I have €20 lobbed onto my leap card from the internet to the account without me having to go near a validator?

I remember complaining about the Presto Card (Ontario's version of Leap) where it takes more than 24 hours for credit to top up onto your card when topping up online.

Strikes of madness to me.

Also auto top-up only allows a minimum top-up of €30 which again I can see no reason for. As a student leap user I have no need for such a high top-up amount.

Crediting your account and crediting the actual Card in your fisht are two different things.

So different that even the Canadians have the same problem ?

Auto Top-Up does exactly this,but only by virtue of You having done all the detail In Advance,via Direct Debit,so the amount is already electronically and permanently etched on your Cardchip's memory to be triggered at the same point every time.

BTW,I would agree that the ATU limits are wildly out of kilter with the reality of modern Commuters cash-flow patterns...I can only suggest they were decided upon during the Skinny-Frappé era....;)

goingnowhere

The card is not 'connected', the card stores the balance and products so there has to be a way to synchronize the card

The card has to work quickly, it would take far too long if it had to query the back office every time. Plus the system must be able to work even if the back office is offline.

Dublin Bus CAN support collection of top up's however there isn't enough memory in the computer on the ticket machine to cope as every bus would have to store the update list for every card and be updated overnight, every night.

If Dublin Bus replaced its equipment with something half modern it would be possible

devnull

BonnieSituation wrote: »

Eg. when I top up my phone online or transfer money between accounts, shop on Amazon etc It happens generally instantaneously in most cases.

Your phone has a live data connection, it's always connected to the outside world through phone signal and each time you make a call it connects to the network to check if you have enough balance.

If you transfer money between accounts the online bank, which you connect to through a data connection, has a connection to other banks which allows this to be done.

A leap card has no way of knowing when it is topped up, since the balance is stored on the CARD and until the card has some connection to the otuside world, it cannot know it has been topped up.

This is the way things are throughout the world and the very same as on Oyster, the thing is it's not so noticeable in London since most people use Tube and are not so dependent on bus as Dublin.

Think about it like this, how does a Sky Plus box get TV signal without a dish to connect it to the service or how does a land line phone get a phone call without a line in the house - same principle applies.

This is the way it has to be since the Dublin Bus ticket machines are based on a processor released over 20 years ago and have less memory than a floppy disc or 650 times less than a CD.

Victor

AlekSmart wrote: »

BTW,I would agree that the ATU limits are wildly out of kilter with the reality of modern Commuters cash-flow patterns...I can only suggest they were decided upon during the Skinny-Frappé era....;)

No, it was decided after the Beta testing that started last year, which the objective of minimising non-payments and transaction costs.

Also, you can only do a auto top-up once per 7 days (to avoid transaction overlaps and make sure that multiple transactions don't fail) and a user could spend up to €70 in that 7 days (€30 in one calendar week and €40 in the other) or more if they use Leap Card on Bus Éireann.

BonnieSituation

AlekSmart wrote: »

Crediting your account and crediting the actual Card in your fisht are two different things.

As it might be. But doesn't explain why this is so.

The two posters below however have done so.

So different that even the Canadians have the same problem ?

The problem with Presto. And I can really only comment on my experience of it in Ottawa, which like Dublin is a bus dominated city, is that the 24 hr redundancy is built in. Their on board machines might well have the ability to register top ups unlike dubkjns, but they won't do so for 24hrs after the top up has occurred, on purpose.

The reasoning behind this delay is not clear exactly and even if it was explained properly it would help to allay issues people have.

Up to 48 hours from top up is ridiculous as per Leap.

Auto Top-Up does exactly this,but only by virtue of You having done all the detail In Advance,via Direct Debit,so the amount is already electronically and permanently etched on your Cardchip's memory to be triggered at the same point every time.

Yeah, Sepa helps this I suppose. But it just seems unintuitive. I appreciate that the nuances aren't very clear to me as to how the crediting system works, but given my large interest in it I can't see how some normal less nerdy Joe Public would get their heads around it.

BTW,I would agree that the ATU limits are wildly out of kilter with the reality of modern Commuters cash-flow patterns...I can only suggest they were decided upon during the Skinny-Frappé era....;)

It's not that €30 is too much, it's just that it is largely a waste for me personally.

