Am I being ripped off by the Leap card machine on the 140 Bus?

Boulevardier

I often commute between Rathmines and An Lar on the 140 bus.

When I get on at Rathmines I make sure to present my Leap card to the driver and ask for the city centre. This is necessary because I know the 140 goes on to Ikea and I do not want to be charged the fare for the full journey, which would happen if I tagged on the machine. Fare enough.

When boarding at O'Connell St to go back to Rathmines, I have naively tagged the machine, as the maximum journey (to Dartry) from there has an appropriate Leap fare of 2.15, which is the fare I want to pay.

I have only now noticed that the machine is taking 2.60 from me for that journey, which is the correct Leap fare for Ikea-Rathmines, but is well above the correct fare for city centre-Rathmines.

Is this what is supposed to happen? I thought in my innocence that the Leap card machine took the maximum fare for the remaining journey, not the entire journey between the 2 termini. Who is right? Me or the machine?

devnull

The machine takes the highest fare band on the route automatically, not taking into consideration where on the route the current bus is - so in the case of almost all Dublin Bus routes, for adults that would be €2.60

Boulevardier

I really had no idea.

But in that case, why do several other passengers also tag on at O'Connell St?

lorcand1990

Boulevardier wrote: »

I really had no idea.

But in that case, why do several other passengers also tag on at O'Connell St?

Those passengers will have monthly or weekly prepaid passes. If you have a monthly or weekly pass you still have to tag it on to validate the card to prove you have the pass

devnull

Perhaps they are using period passes (most likely)
OR
They know that they are going to hit the cap by the end of the day/week or they have already hit the cap so at the end of the day they won't lose out?

I'm looking to put together a Leap FAQ to replacing the existing sticky but this isn't anywhere near completion.

Boulevardier

I look forward to that FAQ. It is badly needed.

rushfan

devnull wrote:

I'm looking to put together a Leap FAQ to replacing the existing sticky but this isn't anywhere near completion.

Likewise, my daughter ( 16 ) uses the Student Leap card on DB occasionally to go to school. Off the top of my head it's approx 4 stops, she goes to the driver, and the charge is always e2.60. I've pulled her on it in the past cos I thought she was just tapping when getting on & not bothering when alighting. I keep meaning to contact them about this. Not sure if it's legit or if someone is pulling a fast one.

devnull

rushfan wrote: »

Likewise, my daughter ( 16 ) uses the Student Leap card on DB occasionally to go to school. Off the top of my head it's approx 4 stops, she goes to the driver, and the charge is always e2.60. I've pulled her on it in the past cos I thought she was just tapping when getting on & not bothering when alighting. I keep meaning to contact them about this. Not sure if it's legit or if someone is pulling a fast one.

Your daughter should be using the Personalised Child Leap Card if she is 16 and that will save her a lot of cash as it will allow her to avail of Child Leap fares which are considerably cheaper.

For a journey of 4 stops it should be 95c per journey* which can be obtained by putting the leap card on the drivers ticket machine and stating her destination - there is no need to tag off whatsoever on Dublin Bus and doing so will simply lead you to be paying twice.

As an aside - if anyone has any suggestions for the FAQ - feel free to PM me - Hoping to get something put together sometime during February hopefully time permitting.

* unless you are talking about a service such as the very north end of 33 or another service that is considered outer suburban when it might be €1.05

rushfan

devnull wrote:

Your daughter should be using the Personalised Child Leap Card if she is 16 and that will save her a lot of cash as it will allow her to avail of Child Leap fares which are considerably cheaper.

If what you're referring to is a card with her photo on it, then this is what she has. Card is blue also.

devnull

rushfan wrote: »

If what you're referring to is a card with her photo on it, then this is what she has. Card is blue also.

Blue is a Student Leap card which has the same fares as an adult but with a lower cap and also discounts on many shops and other things. A Child Leap card is white with a photo that allows you to avail of child fares which are much cheaper than adult/student rates.

See here:
https://about.leapcard.ie/about/card-ticket-types/child-leap-card

She would be saving a large amount of cash if she was using child leap and making sure to go to the driver when boarding and asking for her destination and not tagging off when she got off the bus.

rushfan

Cheers, it might require further investigation so.

coylemj

Boulevardier wrote: »

Is this what is supposed to happen? I thought in my innocence that the Leap card machine took the maximum fare for the remaining journey, not the entire journey between the 2 termini. Who is right? Me or the machine?

You would think that the machine could manage that simple task but it doesn't. Where I board the 46A heading to Dun Laoghaire, the fare to the terminus at the Dart station is €2.15 but I know that if I validate on the right, it will take €2.60 so I have to slap my card on the driver's machine and ask for the fare.

The driver's machine knows where the bus is right now so why can't they program the validator on the right to step down the fare from €2.60 to €2.15 when there's 13 stages or less to the terminus?

devnull

Limitations of the drivers ticket machine hardware which is now extremely out of date using technology from 20 years ago and struggles with it's current workload, let alone adding any additional functionality to it which would further impact performance.

Boulevardier

They badly need to put in better card readers. The present ones are almost useless.