Paying for a large group on Dublin Bus

Woshy

Later on today I have to take a group of 9 kids and 3 adults (including myself) on a day trip. We plan on getting the bus in and out of town.

The fare calculator says it will be €20.85 each way and no notes are accepted. Obviously getting €42 in change is going to be tough. Is there an easier way to do it? The only thing I can think of is putting the money on my leap card and paying for everyone that way. Will that be a problem? Has anyone done anything similar when taking a group on the bus?

goingnowhere

Yes you can use Leap

Go to the drivers machine, hold the card on the machine and state the combination of fares required.

First fare will be recorded on the card, paper ticket will be issued for the remainder

Hold the card in place until the process is complete

AlekSmart

goingnowhere wrote: »

Yes you can use Leap

Go to the drivers machine, hold the card on the machine and state the combination of fares required.

First fare will be recorded on the card, paper ticket will be issued for the remainder

Hold the card in place until the process is complete

As long as enough credit exists on the Leapcard there'll be no issue.

However,be warned it will be slow,although no worse than if they had to individually root for change.

I believe that Leapcard have missed a substantial trick in not having a dedicated Group Facility available whereby a Driver could enter the Number of Persons and get a SINGLE printed ticket for that group...2 X €1.95 and 9 X 95c or whatever.

There is also a facility to purchse a pre-paid Group Ticket from Head Office in O Connell St,however this involves a degree of pre-planning not always available to organizers.

Tickityboo

Woshy wrote: »

Later on today I have to take a group of 9 kids and 3 adults (including myself) on a day trip. We plan on getting the bus in and out of town.

The fare calculator says it will be €20.85 each way and no notes are accepted. Obviously getting €42 in change is going to be tough. Is there an easier way to do it? The only thing I can think of is putting the money on my leap card and paying for everyone that way. Will that be a problem? Has anyone done anything similar when taking a group on the bus?

Too late now!!!
A couple of family rambler tickets would be a lot cheaper.

Woshy

Thanks - the leap worked great. It was definitely the least hassle. I worried the drivers might have made a big deal about it but they didn't bat an eyelid.

Another group were getting the bus with us to the same event and their leader didn't realise that you couldn't spend notes on the bus so had to frantically run around different shops begging for change. Our trip was definitely less stressful!

antoinolachtnai

AlekSmart wrote: »

I believe that Leapcard have missed a substantial trick in not having a dedicated Group Facility available whereby a Driver could enter the Number of Persons and get a SINGLE printed ticket for that group...2 X €1.95 and 9 X 95c or whatever.

That is a Dublin Bus integration issue, not a Leap issue, as far as I can see.

Dravokivich

antoinolachtnai wrote: »

That is a Dublin Bus integration issue, not a Leap issue, as far as I can see.

As far as Dublin bus are concerned, If there was to be a ticket in this manner, they'd need to have one for each number of variations, for X No. Adults and X No Childs defined. I think the issue from a Leap point of view is that each transaction, as in each Adult, each Child, requires an individual action by the driver when it comes to charging and credit use. So even if Dublin Bus were able to put a program together on their ticket machine so the Driver puts X no adults in one box, X no of Childs in another and how many stages, it'll still have to process them as individual transactions.

antoinolachtnai

Not sure if the API on the smart card lets you do multiple tickets in one access. But the user could hold the ticket in place and the tickets could be purchased one after the other. I think it is 200 ms or 300 ms per access.

Victor

I don't see a problem with the card accepting an instruction from a legitimate source for "€52.80". How is that any different from an instruction for €1.50 or €6.00?

Dravokivich

Victor wrote: »

I don't see a problem with the card accepting an instruction from a legitimate source for "€52.80". How is that any different from an instruction for €1.50 or €6.00?

The instructions are defined, not variables.

Victor

Dravokivich wrote: »

The instructions are defined, not variables.

So, after a fare change, how does my card know how much to deduct? Surely the instruction has to be defined machine side, not card side?

jimmycrackcorm

Victor wrote:

So, after a fare change, how does my card know how much to deduct? Surely the instruction has to be defined machine side, not card side?

Fixed instruction I'd guess with no capability to vary

Dravokivich

Victor wrote: »

So, after a fare change, how does my card know how much to deduct? Surely the instruction has to be defined machine side, not card side?

There's a list on the drivers machine of each card type, of each range of stages per card type and their fare to charge per card type.

But if you were to do charge in one go with credit for 2 Adults + 1 child, it won't be able to show on Leap as that, unless they have something defined for it. So each variant we can think of, has to be stated somewhere be it the drivers machine as a fare option, or the back end as a ticket. Otherwise you'll just see, 1 adult, 1 adult, 1 child as individual items.