Dublin has the second highest cost of public transport for users in the world

Mousewar

Oh great, another public transport bashing thread.
No, seriously, it's great. That monstrosity of a service deserves to be criticised at every opportunity.

I helped a tourist buy a return ticket from Shankill to Bray (1 stop) yesterday for her and her child from one of the machines. 6.20 was the price. I almost apologised to her.

I do like the drivers though, they always wave back at my son on the platform and sometimes blow the horn!

Pauliedragon

On that list I can only speak for Sydney and I'm wondering where they get the no's from. There is no weekly or monthly system. It's a simple pay as you go. My weekly cost would be about 1/5th of other peoples as I lived close to work. factor in they have weekly caps where after 8 journeys price goes down by half and also some people get multiple modes to work bus then train or ferry etc. It's near impossible to calculate an acccurate $ amount.

banie01

questionmark? wrote: »

The leap card price is €1.61 but you are choosing to pay €2:30 each way. €3.22 for a return trip on Leap is good value with regular users getting even better value with period tickets. The service around the country needs to improve but I can't understand people who choose not to get a leap card and pay more whilst cribbing about the price.

The leap card return price at €3.22 still costs more than an hour's parking and amortised costs.

The leap card is handy, but it means that should I not have a leap card I need to source one. B.E sought to incentivise Leap Card use by offering a reduced fare and penalising the user's least likely to avail of the Leap Card.
Just as handy would be B.E enabling NFC payment as an option with either a driver selectable fare option for Adult/Child/Student.
Immediately opens up their service to savings in allowing the elimination of Leap Card admin and massively reduced cash handling charges.

Conservatory

banie01 wrote: »

The leap card return price at €3.22 still costs more than an hour's parking and amortised costs.

The leap card is handy, but it means that should I not have a leap card I need to source one. B.E sought to incentivise Leap Card use by offering a reduced fare and penalising the user's least likely to avail of the Leap Card.
Just as handy would be B.E enabling NFC payment as an option with either a driver selectable fare option for Adult/Child/Student.
Immediately opens up their service to savings in allowing the elimination of Leap Card admin and massively reduced cash handling charges.

How do you do a return on a leap card. I pay 2.15 into work and 2.15 home. What am I missing?

questionmark?

banie01 wrote: »

The leap card return price at €3.22 still costs more than an hour's parking and amortised costs.

The leap card is handy, but it means that should I not have a leap card I need to source one. B.E sought to incentivise Leap Card use by offering a reduced fare and penalising the user's least likely to avail of the Leap Card.
Just as handy would be B.E enabling NFC payment as an option with either a driver selectable fare option for Adult/Child/Student.
Immediately opens up their service to savings in allowing the elimination of Leap Card admin and massively reduced cash handling charges.

I'd go further than that. No interaction what so ever with the driver. No cash accepted. Validation on the right side as you get on the bus. If they accepted contactless payments as well as Leap even better.

It's not BE seeking to encourage people to use Leap it's the NTA/TII or whatever they are called these days.

London bus works perfectly fine without cash. With BE in Cork, Limerick, Waterford and Galway almost on a flat fare structure it makes no sense to be going to the driver to pay. There is also no reason to not give a deadline of 12 months for the end of cash payments. Everyone will have time to sort out getting a Leap card.

rosmoke

Bucharest:
- 60e for car insurance for a 20 year old.
- 154 e for yearly subway system (every 2 minutes during peak times), 50% for students

I'd rather cycle in rain than use any public transport system in Dublin.

For Forks Sake

rosmoke wrote: »

Bucharest:
- 60e for car insurance for a 20 year old.
- 154 e for yearly subway system (every 2 minutes during peak times), 50% for students

I'd rather cycle in rain than use any public transport system in Dublin.

Second lowest wages in the EU though....

rosmoke

Yeah, you can't rely on the state or on low paid jobs to have a good life.

But a job in development it is paid with 2-3k for a senior, so it's not that bad when you buy a 6 bedroom detached house near the capital for 90k.

For Forks Sake wrote: »

Second lowest wages in the EU though....

goz83

end of the road wrote: »

can you name these inefficient working practices? what metric are you using to judge that the drivers earn eye-watering salaries?
bus driving after all wouldn't be the most popular job in the world i'd imagine, so a good wage would likely need to be paid to attract staff. if dublin bus and others don't pay well they won't get staff.

A guy I used to know works at DB. One of the reasons he became a bus driver and bragged about was the long shift breaks they still got paid for. Apparently you could be waiting a couple of hours with nothing to do and you were still getting paid.

