Leap Card - NFC support on the way

coylemj

If you didn't spot this on Twitter today you'd have missed it, can't see anything about it on www.leapcard.ie

If you have an NFC-enabled smartphone or tablet, you'll be able to view the current balance on your Leap card and add credit direct to the card from the comfort of your office or home without having to collect from a machine. NFC (near field communication) is available today on lots of Android smartphones and tablets and for Apple users it's new on the iPhone6. What is NFC and why is it in your phone?

Significant new development for Leap Card underway

10/10/14

The National Transport Authority is currently developing significant new technology to help Leap Card users to simplify their transactions. A contract has just been awarded to the company ViX to develop new features which will be launched by the Authority to customers over the coming year.

With Near Field Communications (NFC), the Leap Card user will be able to use a special, free smartphone App to top-up their Leap Cards immediately (from their credit or debit cards) via the smartphone App, just by holding the card and the phone close to each other.

Another feature on the app will enable users to collect tickets previously purchased online (including Tax Saver products bought through an employer) – without any need to visit a ticketing machine in a shop or a station.

A third feature on the app will allow users check their available travel credit balances in real-time, and the status of any ticket-products they hold on their Leap Card. At present, users can only check their Leap Card balance on the website for the previous day.

Gerry Murphy, CEO of the National Transport Authority said: “These exciting new features will take significant development time and will be released in stages but we wanted customers to know that we are tracking the fast-moving technology field and will continually incorporate improvements and changes into Leap. The recent incorporation of NFC on iPhone 6 means that what we develop will be available to the full smartphone community”


http://www.nationaltransport.ie/news/significant-new-development-for-leap-card-underway/

bk

The recent incorporation of NFC on iPhone 6 means that what we develop will be available to the full smartphone community

Except it won't be able to, at least not for the moment. Apple are currently only allowing the NFC in the iPhone 6 to be used for their new Apple Pay service. It can't be used for any of the other "normal" NFC applications like reading smartcards like Leap.

Hopefully in time Apple will lift this restriction, but for the time being this facility will only be available on Android NFC enabled smartphones.

Still a great development.

Captain Chaos

It will be Apple's selling point for the iP6S. It will be amazing and brand new and never seen before. NFC has been around for at least 3 years and Apple still can't do it right. Experts in marketing.

bk

Captain Chaos wrote: »

It will be Apple's selling point for the iP6S. It will be amazing and brand new and never seen before. NFC has been around for at least 3 years and Apple still can't do it right. Experts in marketing.

I honestly don't believe that is the case. I think it is more that Apple don't do something until it is 100% ready and stable. And I'm sure when it does, it will be available on the iPhone 6.

Take Touch ID. Initially it could only be used for unlocking the iPhone. Now (since iOS 8) it can be used to also authenticate other apps (e.g. 1password) and soon it will also allow for Apple Pay (from iOS 8.1). These are just software upgrades and all the functionality is available on the older iPhone 5s

I'm sure that NFC is the same, grater functionality will be introduced with a later iOS upgrade.

AlekSmart

Given the NTA's somewhat more elastic interpretation of time,it would be wise to study Gerry Murphy's words carefully.....

Gerry Murphy, CEO of the National Transport Authority said: “These exciting new features will take significant development time and will be released in stages but we wanted customers to know that we are tracking the fast-moving technology field and will continually incorporate improvements and changes into Leap.

There is a finite limit to the "Soft Launch" principle,particularly when the concept of an "Integrated Ticket" as suggested by the title of the "Integrated Ticketing Implementation Group" remains as yet unfulfilled....

What I fear about this announcement is that it will divert scarce NTA resources from the challenge of making sure Leapcard itself is fully featured,before moving on to belling and whistling operations....:(

The very basic requirement for a multi-journey/mode rebate would have a FAR greater impact right now than all the NFC tech in China...:eek:

coylemj

bk wrote: »

Except it won't be able to, at least not for the moment. Apple are currently only allowing the NFC in the iPhone 6 to be used for their new Apple Pay service. It can't be used for any of the other "normal" NFC applications like reading smartcards like Leap.

Hopefully in time Apple will lift this restriction, but for the time being this facility will only be available on Android NFC enabled smartphones.

If Apple's history with Bluetooth is anything go by, the above sounds like a reasonable prediction to me.

L1011

bk wrote: »

I think it is more that Apple don't do something until it is 100% ready and stable.

