Aircoach Accepting Contactless Payments

devnull

Just noticed that Aircoach now appear to be offering the option of buying tickets with contactless credit/debit cards on-board their coaches. Think this makes them the first operator to do so in Ireland?

From looking through their FAQs on their website, they seem to also support Samsung Pay, Google Pay, Apple Pay for payment which is a nice step forward.

Hopefully other operators will follow suit and we'll see similar options on Dublin Bus and other transport modes in the near future, I would reckon that operators will be watching this closely and we may well see wider take-up of such options now someone has took the plunge.

Bob24

Nice to have indeed and hopefully it becomes more widespread. I assume they will by applying the cash fare for contactless payments though? (in which case there is a incentive not to use it and pre-buy tickets online instead, which I understand can make sense for the companu but would be a bit of a shame).

devnull

Bob24 wrote: »

Nice to have indeed and hopefully it becomes more widespread. I assume they will by applying the cash fare for contactless payments though? (in which case there is a incentive not to use it and pre-buy tickets online instead, which I understand can make sense for the companu but would be a bit of a shame).

For an intercity service though you really want to have an idea of demand to arrange extra coaches if necessary and by forcing people to book ahead and giving them an incentive of doing so, you will make life a hell of a lot easier from an operational point of view.

I do agree though that for high frequency bus services there is for sure an advantage to give a discount because you don't have the worries about capacity or waiting an hour till the next bus generally and you also don't have the added complication of having lots of luggage that airport and intercity routes have.

From having a proper look through their FAQ they don't support American Express cards, but they do mention supporting bank specific payment forms such as Barclays pingit, which will no doubt be an added benefit for those in Belfast. I would assume they are using the same Ticketer Machines that are used by First in the UK.

Bob24

Yeah I was mostly thinking of the Dublin airport to city center service.

From a passenger’s perspective if would be great if all operators in the Dublin area supported contactless and where offering there lowest fare for it.

But indeed I understand on some routes they need to do some capacity planning.

Yggr of Asgard

Is Swordsexpress not accepting contactless since last year?

devnull

Yggr of Asgard wrote: »

Is Swordsexpress not accepting contactless since last year?

I know they did a trial on two buses in May last year but don't think it went any further than that.

Wishbone Ash

devnull wrote: »

...From having a proper look through their FAQ they don't support American Express cards...

Interesting....when I worked for them, there was a discount for airline staff but they were very specific (in writing to each driver) that the discount didn't apply to any staff from American Airlines.

mickmmc

This is a welcome development.

The last return ticket I booked on line for Dublin Airport to Cork was €31.10 while the cash fare is €30. I normally pay €29.70 online.

The drawback with booking on line is that you could have to pay again in Cork if you missed your booking on line time. Some bus drivers allow passengers to use an earlier or later service than the allocated time on the online booking if seats are available. Other drivers do not and this leads to rows at the Cork bus stop from what I have witnessed.

I will certainly buy my ticket at the terminal 1 stop and pay via contactless.

brokenarms

Its fairly sad that private companies and way ahead of state companies in this regard.

markpb

brokenarms wrote: »

Its fairly sad that private companies and way ahead of state companies in this regard.

It's neither sad nor unexpected. Private companies are forced to innovate in order to compete - public companies rarely need to compete.

More importantly, it's trivial for a coach operator like Aircoach to accept contactless cards because of the small amount of fleet equipment required, the lack of back-office equipment required, the simplicity of the fare structure and because they're not focused on keeping dwell time low. It's akin to putting a contactless terminal in a shop.

For Dublin Bus to accept contactless cards would be a sea-change in how they operate. Thousands of devices would need to be installed on buses and at least a hundred more kept in stock for replacements. They'd need to be integrated into an old and under-performing ticket machine, it would force additional interaction with the driver unless the fare structure was changed and, if it was to support capping, periodic tickets or cross-operator tickets (including DB <-> GA), it would need a complicated back office to process the transactions. It's quite likely that Leap will support contactless in the future (although not a certainty) but it won't be soon and it won't be cheap (for NTA/DB).

coylemj

brokenarms wrote: »

Its fairly sad that private companies and way ahead of state companies in this regard.

Before we lose the run of ourselves showering praise on Aircoach, can I remind people that their smartphone app still hasn't been updated to reflect a timetable change that applied to the Greystones (702) service in January 2017 - almost 17 months ago?

