Bike scheme's - why are they not all under 1 system

You have the Dublin City one, and the 3 regional ones in Cork, Galway and Limerick.

The Dublin one is on its own

The other 3 can be used under 1 system but only if you pay an additional fee for each additional city

It baffles me why they are not all considered a single system with 1 fee covering all of them.

Anyone have any information on how this came about? Or what might be stopping it from going the way I suggest

endacl

Well. You see. The thing is.....

Designed in Ireland, by Irish people. The same people who brought you my personal favourite: 'Oh. Yeah. Now you mention it, I suppose we could have joined up the trams from day one...'.

ED E

The DB scheme is funded by DCC and the advertising partner. Originally this was JCDeceaux, then Coke and now Just-Eat. In fact every time its been held up has been DCC refusing another 100M while spending billions on road projects and other less effective transport.

For a while though it has integrated with Leap which is the NTAs baby. That said, if the NTA were responsible for starting the scheme Im not sure we'd have ever seen it come to fruition.


The other copycat systems Im not sure but it sounds like a single operator. They're using a different OEM by the looks of things so integrating the systems would have some technical requirements and wouldnt be push button.

prinzeugen

ED E wrote: »

The DB scheme is funded by DCC and the advertising partner. Originally this was JCDeceaux, then Coke and now Just-Eat. In fact every time its been held up has been DCC refusing another 100M while spending billions on road projects and other less effective transport.

For a while though it has integrated with Leap which is the NTAs baby. That said, if the NTA were responsible for starting the scheme Im not sure we'd have ever seen it come to fruition.


The other copycat systems Im not sure but it sounds like a single operator. They're using a different OEM by the looks of things so integrating the systems would have some technical requirements and wouldnt be push button.

Where has DDC spent billions on roads? Or are you referring to the "less effective" Luas?

Not everyone can cycle mate.

Peregrinus

endacl wrote: »

Well. You see. The thing is.....

Designed in Ireland, by Irish people. The same people who brought you my personal favourite: 'Oh. Yeah. Now you mention it, I suppose we could have joined up the trams from day one...'.

Bike schemes worldwide are city based, because of the economics of the schemes.

But don't let reality get in the way of the chip on your shoulder.

Cookie_Monster

Peregrinus wrote: »

Bike schemes worldwide are city based, because of the economics of the schemes.

But in reality as a form of public transport shouldn't the fall under the NTA?

Peregrinus

Cookie_Monster wrote: »

But in reality as a form of public transport shouldn't the fall under the NTA?

Possibly, but that's a different matter to unified charging. Buses and taxis both fall under the NTA, but your leap card doesn't get you taxi rides.

Cookie_Monster

Peregrinus wrote: »

Possibly, but that's a different matter to unified charging. Buses and taxis both fall under the NTA, but your leap card doesn't get you taxi rides.

maybe it should? Or alternatively maybe they bus.trains should simply accept contact less debit.

Peregrinus

Cookie_Monster wrote: »

maybe it should? Or alternatively maybe they bus.trains should simply accept contact less debit.

They have experimented with that in some places, but it's too slow a technology to be suitable in a mass transit system. With the leap card system the passengers credit balance is stored on the card, and the cost of the journey can be instantaneously debited. But with contactless bank cards, the system has to interrogate the customer's bank before each transaction can be confirmed, and this takes a few seconds. Which, when you have five or ten people trying to tag off a bus, or twenty or fifty people trying to tag off a train, adds a lot of delay.

endacl

Peregrinus wrote: »

Bike schemes worldwide are city based, because of the economics of the schemes.

But don't let reality get in the way of the chip on your shoulder.

Chip free shoulder. I don't use either DB or Luas.

Just an observation.

ED E

ED E wrote: »

The DB scheme is funded by DCC and the advertising partner. Originally this was JCDeceaux, then Coke and now Just-Eat. In fact every time its been held up has been DCC refusing another 100M while spending billions on road projects and other less effective transport.

Firstly, thank you for the detailed response

I'm not sure I understand the 100M reference

For a while though it has integrated with Leap which is the NTAs baby. That said, if the NTA were responsible for starting the scheme Im not sure we'd have ever seen it come to fruition.

Is it not integrated with Leap anymore? Wtf if that's the case

The other copycat systems Im not sure but it sounds like a single operator. They're using a different OEM by the looks of things so integrating the systems would have some technical requirements and wouldnt be push button.

I honestly can't see it being a big job. Integration of a handful of databases, update some code to write to new databases and that's it.

All I'm looking at is what is needed for the end user to utilise the service in any of the 4 locations with a single charge and a single card (preferably Leap).

Everything else is logistics

ohnonotgmail

Deleted User wrote: »

Firstly, thank you for the detailed response

I'm not sure I understand the 100M reference



Is it not integrated with Leap anymore? Wtf if that's the case



I honestly can't see it being a big job. Integration of a handful of databases, update some code to write to new databases and that's it.

All I'm looking at is what is needed for the end user to utilise the service in any of the 4 locations with a single charge and a single card (preferably Leap).