I'm sure there's a lot of bus only using Student Leap users out there in the same boat given our Max spend per week is €20 PW.

BonnieSituation

goingnowhere wrote: »

The card is not 'connected', the card stores the balance and products so there has to be a way to synchronize the card

The card has to work quickly, it would take far too long if it had to query the back office every time. Plus the system must be able to work even if the back office is offline.

Dublin Bus CAN support collection of top up's however there isn't enough memory in the computer on the ticket machine to cope as every bus would have to store the update list for every card and be updated overnight, every night.

If Dublin Bus replaced its equipment with something half modern it would be possible

This wasn't clear to me as to the flowchart/logistics of the top up itself.

Cheers.

So I can blame DB and not Leap.

Any reason for the 1second tag time on a bus as opposed to other quicker systems elsewhere?

BonnieSituation

devnull wrote: »

Your phone has a live data connection, it's always connected to the outside world through phone signal and each time you make a call it connects to the network to check if you have enough balance.

If you transfer money between accounts the online bank, which you connect to through a data connection, has a connection to other banks which allows this to be done.

A leap card has no way of knowing when it is topped up, since the balance is stored on the CARD and until the card has some connection to the otuside world, it cannot know it has been topped up.

This is the way things are throughout the world and the very same as on Oyster, the thing is it's not so noticeable in London since most people use Tube and are not so dependent on bus as Dublin.

Think about it like this, how does a Sky Plus box get TV signal without a dish to connect it to the service or how does a land line phone get a phone call without a line in the house - same principle applies.

This is the way it has to be since the Dublin Bus ticket machines are based on a processor released over 20 years ago and have less memory than a floppy disc or 650 times less than a CD.

When I posted my query I didn't consider the logistics of the actual top up and was unaware of the issue with DB machines.

The comparison to London doesn't wash as I'm sure there are no issues with collecting a top up up on a bus there?

That in a bus dominated city such as Dublin, that this functionality isn't available is frankly unacceptable. I'm sure you'd agree.

Cheers for the explanation. I didn't think my issue through totally. Still, an explanation on the leap sire wouldn't go amiss.

BonnieSituation

Victor wrote: »

No, it was decided after the Beta testing that started last year, which the objective of minimising non-payments and transaction costs.

But wasn't that the end goal of SEPA too outside of the cross border implications?

Not allowing 5, 10 topups I can understand, and should hardly be an issue really. But a weekly top up of 20 is a more reasonable thing to expect of a system.

I shall register my complaint post-haste.

LXFlyer

BonnieSituation wrote: »

When I posted my query I didn't consider the logistics of the actual top up and was unaware of the issue with DB machines.

The comparison to London doesn't wash as I'm sure there are no issues with collecting a top up up on a bus there?

That in a bus dominated city such as Dublin, that this functionality isn't available is frankly unacceptable. I'm sure you'd agree.

Cheers for the explanation. I didn't think my issue through totally. Still, an explanation on the leap sire wouldn't go amiss.

London has exactly the same problem - you cannot collect topups through the ticket machines on board buses there either - you have to go to a station or a shop.

This is not a Dublin specific issue, despite what some posters would like you to believe.

For the record, new ticketing equipment is due to arrive in 2015.

Alun

lxflyer wrote: »

London has exactly the same problem - you cannot collect topups through the ticket machines on board buses there either - you have to go to a station or a shop.

But, if I understand it correctly, you can 'collect' an auto-topup. How does that work?

LXFlyer

In both Dublin and London auto top up works by triggering a top up automatically once the balance on the card reaches €10.

The system automatically increases the balance by your designated top up amount and triggers a direct debit from your bank account. If the DD doesn't work the card will subsequently be blocked.

In other words the card knows to trigger a top up when the balance hits €10. It's not "collecting" it as such.

Alun

When you say the 'system' do you mean the ticket machines? If so, how do they know what the designated top-up amount is?

LXFlyer

Alun wrote: »

When you say the 'system' do you mean the ticket machines? If so, how do they know what the designated top-up amount is?