If you visit the Aircoach ticket booth outside T1 or T2, you can pickup a hardcopy of any of their timetables but they have stopped posting digital (PDF) versions of them on their website.

And their realtime tracking system is now all but non-existent.

Somebody slashed the IT budget and they seem to think that nobody has noticed. The wonder is that they're still paying someone to host aircoach.ie

bk

This is a great update. Those new ticket machines also allow for live real-time bus tracking. So hopefully it will mean they will reintroduce the realtime tracking.

coylemj, so it maybe not that they slashed the IT budget. It sounds like the resources (both money and dev) time might have instead been focused on rolling out these new machines and ticketing infrastructure. And thus didn't have the time to keep the old broken stuff up to date.

devnull

Wishbone Ash wrote: »

Interesting....when I worked for them, there was a discount for airline staff but they were very specific (in writing to each driver) that the discount didn't apply to any staff from American Airlines.

I believe that Ticketer, does not support American Express transactions so this is probably why they are not accepting this card rather than any anti-American agenda!

mickmmc wrote: »

The last return ticket I booked on line for Dublin Airport to Cork was €31.10 while the cash fare is €30. I normally pay €29.70 online.

It can be much cheaper than that by booking as far ahead as possible and still possible to get €27 return online from Cork to Airport, but I don't understand why an online time limited ticket ticket would be more expensive than a walk up open one. Defies logic to me to be honest why they've made this change which seems to be pretty recent.

The drawback with booking on line is that you could have to pay again in Cork if you missed your booking on line time. Some bus drivers allow passengers to use an earlier or later service than the allocated time on the online booking if seats are available. Other drivers do not and this leads to rows at the Cork bus stop from what I have witnessed.

Trying to prevent people from taking later coaches on advance purchase tickets for services that only run once every hour or so is very sensible operationally, since if you don't do that and enough people delay their journey you can have a problem accommodating them on later services, especially if many delay till the last bus and then they have 30 people booked on the last bus but another 25 turn up having delayed their journey.

Aircoach do however make an exception for services operating from Dublin Airport when there has been a flight delay if space is available, which compares favorably with the likes of National Express who make you buy a new ticket even on services from airports, unless you purchase a £10 flex add on at time of ticket purchase.

Should be no real reason on stopping people travel on earlier services ex Cork as if there is capacity when everyone else has boarded they're not going to take the seats of any other passengers as they don't stop anywhere else. From Dublin Airport to Cork though people you would imagine would be stopped from traveling on earlier services if it would mean the number of free seats would be less than the number of confirmed bookings from Dublin City.

Stephen15

Good to here that they are accepting contactless but it would be great if Aircoach would accept Leap on the 700/702/703 routes like most other private operators in the GDA such as Ashbourne Connect, Wexford Bus and Swords Express.

devnull

coylemj wrote: »

Before we lose the run of ourselves showering praise on Aircoach, can I remind people that their smartphone app still hasn't been updated to reflect a timetable change that applied to the Greystones (702) service in January 2017 - almost 17 months ago?

The App was removed from the App Store some time ago, but I agree that for a while it was left in a non functioning state with out of date timetables despite still being available to download which is pretty poor to be honest and there is no excuse for that and just screams of a lack of attention to detail and a lack of knowledge about these things.

Somebody slashed the IT budget and they seem to think that nobody has noticed. The wonder is that they're still paying someone to host aircoach.ie

Certainly it seemed that way for a period, but in recent months something seems to have changed as they've refreshed the website to be much more mobile friendly, now process online debit/credit card transactions directly rather than using Worldpay, have replaced all the ticket machines throughout the fleet and at outdoor sales points and now are accepting not just contactless cards, but also Apple, Samsung and Google Pay among other payment options.

Stephen15 wrote: »

Good to here that they are accepting contactless but it would be great if Aircoach would accept Leap on the 700/702/703 routes like most other private operators in the GDA such as Ashbourne Connect, Wexford Bus and Swords Express.

Certainly the Ticketer machine is compatible with Smart Cards because First are using the same system with Smart Cards in the UK. However whether they can get it to work with Leap or not is another thing, since generally for Leap Card processing the NTA issue their own ticketing machines for most of the private operators and I'm not sure what the status is regarding third party machine types and to my knowledge nobody else uses Ticketer in Ireland.

Still it'll be interesting to see how the functionality of machines develops for Aircoach, since First in the UK uses those machines for driver messaging, online booking validation, real time information, topping up of Smart Cards, validation of concessionary passes and also First has a companion mobile ticket app that can be used with the machines, so perhaps we'll see similar functionality in time.