The only thing preventing NFC from being 100% ready and stable on current phones is Apples reluctance to introduce it three years ago...

n97 mini

Significant investment being put into Leap while London has made the use of contactless debit cards possible across all forms of transport with capping etc., doing away with the need to buy an Oyster card in the vast majority of cases.

http://www.tfl.gov.uk/fares-and-payments/contactless

bk

MYOB wrote: »

The only thing preventing NFC from being 100% ready and stable on current phones is Apples reluctance to introduce it three years ago...

In fairness, despite NFC being in many Android phones for 3 years, it really hasn't taken off as a widely used or useful technology there.

Google Wallet really hasn't taken off at all and the other uses are relatively gimmicky (using for starting sharing, etc.) and lack standardisation.

In fairness Apple Pay looks like it might actually be the first successful use of NFC on Smartphones. If you read the details about it it is much more then just sticking a NFC chip on a phone, it is building all the backend infrastructure, new standards with VISA, banks, etc. Financial agreements with the banks etc.

That tends to be the difference between Apple and Google/Android, Google/Android just stick a NFC chip in the phone and hope someone develops some software/service that makes use of it. Apple only adds the hardware when they have a real, well thought out use case for it.

Back on topic, I agree wholeheartedly with n97 mini. What we really need is for Leap to support contactless debit cards like they do in London. That would eliminate many of the issues people have with Leap:

- No need to get an actual leap card, the debit card most people already have will work just fine.
- No need to lose a €5 on a deposit for a leap card
- No need to keep an inaccessible deposit of money on a leap card.
- No need to top-up constantly

If implemented correctly, Leap cards shouldn't be needed by the majority of people. Just children/students and people with monthly and annual taxsaver tickets.

LeinsterDub

Meanwhile and by meanwhile I mean a year ago.

http://www.nfcworld.com/2013/07/05/324901/strasbourg-nfc-ticketing-moves-to-commercial-launch/

LeinsterDub

coylemj wrote: »

Gerry Murphy, CEO of the National Transport Authority said: “These exciting new features will take significant development time and will be released in stages"

Take your time there lads I mean you've to query an nfc card and send it's id via a api to your db.

This is Ireland's moon landing people

hfallada

I think its fantastic that a state body is taking an incentive. Transport is the only section of the Irish state bodies that is trying to follow international standards and exceed them eg Dublin Bikes, NFC on phones( Even amazing Germany still uses paper tickets). Where as education is the exact same as what it was hundreds of years ago eg Most university lecturer agree lecturing in Ireland hasnt changed format in 500 years. Our health systems aim is to function and thats not going so well

Give the transport authority praise when its due. They could have choose to like most state bodies to keep their head down and ensure they use all the funding for this year, to make sure its the same for next year

AngryLips

n97 mini wrote: »

Significant investment being put into Leap while London has made the use of contactless debit cards possible across all forms of transport with capping etc., doing away with the need to buy an Oyster card in the vast majority of cases.

http://www.tfl.gov.uk/fares-and-payments/contactless

Is the solution in London capable of assigning one user profile across multiple cards? Because if not then that would be a pointless mess for users accidentally using more than one card and not benefiting from capping that they would otherwise get from sticking with Oyster.

LXFlyer

AngryLips wrote: »

Is the solution in London capable of assigning one user profile across multiple cards? Because if not then that would be a pointless mess for users accidentally using more than one card and not benefiting from capping that they would otherwise get from sticking with Oyster.

This is a problem....

https://www.tfl.gov.uk/fares-and-payments/oyster/using-oyster/card-clash

Card clash

If you touch your purse or wallet containing your Oyster card and a contactless payment card on a reader you could experience card clash.

If you touch your Oyster card on a yellow card reader when it's in the same wallet or purse as another contactless card, the reader may detect more than one card. When this happens, the card reader doesn't know which one to read.This means:
•It doesn't know which card to take payment from
•If you get a green light it could take payment from a card that you did not intend to pay with
•If you get a red light it means you won't have paid for your journey
•If you are at a ticket gate, it may not open
•If you are at a station, you could be charged two maximum fares for your journey. This happens when a reader charges one card when you touch in and another card when you touch out

Only touch one card on the reader when touching in and out to avoid paying with a card you did not intend to pay with.