Everything else is logistics

clearly you have never been involved in an IT project that involved the public service

howiya

Peregrinus wrote: »

They have experimented with that in some places, but it's too slow a technology to be suitable in a mass transit system. With the leap card system the passengers credit balance is stored on the card, and the cost of the journey can be instantaneously debited. But with contactless bank cards, the system has to interrogate the customer's bank before each transaction can be confirmed, and this takes a few seconds. Which, when you have five or ten people trying to tag off a bus, or twenty or fifty people trying to tag off a train, adds a lot of delay.

Seems to work fine in London.

Have you seen the delays in Dublin when a bus driver has to switch between accepting fares in cash and then from leap. It’s a lot slower.

devnull

The Dublin Bikes scheme pre-dated the NTA being in existence and was a project of Dublin City Council, whereas the projects in the other cities were implemented and directed by the NTA.

You can use your Leap Card as a Dublin Bikes card now providing you have a Dublin Bikes subscription - I have done it myself and it means you have to carry one less card around.

There is no chance of contactless debit card technology being implemented before the bus ticket machines are replaced, they simply could not cope with being required to do this on top of everything else right now.

XPS_Zero

ohnonotgmail wrote: »

clearly you have never been involved in an IT project that involved the public service

Indeed I should note from my experience in the political end of things to add to your IT end that there is an entire cadre of people who think any integration of databases in a common sense way will lead us to 1984 big brother, look at the hysterical nonsense over the PS card.

"why not have an online application and have welfare apps approved in minutes you know revenue know what you're tax credits are what you were making how much prsi you paid, the education department database knows its stuff if all that was integrated--"

"NNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
then public servant in office A could look at my file and find out BOTH that I paid x amount of PRSI in 2016 AND that I made 46k AND that I have a degree in arts...can you imagine the police state that might result!!!!???"

I'm only slightly exaggerating, I get people telling me they don't want a govt agency to have their PPS number...the number issued by the government in the first place that govt agencies already have...

spurious

Since JC Decaux are no longer involved in the Dublin bikes scheme, does that mean we can get rid of their godawful 'Metropole' signs that blight the footpaths?

trellheim

Arent they on a longer deal

devnull

They are still involved.

G_R

howiya wrote: »

Seems to work fine in London.

Have you seen the delays in Dublin when a bus driver has to switch between accepting fares in cash and then from leap. It’s a lot slower.

A contactless transaction doesn't need to be validated off your bank account- some do, others don't and simply record the card number and then process all the transactions in bulk at the end of the day or even the day after.

Check your online banking app next time you use a contactless transaction - you'll notice that some of them haven't been taken from your account straightaway and aren't even in pending as the bank doesn't know they've happened yet.

cython

spurious wrote: »

Since JC Decaux are no longer involved in the Dublin bikes scheme, does that mean we can get rid of their godawful 'Metropole' signs that blight the footpaths?

Who do you think JustEat are paying to get their logo all over these bikes?

devnull

G_R wrote: »

howiya wrote: »

Seems to work fine in London.

Have you seen the delays in Dublin when a bus driver has to switch between accepting fares in cash and then from leap. It’s a lot slower.

A contactless transaction doesn't need to be validated off your bank account- some do, others don't and simply record the card number and then process all the transactions in bulk at the end of the day or even the day after.

Check your online banking app next time you use a contactless transaction - you'll notice that some of them haven't been taken from your account straightaway and aren't even in pending as the bank doesn't know they've happened yet.

Banks can mandate cards to only function if a real time authorisation can be made. This is generally only reserved for customers with a poor or no credit history though.

In addition it still wouldn't be viable without replacing the ticket machines even for cards that do not require real time authorisation since they don't have the capacity to store such information let alone support encryption.

corcaigh07

devnull wrote: »

The Dublin Bikes scheme pre-dated the NTA being in existence and was a project of Dublin City Council, whereas the projects in the other cities were implemented and directed by the NTA.

You can use your Leap Card as a Dublin Bikes card now providing you have a Dublin Bikes subscription - I have done it myself and it means you have to carry one less card around.

There is no chance of contactless debit card technology being implemented before the bus ticket machines are replaced, they simply could not cope with being required to do this on top of everything else right now.

I’d also imagine it costs less to keep payments internal rather than signing up with a payments acquirer such as AIBMS etc.

They will eventually have to do it though. Practically everyone has or will have a contactless card, replace cash with Contactless and everything gets another bit smoother.

Peregrinus

corcaigh07 wrote: »

I’d also imagine it costs less to keep payments internal rather than signing up with a payments acquirer such as AIBMS etc.

They will eventually have to do it though. Practically everyone has or will have a contactless card, replace cash with Contactless and everything gets another bit smoother.

There are two kinds of contactless card, though. The one carries pre-loaded value, with all relevant data being stored on the card itself. The other links to value stored remotely in a bank account or similar, and there has to be communication, either simultaneously with the transaction or at some point afterwards, to settle the transaction by transferring funds from the remote account. Your typical public transport card - Leap card, Oyster card, whatever - is of the former kind; your credit card or bank debit card will be of the latter kind.

Both have their strengths and weaknesses, so it's unlikely that either will completely eclipse the other. But that does mean that we are unlikely ever to carry just one card which works just one way.