I hate public transport. It’s unreliable, expensive and sometimes disgusting.

Prominent_Dawg

Wonder where we would fall on a list of best to worst cities in the world for commuting by public transport in comparison to this list..

Stephen15

I know DB is expensive but a lot of people here are quoting cash prices when it's far cheaper to pay by Leap card. The highest cash fare for an adult is €3.30 barring outer suburban stages whereas with a Leap card the highest fare is €2.60 so folk should get a Leap card and stop paying with cash. Also buses will be no longer accept cash in the next few years hopefully and it will be Leap only with contactless cards being added as a payment method.

Stephen15

rosmoke wrote: »

Bucharest:
- 60e for car insurance for a 20 year old.
- 154 e for yearly subway system (every 2 minutes during peak times), 50% for students

I'd rather cycle in rain than use any public transport system in Dublin.

You do realise the average yearly income in Romania is just over 6 grand

riffmongous

Vienna is 365 euro a year for unlimited travel, or ~50 euro per month for shorter terms, giving you: 5 underground lines which run 3-8 minute intervals during the day and every 15 minutes at weekends, nightbuses at 30 mins, 29 tram lines and 127 bus lines

erica74

Canard wrote: »

Eh, no idea where that number for Dublin came from, not even a student pass is that 'cheap'. An adult monthly pass is a whopping €160.50.

So, going on this, we're actually the most expensive country in the world and we possibly have the worst value for money.

Has anyone here lived in another country with a similar or worse service?

I was eating lunch at the weekend and there was 2 American tourists at the next table discussing Irish Rail and how, if you miss a train, you might be waiting at least 2 hours for the next one and they're always late so you have to be careful with what activities you have booked. I think we rely quite a bit on tourism so I would hate to think our public transport system would put them off.

When I lived in Dublin, I was always lucky enough to have a good bus route within about a 10 minute walk of where I was living but, more often than not, the buses were late and/or overcrowded. I took to cycling most places because at least I was just relying on myself.

Now, I live outside of Dublin, and I miss public transport. Where I live there's no buses, no trains, nothing, so I have to drive everywhere. Walking and cycling aren't an option because it takes around 2 hours cycling and 3 hours walking to get to the nearest town. I would love to have more options but I think that's a long long way off, I doubt I'll see it in my lifetime.

Trasna1

Stephen15 wrote: »

I know DB is expensive but a lot of people here are quoting cash prices when it's far cheaper to pay by Leap card. The highest cash fare for an adult is €3.30 barring outer suburban stages whereas with a Leap card the highest fare is €2.60 so folk should get a Leap card and stop paying with cash. Also buses will be no longer accept cash in the next few years hopefully and it will be Leap only with contactless cards being added as a payment method.

And it's by far cheaper again to have an annual taxsaver ticket. Public transport isn't cheap in Dublin sure but the prices quoted aren't accurate

circadian

Stephen15 wrote: »

I know DB is expensive but a lot of people here are quoting cash prices when it's far cheaper to pay by Leap card. The highest cash fare for an adult is €3.30 barring outer suburban stages whereas with a Leap card the highest fare is €2.60 so folk should get a Leap card and stop paying with cash. Also buses will be no longer accept cash in the next few years hopefully and it will be Leap only with contactless cards being added as a payment method.

The problem here is that €2.60 is a single ticket on a bus. Most other major public transport systems would have time allocated to that ticket and it could be used on connecting buses/trains/ferries or whatever within the zone and allocated time.

Irish public transport is eye wateringly expensive for what you get. How hard would it be for Dublin Bus to put the time a buss arrives at a particular stop on the timetable? Not this "O'Connell Street >>>>10mins Some other stop" craic. There's several stops in between. Do I have to just guess when it'll be there???

I'd imagine for a rail there isn't quite the demand as we don't have a huge population but it does need to be maintained to a standard regardless, hence the infrequent and expensive services.

I'm not surprised at Dublin ranking 2nd. Most large cities in Asia have fantastic metro systems that are cheap. Busan, Seoul, Chengdu, Guangzhou even bloody Bangkok has a better transport system and its mayhem. Buses come on time, as per the the timetable. There is absolutely no reason for Dublin to be as backward and expensive for public transport.

VinLieger

circadian wrote: »

There is absolutely no reason for Dublin to be as backward and expensive for public transport.

