Bus fare issue using LEAP

beer enigma

Just wondering if anyone has ever got money back from Dublin Bus if they were wrongly charged ?

So I've been working in Dublin for the past year, its the only time I ever use buses and got a LEAP card to make it easier. every day for months I've been getting on at stop 4393 Ballogan Avenue and travelling a few short stops to 7360 Carrickmines business park. I always get on, tap on and sit down.

It was only today that a driver I'd never seen on the route called me back and said I'd paid too much !. He said that from the stop I get on at, the maximum fare to the end of the route is €1.50 whereas by tapping at the remote machine i was being charged €2.60 !!.

He used his own machine to refund me and charge the correct fare, but every other driver has just let me tap away - that's €1.10 a day for at least 7 months.

He said i should contact Dublin Bus which i have, but wondered is there a precedent for getting a refund as they must be able to see my travel history.

Fair play to the driver today tho.

Grahamer666

You're supposed to place the card beside the driver if you are not travelling the full fare distance. Just email Dublin Bus customer service.

magicbastarder

i'm not familiar with that route - is that inbound or outbound? i.e. is it possible to get on the stop you get on at and travel far enough to be charged a full fare?

if so, i suspect your chances of getting a refund are close to zero. you only have your own word to go on regarding which stop you've been getting off at.

Dravokivich

beer enigma wrote: »

He used his own machine to refund me and charge the correct fare, but every other driver has just let me tap away - that's €1.10 a day for at least 7 months.

Before you go too harshly regarding the other drivers letting you overpay. It's very likely they could have expected you to account for making up the Fare Cap. Which would mean it doesn't matter how much you pay for individual journeys, if you were intending to reach it anyway.

howiya

magicbastarder wrote: »

i'm not familiar with that route - is that inbound or outbound? i.e. is it possible to get on the stop you get on at and travel far enough to be charged a full fare?

if so, i suspect your chances of getting a refund are close to zero. you only have your own word to go on regarding which stop you've been getting off at.

That's outbound and using the fare calculator on DB website, the max far to end of the route is €2 cash or €1.50 Leap.

I'd be surprised if a refund is issued but if you don't get you don't ask.

Wheety

The drivers may have presumed you had an annual ticket. Every price table says to go to the driver if paying less than the maximum.

Dravokivich

Wheety wrote: »

The drivers may have presumed you had an annual ticket. Every price table says to go to the driver if paying less than the maximum.

They can see what's being done though. That's why the other driver called OP back.

Tickityboo

Dravokivich wrote: »

They can see what's being done though. That's why the other driver called OP back.

I used to call people back but as you said earlier Dravokivich the answer I got more often than not was it's ok I'll be reaching my cap!! so I don't bother calling people back now.

beer enigma

magicbastarder wrote: »

i'm not familiar with that route - is that inbound or outbound? i.e. is it possible to get on the stop you get on at and travel far enough to be charged a full fare?

if so, i suspect your chances of getting a refund are close to zero. you only have your own word to go on regarding which stop you've been getting off at.

Its the Dun Laoghaire to Kilternan route and according to the driver the maximum fare is €1.50 - not possible to go any further.

beer enigma

Dravokivich wrote: »

Before you go too harshly regarding the other drivers letting you overpay. It's very likely they could have expected you to account for making up the Fare Cap. Which would mean it doesn't matter how much you pay for individual journeys, if you were intending to reach it anyway.

Could well be, most of the drivers on the route are very decent which is why I was surprised today. I never use buses at home and LEAP isn't in place there anyway, so its only when I'm commuting during the week.

Probably my mistake for not reading LEAP rules but a sign on the bus would be helpful for us country folk

loyatemu

beer enigma wrote: »

Could well be, most of the drivers on the route are very decent which is why I was surprised today. I never use buses at home and LEAP isn't in place there anyway, so its only when I'm commuting during the week.