Check for card clash

Sign in to your online account to make sure that the card that you intended to pay with has been charged for the journeys you have made. If you also have a contactless payment card, you should check the journey history on that too, to see if there are any unexpected journeys on that.If you have been charged a maximum fare on two separate cards for the same journey, you can apply for a refund by signing in to your online account.

If you have been charged a fare on a card you did not intend to pay with, please contact our Customer Services team on 0343 222 1234 (TfL call charges).

n97 mini

I saw a lot of people in London just putting their wallets up against the readers when the Oyster card came out first, but not so much now. Presumably because of the widespread take up of contactless debit cards, and what they term card clash. Plus there are constant audio reminders on the transport system.

AngryLips wrote: »

Is the solution in London capable of assigning one user profile across multiple cards? Because if not then that would be a pointless mess for users accidentally using more than one card and not benefiting from capping that they would otherwise get from sticking with Oyster.

I'm sure they've figured it out. They managed to have an Empire that spanned the world at one stage so I'd say this one is fairly small.

But I'm not sure why they would want to use multiple cards. The advice given is run out the credit on your Oyster and switch to your debit card.

ukoda

would it not be better to be able to actualy use an NFC enabled phone instead of a leap card....i.e. a vitual leapcard stored on the phone....

n97 mini

A lot of phones don't have NFC.

ukoda

but for the ones that do....

n97 mini

Personally I don't think spending a lot of money developing and supporting a minority of mobile phones is a good idea. When the minority becomes the majority maybe, assuming there isn't a better or more suitable technology that should be supported instead.

Dravokivich

ukoda wrote: »

but for the ones that do....

It was trailed (in England I believe) and concern was raised as an invitation to mugging, with the way you'd be handling the phone around an NFC reader.

ukoda

Dravokivich wrote: »

It was trailed (in England I believe) and concern was raised as an invitation to mugging, with the way you'd be handling the phone around an NFC reader.

people handle thier phones everywhere in public, i really cant see why having it out near an NFC would be any higher a risk for mugging tbh

paulheu

bk wrote: »

Except it won't be able to, at least not for the moment. Apple are currently only allowing the NFC in the iPhone 6 to be used for their new Apple Pay service. It can't be used for any of the other "normal" NFC applications like reading smartcards like Leap.

Hopefully in time Apple will lift this restriction, but for the time being this facility will only be available on Android NFC enabled smartphones.

Still a great development.

Last I checked my Lumia 930 (as well as most Windows Phone devices) have had NFC available for quite some time..

bk

paulheu wrote: »

Last I checked my Lumia 930 (as well as most Windows Phone devices) have had NFC available for quite some time..

So what? And how is the NFC used in a real, non gimmicky way?

ukoda wrote: »

would it not be better to be able to actualy use an NFC enabled phone instead of a leap card....i.e. a vitual leapcard stored on the phone....

Well if they introduce * support for contactless debit card payments to Leap, then you will be able to pay with smartphones with Apple Pay and Google Wallet and also the new Apple Watch coming next year, as these all act as a normal contactless debit card.

* Slides from the NTA/Leap indicate that this is coming next year.

LeinsterDub

bk wrote: »

So what? And how is the NFC used in a real, non gimmicky way?



Well if they introduce * support for contactless debit card payments to Leap, then you will be able to pay with smartphones with Apple Pay and Google Wallet and also the new Apple Watch coming next year, as these all act as a normal contactless debit card.

* Slides from the NTA/Leap indicate that this is coming next year.

Those DB machines from the middle ages will hardly be able to handle virtual wallets , will they?

bk

LeinsterDub wrote: »

Those DB machines from the middle ages will hardly be able to handle virtual wallets , will they?

No, but the same slides indicated that DB will be getting new ticket machines next year.

I assume that will be required before to can introduce this and other features.

LeinsterDub

bk wrote: »

No, but the same slides indicated that DB will be getting new ticket machines next year.

I assume that will be required before to can introduce this and other features.

Are the slides on t'internet?

LXFlyer

They are - http://www.site-project.eu/wp-content/uploads/3.-B.-Dorgan-Leap-Card.pdf

You can see from that how the rollout is to progress.

Stevek101

LeinsterDub wrote: »

Are the slides on t'internet?

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=91335024&postcount=2191

bk

So going by the graph it will be 2017 until we see contactless bank card support and it will require DB ticket machines and Leap readers to be replace first!

Really this all should have been in place from the start, not 6 years later!!

Also please god, add Dublin Bikes support to the Leap Card. I really hate having to carry all this unnecessary cards all the time!