Here's a video I found of how they work, there's a few others in the series here (press load more)

Stephen15

devnull wrote: »

Certainly the Ticketer machine is compatible with Smart Cards because First are using the same system with Smart Cards in the UK. However whether they can get it to work with Leap or not is another thing, since generally for Leap Card processing the NTA issue their own ticketing machines for most of the private operators and I'm not sure what the status is regarding third party machine types and to my knowledge nobody else uses Ticketer in Ireland.

Is Leap only compatible with Wayfarer

devnull

Stephen15 wrote: »

Is Leap only compatible with Wayfarer

No - the NTA uses a different brand for the private operators accepting LEAP, but it's supplied by the NTA itself I believe.

Incidentally Go-Ahead use Ticketer in the UK as well as First.

Curb Your Enthusiasm

devnull wrote: »

For an intercity service though you really want to have an idea of demand to arrange extra coaches if necessary and by forcing people to book ahead and giving them an incentive of doing so, you will make life a hell of a lot easier from an operational point of view.

I do agree though that for high frequency bus services there is for sure an advantage to give a discount because you don't have the worries about capacity or waiting an hour till the next bus generally and you also don't have the added complication of having lots of luggage that airport and intercity routes have.

From having a proper look through their FAQ they don't support American Express cards, but they do mention supporting bank specific payment forms such as Barclays pingit, which will no doubt be an added benefit for those in Belfast. I would assume they are using the same Ticketer Machines that are used by First in the UK.

Yeah they appear to be using those machines. They also have them at their stand at the Dublin airport desk.

bk

devnull wrote: »

Here's a video I found of how they work, there's a few others in the series here (press load more)

Having watched that video, I think the UI and hardware could be better. I can see it being useful for intercity type services, but I think it might be poor for city type services like DB.

The whole touch screen approach with no physical buttons is slow and poor approach IMO.

I think the new updated, Wayfarer6, with it's touchscreen, but also lots of physical buttons to allow you carry out the most common options is a better choice for city type bus services.

I suppose if the majority of fares are contactless and don't involve driver interaction, then it might not be such a big deal. The touchscreen only being used for the odd fare.

It is interesting, lots of industries have gone through this discovery, from devices with all buttons, to devices with touchscreen only to devices with a balance of buttons for the most frequent use cases and the touchscreen for less common actions. An example of this is TV remotes, they tried experimenting with all touch screen remotes and phone only apps and they were an ergonomic and user disaster. They have settled on the likes of the excellent Harmony Elite remote which has a touchsreen at the top for less frequently used actions, but lots of good buttons below for the most frequently used actions (play, pause, select, etc.).

BTW The Wayfarer6 looks like a very good replacement for the current machine. Backwards compatible with the backend, but look to be much more powerful, with support for EMV (contactless debit and smartphone payments) and barcode reader for smartphone tickets.

http://www.parkeon.co.uk/our-solutions/product-catalogue/wayfarer6/

devnull

bk wrote: »

Having watched that video, I think the UI and hardware could be better. I can see it being useful for intercity type services, but I think it might be poor for city type services like DB.

First and Go-Ahead are pretty much using it everywhere in the UK now and the places that don't have it in these businesses are either planning to or are in the process of rolling it out.

That video doesn't really show everything it can do, the other videos on the series which can be seen on the same channel, but it's gaining a lot of popularity at the moment in the UK and a lot of companies, both big and small are switching from Almex and Parkeon equipment.

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ticketer for alternative versions and the list of some of the companies using it. Ironically it was set up by a couple of employees who used to work for Wayfarer but left after the Parkeon buy-out.

bk

devnull wrote: »

That video doesn't really show everything it can do, the other videos on the series which can be seen on the same channel, but it's gaining a lot of popularity at the moment in the UK and a lot of companies, both big and small are switching from Almex and Parkeon equipment.

Still looks like a badly designed piece of hardware to me. Just because companies are switching to it, doesn't mean it is better for drivers, might just mean it has cheaper cost to the companies.

The videos above, made it look like it would take ages and multiple button presses to issue just a simple Adult €2.15 ticket! It looked painfully slow and not impressive at all. Even within the constraints of the hardware, I can think of much better ways to design that interface that would be better suited to Dublin.

I agree that this machine and the Wayfarer6 seem to have much the same functionality, 4G, GPS tracking, EMV contactless payments, barcode reading, interface with bus information systems, RTPI, bus displays and messaging back to depot. All the standard stuff.