Probably my mistake for not reading LEAP rules but a sign on the bus would be helpful for us country folk

what would be more helpful would be if the card readers had some intelligence built in. The bus knows where it is on the route, it should be possible to only charge the maximum possible fair for the remainder of the journey.

Dravokivich

loyatemu wrote: »

what would be more helpful would be if the card readers had some intelligence built in. The bus knows where it is on the route, it should be possible to only charge the maximum possible fair for the remainder of the journey.

Not enough memory on them. It'll have to have that information stored for each route that garage serves. Its far more practical to have it adjust by type of service. That way it reduces confusion. It's rare that people get caught out by it.

devnull

loyatemu wrote: »

what would be more helpful would be if the card readers had some intelligence built in. The bus knows where it is on the route, it should be possible to only charge the maximum possible fair for the remainder of the journey.

Bear in mind that the aging ticket machine what is built on PC infrastructure from 20 years ago with a paltry amount of memory also powers the card reader and this system is already being pushed to the limits.

This is why there is a small delay on reading cards compared to the LUAS and Irish Rail card readers and why there is a lag when drivers switch from cash to Leap mode on their own ticket machines.

New ticket machines would vastly improve functionality.

howiya

devnull wrote: »

Bear in mind that the aging ticket machine what is built on PC infrastructure from 20 years ago with a paltry amount of memory also powers the card reader and this system is already being pushed to the limits.

This is why there is a small delay on reading cards compared to the LUAS and Irish Rail card readers and why there is a lag when drivers switch from cash to Leap mode on their own ticket machines.

New ticket machines would vastly improve functionality.

Why did we buy out of date technology? Those machines aren't in service 20 years are they?

Lau2976

Slightly different but I did call and get a refund after every journey for a week charged me twice.

Word of warning though I called leap, was told to call DB, was told by them that leap had to do it, and was told by leap to go back to DB. It was leap who eventually issued the refund to me.

devnull

howiya wrote: »

Why did we buy out of date technology? Those machines aren't in service 20 years are they?

The TGX150 currently in use is based on a processor dating back to the mid 1990s (an Intel 386) and a paltry 1MB of Memory to work with and 1MB ROM to store information on and was designed and entered the marketplace just before 2000 but Dublin Bus didn't start installing it until 2006.

By 2006 the TGX200 was just about to launch and it has a full colour display, a much more modern processor, 128MB Flash Memory and 128MB DRAM, faster print speed, better connectivity and update features among other features.

Even that machine is obsolete now replaced by the Wayfarer 6 which has 1GB RAM, quad core processors, real time journey assistance for drivers, driver messaging, location awareness, faster printer and 4G connectivity.

beer enigma

Just to update and in fairness to Dublin Bus they came straight back apologising and asking me to send in the history from my card and they'd look at it

AlekSmart

devnull wrote: »

The TGX150 currently in use is based on a processor dating back to the mid 1990s (an Intel 386) and a paltry 1MB of Memory to work with and 1MB ROM to store information on and was designed and entered the marketplace just before 2000 but Dublin Bus didn't start installing it until 2006.

By 2006 the TGX200 was just about to launch and it has a full colour display, a much more modern processor, 128MB Flash Memory and 128MB DRAM, faster print speed, better connectivity and update features among other features.

Even that machine is obsolete now replaced by the Wayfarer 6 which has 1GB RAM, quad core processors, real time journey assistance for drivers, driver messaging, location awareness, faster printer and 4G connectivity.

Somewhat disappointingly,the NTA have decided to play safe with the Ticket Machine issue for the 10% Tendered routes.

The Board meeting last March sanctioned another dollop of the same for Go-Ahead's vehicles..

https://www.nationaltransport.ie/about-us/board/board-meeting-minutes-2017/

Following discussion the Board approved the following proposals:-

a. Award of contracts for the provision of ticketing equipment and automatic vehicle location (AVL) in respect of bus market opening to Parkeon (ticketing equipment) and INIT and Trapeze (AVL).