No - the card knows to do it. The information is stored on the card after you set it up. It will up the balance by the designated amount automatically when it goes below €10.

When the transactions are downloaded at night from the ticket machines the direct debit will be triggered. If it subsequently fails, the card will be blocked.

The ticket machines store the bare information - the transactions that have taken place during the day.

BonnieSituation

lxflyer wrote: »

London has exactly the same problem - you cannot collect topups through the ticket machines on board buses there either - you have to go to a station or a shop.

Cheers for that. I just assumed given the length of time Oyster has been active.

This is not a Dublin specific issue, despite what some posters would like you to believe.

The thing is though it's only a recent issue as I always topped up at Luas machines when I lived in Smithfield. I now live in Lucan so it has become a pain when the top-up day and my pay don't overlap. Ah well.

For the record, new ticketing equipment is due to arrive in 2015.

Good to know.

bk

BonnieSituation wrote: »

Any reason for the 1second tag time on a bus as opposed to other quicker systems elsewhere?

Same basic reason the ticket machines don't support online top-ups. They are too old and underpowered to properly support all the extra Leap card software.

That is why the ticket machines badly need to be replaced with more modern models, to allow support for all this extra functionality.

lxflyer wrote: »

London has exactly the same problem - you cannot collect topups through the ticket machines on board buses there either - you have to go to a station or a shop.

True, but then London Bus allows you to pay by your contactless debit or credit cards. Which is a far superior option. No need to even have a Leap/Oyster card and no need to maintain a balance on your Leap/Oyster card. No need for online topups or enabling expensive auto top-ups.

Just simply use your bank debit card that most people in the UK already have. It even supports daily and weekly caps! Far, FAR, superior to anything Leap can do.

https://www.tfl.gov.uk/fares-and-payments/contactless/contactless-payment-on-buses?intcmp=1715

Given this functionality, it makes sense that they haven't bothered to implement online top-ups on London Bus. The thinking goes that infrequent users will just use their contactless debit card and even benefit from daily and weekly capping. The only people who should actually carry Oyster cards are frequent users with monthly or annual cards.

I don't think they can't do it, it is just they have such greater functionality with contactless payments that it just isn't needed.

So please stop using London Buses lack of support for online topups as an excuse for Dublin Buses poor functionality when London Bus has such a superior functionality.

I really hope the same conactless payments technology will also come to DB, Dart, Luas etc. in future. It is such a superior system to Leap ewallets.

lxflyer wrote: »

For the record, new ticketing equipment is due to arrive in 2015.

What are you basing that on? The NTA slides we have all seen previously? Or do you have stronger confirmation of this happening?

goingnowhere wrote:

Dublin Bus CAN support collection of top up's however there isn't enough memory in the computer on the ticket machine to cope as every bus would have to store the update list for every card and be updated overnight, every night.

You are correct, but your comment above makes it sound like it would require a lot of memory. It wouldn't, I'd be surprised if it required more then a 1MB file. To put that in context, you can now buy smartphones for €40 (no contract, unlocked) which have 4GB (~4000MB) of memory.

The fact that the DB ticket machines couldn't even handle a 1MB file shows just how bad, old and underpowered they are.

Alun

lxflyer wrote: »

No - the card knows to do it. The information is stored on the card after you set it up. It will up the balance by the designated amount automatically when it goes below €10.

So does that mean that when you set up the card for auto-topup you have to either visit a payzone outlet or tag on at a Luas or IE ticket machine to have that information written to the card? Sorry for all the questions

Victor

Alun wrote: »

So does that mean that when you set up the card for auto-topup you have to either visit a payzone outlet or tag on at a Luas or IE ticket machine to have that information written to the card? Sorry for all the questions

Yes, but only the once.

Victor

BonnieSituation wrote: »

But wasn't that the end goal of SEPA too outside of the cross border implications?

I don't know enough about SEPA to comment.

Not allowing 5, 10 topups I can understand, and should hardly be an issue really. But a weekly top up of 20 is a more reasonable thing to expect of a system.

I shall register my complaint post-haste.

I've updated my post: http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=92440293&postcount=77