But just at a glance, without having used either of them, the Wayfarer6 looks like a better designed interface and hardware then the ticketer, for the way DB and BE currently operate.

Having physical buttons in addition to touchscreen is just a better design. Of course nothing stopping Ticketer also developing a new machine like that, but so far they don't seem to have it.

Of course if we go fully cashless and eliminate the driver interaction, then it wouldn't make much of a difference.

I think we both agree, if the NTA go for either Ticketer or Wayfarer6, it would be a massive improvement over the current machine and a very welcome upgrade.

devnull

To be honest when I've used buses that are using Ticketer in the UK with paper cash tickets it's pretty fast - certainly more so than the Wayfarer that they are using at the moment.

Those screens can be set-up so they show all the common fares on the screen and the driver literally has to press + and then issue and off they go. It's also possible to set it up so you eliminate the first step and do it in one click. Note that video is quite old and software has been improved, at least on the Go-Ahead units I've seen.

Don't have to faff about switching modes either.

bk

devnull wrote: »

To be honest when I've used buses that are using Ticketer in the UK with paper cash tickets it's pretty fast - certainly more so than the Wayfarer that they are using at the moment.

Oh absolutely, the old wayfarers are completely out of date and too underpowered.

The slowness of issuing tickets is down to being underpowered. The actual physical layout with the side buttons is a good one. Combine that physical layout with much faster CPU/RAM/ROM like the Wayfarer6 and you'd have an excellent machine and interface.

devnull wrote: »

Those screens can be set-up so they show all the common fares on the screen and the driver literally has to press + and then issue and off they go. It's also possible to set it up so you eliminate the first step and do it in one click. Note that video is quite old and software has been improved, at least on the Go-Ahead units I've seen.

Ok, that sounds a lot better and more inline with what I have in mind. Makes sense that the screen is probably configurable per operator, in particularly a large outfit like DB.

Though I'd definitely have it so the entire button was one fare, hitting the little + button seems like bad design. Have a different screen for the odd time people want multiple tickets.

Maybe have the default screen being buttons that charge the fare with just one button click. A second tab would select the same fares as below, but with the +- buttons for multiple fares.

It looks like the Ticketer screen normally displays 6 tickets on one screen, so you could have it:
Cash 2.10 | Leap 1.50
Cash 2.85 | Leap 2.15
Cash 3.30 | Leap 2.60

Nice, both default Leap and Cash on one screen, no need for switching.

If they did merge stage 4 - 13 and over 13 as is rumoured and also merge the child fares as they obviously should, you could have the following on one screen (note amounts are a guess):

Adult Cash 2.10 | Adult Leap 1.50 (Stages 1 - 3, Route 90, etc.)
Adult Cash 3.00 | Adult Leap 2.30 (4 or more stages, new default).
Child Cash 1.40 | Child Leap 1.00

Would be quiet nice, all the defaults on one screen. Of course both the Adult Leap 2.30 and Child Leap, should be available from the right hand validator so rarely actually used from the driver.

BTW do you know what machines they use on London Bus?

Stephen15

I wonder are contactless payments on the Aircoach and on TFL over in london being effected by the Visa outage today

goingnowhere

Contactless is offline by design so will continue to work provided you did not exceed the number/value transaction limits

markpb

goingnowhere wrote: »

Contactless is offline by design so will continue to work provided you did not exceed the number/value transaction limits

Not any more. One of the schemes (possibly Mastercard) removed the offline floor for contactless a few months ago so everything goes online. Low value transit transactions have a specific exemption though.

devnull

Card providers can also mandate that transactions for contactless have to be processed online at an account level.

This tends to be the case when a bank customer has a poor credit history, although some banks will simply not offer contactless to these customers rather than offer customers a service that doesn't work all of the time.

The card issuer can also set exemptions for these online-auth only cards and I believe TFL is one of them.

Lord Glentoran

Stephen15 wrote: »

I wonder are contactless payments on the Aircoach and on TFL over in london being effected by the Visa outage today

Interesting. Last time I was in London there was a much increased level of use of contactless compared to Oyster.

devnull

coylemj wrote: »

And their realtime tracking system is now all but non-existent.

Somebody slashed the IT budget and they seem to think that nobody has noticed. The wonder is that they're still paying someone to host aircoach.ie

You will be pleased to know that real time info has now returned via their website via a track my coach feature.

They appear to be using the same system as National Express in the UK.