Recent visists to the U.K. provided me with some opportunity to sample other Ticket machines and Systems.

I found the Parkeon offering to be less than whelming in several areas.

I was hugely taken by the ticketing solution offered by Ticketer,a relatively young company on the market,but one which is securing quite a bunch of the small to medium operator market.

http://www.ticketer.co.uk/

http://www.ticketer.co.uk/features-of-ticketer/customisable-tickets

The scale of customisation offered on the Ticketer platform,seemed to me,to be worth at least an operational trial but,as far as I'm aware,the Parkeon deal was nodded through.

The NTA are currently very focused on Centre Door operation,to the exclusion of almost every other contributing factor to extended Dwell Time at stops.

Although Busdrivers are not directly involved in specifying,evaluation or any pre-ordering function,they are constantly bringing the poor Wayfafer performance issues to the notice of management,however little has been improved,even after a recent mid-life upgrade process.

In my personal opinion,Dublin has far more to gain in terms of improving passenger throughput,from streamlining the Ticket Issuing/Validation process than from installing centre doors,a decision which has significantly reduced the overall peak capacity.

With the imminent Busconnects announcements,I would like to see the NTA undertake in-service trials of a variety of potential solutions,with a view to standardising on whichever combination would provide the broadest range of improvement.

However,finding senior personnel with an actual interest in these areas is,however,an increasing challenge which,hopefully is not insurmountable.

devnull

AlekSmart wrote: »

Somewhat disappointingly,the NTA have decided to play safe with the Ticket Machine issue for the 10% Tendered routes.

The Board meeting last March sanctioned another dollop of the same for Go-Ahead's vehicles..

https://www.nationaltransport.ie/about-us/board/board-meeting-minutes-2017/

Recent visists to the U.K. provided me with some opportunity to sample other Ticket machines and Systems.

I found the Parkeon offering to be less than whelming in several areas.

It doesn't state that it will be the TGX150 though - if it is, that is a joke.

Of course there are now quite a few other manufacturers offering solutions as you have outlined, but I suspect that it would be far easier to manage to have all of the equipment from the same manufacturer when it comes to things like reporting, machine updates and raw data.

Whatever they go for and even if it's only the TGX200 rather than the Wayfarer 6, it's going to be streets ahead of the TGX150 system that is currently in operation by Dublin Bus and Bus Eireann in both software and hardware aspects thanks to the faster processor and large amount of extra memory.

AlekSmart

devnull wrote: »

It doesn't state that it will be the TGX150 though - if it is, that is a joke.

Of course there are now quite a few other manufacturers offering solutions as you have outlined, but I suspect that it would be far easier to manage to have all of the equipment from the same manufacturer when it comes to things like reporting, machine updates and raw data.

Whatever they go for and even if it's only the TGX200 rather than the Wayfarer 6, it's going to be streets ahead of the TGX150 system that is currently in operation by Dublin Bus and Bus Eireann in both software and hardware aspects thanks to the faster processor and large amount of extra memory.

I am hoping that the NTA do not have a sense of humour.

Spanish Eyes

Flat fares required now.

Surely that is the solution.

beer enigma

Ok swiftly dealt with, bring a copy of my Leap card history to their O'Connell street office and they will give me a full refund !

Impressive

bebeman

Dravokivich wrote: »

They can see what's being done though. That's why the other driver called OP back.

If a driver is dealing with another passenger LEAP card on the drivers ticket machine, the info from the validator wont be shown on the ticket machine.
Then we have the prevalence of ear phones, many are in their own little world, no point in calling them back.

Tow

devnull wrote: »

Bear in mind that the aging ticket machine what is built on PC infrastructure from 20 years ago with a paltry amount of memory also powers the card reader and this system is already being pushed to the limits.

20 years ago... The run on a 386 which was obsolete 20 years ago then DB got them.