LeinsterDub

bk wrote: »

So going by the graph it will be 2017 until we see contactless bank card support and it will require DB ticket machines and Leap readers to be replace first!

Really this all should have been in place from the start, not 6 years later!!

Also please god, add Dublin Bikes support to the Leap Card. I really hate having to carry all this unnecessary cards all the time!

As a follow on they spent the last few years hacking away totally hamstrung by the db machines, spent god knows how many extra hours working around their limitations only to replace them?

AlekSmart

LeinsterDub wrote: »

As a follow on they spent the last few years hacking away totally hamstrung by the db machines, spent god knows how many extra hours working around their limitations only to replace them?

ALL of which was known about at the inception of the Integrated Ticketing programme !!!

This goes far deeper than merely BAC's ticket equipment (Which remains FULLY compatible with BAC's own reqquirements)...The nub of the issue is how tyhe ITIG defined it's own role in the programme.

The FIRST step,12 years ago now,should have been the mechanics of Integration,instead we saw this "Reverse Engineering" which is now in danger of further delaying the Full ITS programme....

Julie O'Neill retired just in time....;)

AlekSmart

bk wrote: »

So going by the graph it will be 2017 until we see contactless bank card support and it will require DB ticket machines and Leap readers to be replace first!

Really this all should have been in place from the start, not 6 years later!!

Also please god, add Dublin Bikes support to the Leap Card. I really hate having to carry all this unnecessary cards all the time!

One other element to enquire upon is what attitude the Irish Banking System will adopt regarding NFC transactions on their accounts....They all appear to have begun by offering FREE introductory periods,but no further info to hand on what charging they will impose if and when NFC takes off ?

L1011

AlekSmart wrote: »

One other element to enquire upon is what attitude the Irish Banking System will adopt regarding NFC transactions on their accounts....They all appear to have begun by offering FREE introductory periods,but no further info to hand on what charging they will impose if and when NFC takes off ?

I just checked and BOI extended the free period to late November without notifying me - I'd all but stopped using it due to expecting to be charged 20c a go.

ukoda

MYOB wrote: »

I just checked and BOI extended the free period to late November without notifying me - I'd all but stopped using it due to expecting to be charged 20c a go.

Isn't it the shop they would be charging 20c a go? BOI waived the merchants fee for contactless, I don't think the consumer pays anything more, other than whatever the bank is already charging you for using your card for any other transaction


EDIT: woah I just checked and BOI intend to charge the consumer 20c a go!! That's madness! My bank says they are free (and not just an introductory offer either)

Arbie

NFC is now being trialled and launching soon: http://www.thejournal.ie/leap-card-smartphone-top-up-january-2500952-Dec2015/

L1011

ukoda wrote: »

Isn't it the shop they would be charging 20c a go? BOI waived the merchants fee for contactless, I don't think the consumer pays anything more, other than whatever the bank is already charging you for using your card for any other transaction


EDIT: woah I just checked and BOI intend to charge the consumer 20c a go!! That's madness! My bank says they are free (and not just an introductory offer either)

To update, BOI never introduced the 20c charge; it was delayed at free until eventually it came in at 1c; non contactless is 10c.

SeanW

hfallada wrote: »

I think its fantastic that a state body is taking an incentive. Transport is the only section of the Irish state bodies that is trying to follow international standards and exceed them eg Dublin Bikes, NFC on phones( Even amazing Germany still uses paper tickets).

I know this is an old thread, but I have to jump on this.

Germany may still use paper tickets, but their system is way better - paper or no paper. I remember being there in the Noughties and the first time I used a Germany city rail system I thought I had to buy tickets for each different mode. In Berlin in particular I bought a BVG paper ticket, and though my destination would have been much easier to get to had I used the S-Bahn all or part of the way (there was a choice between S and U Bahn), I stuck to them U Bahn because I thought that's what I had bought a ticket for.

I was astounded when I found out that even one-use tickets are totally intermodal - you can use them for the S Bahn, the U Bahn, the trams and the buses, without distinction.

Ireland on the other hand used technology to cover for the fact that Dublin's transport system is a dis-integrated mess. So you can use your same leap card to pay a separate fare on the bus, another for the Luas, and another for the Dart/Commuter.

Still not as good as a piece of card paper in Berlin.

beauf

We must be about 25yrs behind Germany with regard to intermodal journeys.

ezra_pound

beauf wrote: »

We must be about 25yrs behind Germany with regard to intermodal journeys.

We're about 25 years behind Rome with regard to intermodal journeys!

plodder

Agreed. I lived in Munich 20 years ago, and I'm pretty sure they still have the same paper ticket based system today. When I was there, they were still using the original train sets from the 1970s. I'd say the paper tickets go back to then as well. They were built to last, and there isn't the same shiny toy technology obsession over there.

Having said that, the Leap card app is a useful innovation, but as mentioned on the other thread, Leap is already partially obsolete. There isn't any reason not to support contactless debit cards on the system itself and not all phones will work with the app unfortunately.

bk

I see this often with many IT projects, in particular government ones.

You have a broken manual process and rather then trying to fix it, they instead add an IT system on top thinking it will fix it. Well it almost never does and just ends up with a badly broken IT process.

The issues with ticketing and integration of public transport have existed for decades before Leap came along and they needed to be fixed decades ago, instead of trying to put shiny new technology on a broken process.

20 years ago we needed to copy Germany, Poland, Prague, etc. Multidoor buses where you got on any door you wanted and simply validated your ticket * with a little machine that prints the date and time on it. That then gives you 90 minutes of travel across the network of buses, trams, metros, etc.

* You buy the tickets off the bus, either from shops or machines. You normally buy a book of tickets and just keep them in your pocket/purse.

This setup has been the norm across most of Europe for the past 30 years and it really isn't rocket science. It leads to a highly integrated, easy to use, public transport system, with excellent low dwell times and it doesn't require any fancy technology *

* Many of these systems do have smart card systems now too, but they still support the paper tickets. The smart card is just a convenience.

devnull

plodder wrote: »

Having said that, the Leap card app is a useful innovation, but as mentioned on the other thread, Leap is already partially obsolete. There isn't any reason not to support contactless debit cards on the system itself and not all phones will work with the app unfortunately.

Not possible without having a live connection on each ticket machine, until the entire Dublin Bus and Bus Eireann fleet is replaced with live terminals, it simply isn't going to be an option unless they are cards with actual LEAP on-them as well as standard debit cards.

This was how contactless card payments started in London as far back as September 2007, with the Barclaycard Onepulse but other banks did not follow.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OnePulse

There's also the issue that LEAP requires you to have actual credit on your card before you travel, whereas the con tactless cards require live auth or if not live auth the chance that a transaction might not go through, which leaves risk of revenue loss, unlike LEAP where it's a straight you have the credit or you don't.

mackerski

plodder wrote: »

Agreed. I lived in Munich 20 years ago, and I'm pretty sure they still have the same paper ticket based system today.

True, but this isn't the whole truth. The paper tickets are still around and you'd probably still be familiar with the kinds that are available. But there are also mobile phone tickets that you can purchase online in an app and that can be validated by inspectors via hand-held devices.

But there's a truly crucial difference between Munich and Dublin that you will be aware of but didn't mention: that all transport modes operated on an honesty system that means no ticket barriers. This is game-changing, because it means that the introduction of mobile tickets required no technology retrofit to stations, tram platforms or (shudder) buses. All they needed was to equip their revenue protection spot-checkers with something that can read a QR code. And the paper tickets continue to work like they always did. Interpreting the complexities of the network tariff structure and relating them to any passenger's itinerary is not the job of vehicle- or station-mounted technology, it is devolved to humans and only on a spot check basis.

If you consider all of the reasons why proper intermodal ticket integration is hard in Dublin - like the need to have disconnected ticket machines on buses see and understand your journey history, your final journey intentions _and_ relate that to the full network tariff system - Munich is freed from all that guff by that one cultural shift. And the honesty culture isn't even alien to us in Ireland, it's how things work on trams.

devnull

mackerski wrote: »

If you consider allof the reasons why proper intermodal ticket integration is hard in Dublin - like the need to have disconnected ticket machines on buses see and understand your journey history, your final journey intentions _and_ relate that to the full network tariff system - Munich is freed from all that guff by that one cultural shift. And the honesty culture isn't even alien to us in Ireland, it's how things work on trams.

The amount of fare evasion I see on a daily basis means that such system being even further rolled out aside from trams is a complete non starter unless the punishments for evasion are increased dramatically along with the number of inspections being increased by about 1000%.

plodder

mackerski wrote: »

True, but this isn't the whole truth. The paper tickets are still around and you'd probably still be familiar with the kinds that are available. But there are also mobile phone tickets that you can purchase online in an app and that can be validated by inspectors via hand-held devices.

Right, it wasn't meant to be an exhaustive description of the system. They adopt technology when it makes sense. Like, when you visit Munich you see boarded up ticket offices in most stations. They were used once, but were replaced by machines decades ago. The technology isn't a sticking plaster though is really what I was getting at

But there's a truly crucial difference between Munich and Dublin that you will be aware of but didn't mention: that all transport modes operated on an honesty system that means no ticket barriers. This is game-changing, because it means that the introduction of mobile tickets required no technology retrofit to stations, tram platforms or (shudder) buses. All they needed was to equip their revenue protection spot-checkers with something that can read a QR code. And the paper tickets continue to work like they always did. Interpreting the complexities of the network tariff structure and relating them to any passenger's itinerary is not the job of vehicle- or station-mounted technology, it is devolved to humans and only on a spot check basis.

If you consider all of the reasons why proper intermodal ticket integration is hard in Dublin - like the need to have disconnected ticket machines on buses see and understand your journey history, your final journey intentions _and_ relate that to the full network tariff system - Munich is freed from all that guff by that one cultural shift. And the honesty culture isn't even alien to us in Ireland, it's how things work on trams.

But, do you really think the lack of intermodal transfer is down to (a lack of) honesty?

I think it's fear of change from the operators who are afraid they will be the ones to lose revenue out of it.

Surely if the enormous cost invested in this technology was just put into revenue protection, wouldn't that achieve a better result in the long run?

plodder

devnull wrote: »

Not possible without having a live connection on each ticket machine, until the entire Dublin Bus and Bus Eireann fleet is replaced with live terminals, it simply isn't going to be an option unless they are cards with actual LEAP on-them as well as standard debit cards.

This was how contactless card payments started in London as far back as September 2007, with the Barclaycard Onepulse but other banks did not follow.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OnePulse

There's also the issue that LEAP requires you to have actual credit on your card before you travel, whereas the con tactless cards require live auth or if not live auth the chance that a transaction might not go through, which leaves risk of revenue loss, unlike LEAP where it's a straight you have the credit or you don't.

Of course, I shouldn't have said 'no reason'. There's always a reason :pac:

If we had the same honesty based system as Munich, there would be no need for all of this. If we can't have that, then it seems a lot of the complexity around Leap results from the bus terminals not being online, which seems odd given the free wifi on DB at least.

devnull

plodder wrote: »

If we had the same honesty based system as Munich, there would be no need for all of this. If we can't have that.

But there would be a need for hiring of a lot more inspectors to enforce it, I'd presume that considering the amount of evasion I see on a daily basis, they would pay for themselves, but it's not a given.

I see people avoiding barriers at Irish Rail stations because they are left open so don't have to pay, over-riding fraud on Dublin Bus is still rifle even if student fraud and free travel pass fraud is cut, and on the LUAS, there's a thread about it on here, evasion is rampant there as well.

then it seems a lot of the complexity around Leap results from the bus terminals not being online, which seems odd given the free wifi on DB at least.

It's related to the age of the ticket machines and the capability of them. The only solution is to replace the ticket machines with technology that isn't based on a chip that was obsolete over 10 years ago.

The machines are already slow at performing their existing duties, adding anything else to them is going to make the issue even worse and something major like real time online connections, even if possible, which I'm pretty sure it is not, would bring the whole system down on a regular basis.

hytrogen

beauf wrote: »

We must be about 25yrs behind Germany with regard to intermodal journeys.

We're about a century behind the rest of the world in terms of public transport including ourselves a century ago..

plodder

devnull wrote: »

But there would be a need for hiring of a lot more inspectors to enforce it, I'd presume that considering the amount of evasion I see on a daily basis, they would pay for themselves, but it's not a given.

I see people avoiding barriers at Irish Rail stations because they are left open so don't have to pay, over-riding fraud on Dublin Bus is still rifle even if student fraud and free travel pass fraud is cut, and on the LUAS, there's a thread about it on here, evasion is rampant there as well.



It's related to the age of the ticket machines and the capability of them. The only solution is to replace the ticket machines with technology that isn't based on a chip that was obsolete over 10 years ago.

The machines are already slow at performing their existing duties, adding anything else to them is going to make the issue even worse and something major like real time online connections, even if possible, which I'm pretty sure it is not, would bring the whole system down on a regular basis.

Interesting. Just shows the perils of hi-tech really and that it's rarely a silver bullet.

The discussion has just reminded me of back when I used to use Irish rail as a student on the northern line back in the 70s/80s. The tickets were these little cards you stick in a machine which punches a corner out of it. The multi-journey tickets were not unlike the German ones, where each journey just punched one additional little chunk and you could check them easily. The system was honesty based with no barriers. There could have been ticket inspectors though at station exits. Though that wasn't always the case.

It also occurred to me that a lot of the problems with honesty based systems stem from the inability of the state to collect fines etc. efficiently. I understand there is a similar problem with M50 tolls, parking fines etc. Maybe that's the problem that needs to be solved first.

devnull

plodder wrote: »

Interesting. Just shows the perils of hi-tech really and that it's rarely a silver bullet.

The discussion has just reminded me of back when I used to use Irish rail as a student on the northern line back in the 70s/80s. The tickets were these little cards you stick in a machine which punches a corner out of it. The multi-journey tickets were not unlike the German ones, where each journey just punched one additional little chunk and you could check them easily. The system was honesty based with no barriers. There could have been ticket inspectors though at station exits. Though that wasn't always the case.

It also occurred to me that a lot of the problems with honesty based systems stem from the inability of the state to collect fines etc. efficiently. I understand there is a similar problem with M50 tolls, parking fines etc. Maybe that's the problem that needs to be solved first.

To give you an example, I have never been checked by an inspector on a bus or on a train for approx 18 months. This is with taking about 10 trains a week and I'd say in the evening about 75% of the time barriers are left open without staff at least at one end of my journey and in the morning just over 50% of the time the barriers do not require tickets. I work with someone who has not paid for an Irish Rail ticket all year and openly boasts about it, they got caught twice over the whole course of the year of evading, but despite paying the fine, they're still better off than they would be if they paid their way.

Incidentally the main processing chip used by the Dublin Bus ticket machines was designed in 1986, the ticket machine (Wayfarer 150) itself hails from around 1999/2000 when it was first produced and was replaced by a newer version in 2006 (Wayfarer 200) by the manufacturers. Recently they manufacturers have launched yet another new version (Wayfarer 6), to replace the 9 year old version, which is still a version newer than what Dublin Bus have.

bk

devnull wrote: »

Not possible without having a live connection on each ticket machine, until the entire Dublin Bus and Bus Eireann fleet is replaced with live terminals, it simply isn't going to be an option unless they are cards with actual LEAP on-them as well as standard debit cards.

You mean like what buses in Atlanta have had since at least 2006!

devnull wrote: »

There's also the issue that LEAP requires you to have actual credit on your card before you travel, whereas the con tactless cards require live auth or if not live auth the chance that a transaction might not go through, which leaves risk of revenue loss, unlike LEAP where it's a straight you have the credit or you don't.

Contactless payments in London don't do live auth, as it would take too long *
Instead they simply record the transaction on the ticket machine and then add up all the journeys you did during the day, check if you hit the daily and weekly caps and charge everything as one transaction over night.

That is why if you take three journeys in a day, you will see only one charge to your bank account.

Of course this leaves them open to potential fraud, but relatively minor (just one days worth, then they black list the card). In the real world it doesn't seem to be a real issue.

* Though even live auth would be laughably faster then most people interacting with bus drivers for Leap! And this all shows a very different way of thinking in London. They seem to take the approach that it is more important to keep dwell times low, then worry about avoiding 100% of fare dodging.

You can see this approach repeated throughout Europe, where in places like Germany, Poland, etc. having completely open systems policed by fare checkers.

mackerski wrote: »

But there's a truly crucial difference between Munich and Dublin that you will be aware of but didn't mention: that all transport modes operated on an honesty system that means no ticket barriers.

These systems aren't really based on honesty. Thrust me the Germans, Polish, etc. are just as happy to fare evade as the Irish IMO. What keeps them in line is high on the spot fines if caught and relatively large numbers of ticket checkers who are usually plain clothes and take no **** if you don't have a ticket.

BTW these ticket checkers are normally contractors, not salaried employees and their pay is based as a percentage of the fines they take, which is why they take no messing, unlike our rubbish ticket checkers. I also hear that despite the relatively large number of them, the fines more then pay for them and fare evasion is relatively low on these open systems.