Yes there is..... unions

whisky_galore

VinLieger wrote: »

Yes there is..... unions

I'm pretty sure most if not all transport systems the world over have unions.

weldoninhio

Dublin Bus are a joke. I’m currently in a dispute with them about dangerous overcrowding on their buses. I got an email asking me to phone the depot administrator, told them I’d rather have everything by email so we both had a record of what was said. Got a second email asking me to phone the depot admin to talk to her, again I replied saying I’d rather have a record of what we said. Got a third email asking for my number so that she could call me. Again I said the same thing, I wanted to correspond through email. Got a fourth email then thanking my for my complaint and closing it.

Ush1

weldoninhio wrote: »

Dublin Bus are a joke. I’m currently in a dispute with them about dangerous overcrowding on their buses. I got an email asking me to phone the depot administrator, told them I’d rather have everything by email so we both had a record of what was said. Got a second email asking me to phone the depot admin to talk to her, again I replied saying I’d rather have a record of what we said. Got a third email asking for my number so that she could call me. Again I said the same thing, I wanted to correspond through email. Got a fourth email then thanking my for my complaint and closing it.

Luas red line at rush hour is just as bad if not worse.

I have parking in my office in town and have tried not to use it by using public transport but there really isn't any redeemable reasons. It's slower, over crowded, unreliable and relatively expensive.

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

Canonfan

Off the topic, but if there were a ranking for number of public toilet available in the city centre area, Dublin will be at the bottom of the list.

redcup342

Thingymebob wrote: »

A friend posted an article on her Facebook which complained that Auckland NZ had the third most expensive public transport in the world... but then Dublin was listed at number two!

I’ve lived in all three places in the top spots. Yes London’s crowded but it’s public transport is epic compared to Dublin (and Auckland!). I live on the Northside inside the M50, but have just one bus route within five minutes walk. It’s unreliable on weekends, and in peak times, you can’t get on the bus. It’s also expensive. All this and the odds of being stuck standing in the rain means I rarely use public transport in Dublin. In London I lived on the Zone 2/3 border (depending on if I was catching national rail or tube), and had four bus routes immediately outside my door, with another ten on the High Street five minutes walk. I used a car sharing club rarely. Public transport in Dublin needs to be more appealing, and not by putting more taxes on car users, but by making public transport so convenient and cheap that you’d be stupid to use anything else.

www. nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12067987&ref=NZH_fb

The 12 most expensive cities in the world for commuting by public transport

1. London - NZ$247 // €147.58
2. Dublin - $187.11 // €111.80
3. Auckland - $174.74 // €104.41
4. New York - $167.35 // €99.99
5. Tokyo - $157.39 // €94.04
6. Amsterdam - $154.41 // €92.26
7. Sydney - $154.12 // €92.09
8. Zurich - $154.12 // €92.09
9. Melbourne - $150 // €89.63
10. Toronto - $146.02 // €87.25
11. Chicago - $145.17 // €86.74
12. Wellington - $143.89 // €85.98

Source: Deutsche Bank, using prices from Expatistan, a site that tracks cost-of-living expenses in more than 200 countries. **converted from NZD to Euros using XE currency app, so rounding etc might mean small differences

Nobody takes Public Transport to work in Amsterdam, everyone cycles.

Or they live outside the Amsterdam City Center and take the Train to work, which that subscription (93 euros GVB only month subscription) isn't valid for anyway.

Haarlem Station to Amsterdam Central is a 9 minute train journey and is 132 euros a month, which is only valid on that bit of railway track.

Things get worse for tourists, you need a public transport chipcard, similar to a Leap Card.

To ride the train you need to have a 20 euro minimum balance, so say you drop your car off at Amsterdam Sloterdijk park and ride, you can take the sh!tty GVB Bus to Central or take a 4 minute train ride, however you'll need to top up over 20 euros, good luck getting rid of that balance during your stay in Amsterdam and you'll need it to be over 20 euros to get back remember.

In Germany things are a bit better (way cheaper) but a bit of mess, it's split up into different Transport Companies.

E.G. In Nord Rhein Westfalen for example you have VRR/VRS/AVV all bordering each other.

It's like a f*cking rubix cube trying to work out what ticket you need if you travel between one zone and another if it's a certain time/day with additional people and you have a work ticket

Making a balls of understanding what ticket to get can land you a jail sentence :pac:
https://www.thelocal.de/20171023/proposals-to-decriminalize-fare-dodging-gather-steam-as-1000s-sit-in-jail

People end up writing blogs on how to get from one city to another for the cheapest price.

https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=de&tl=en&js=y&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=https%3A%2F%2Fgedankenausbruch.com%2Ftipps-und-tricks%2Fdeutsche-bahn-anschlussticket-von-vrr-vrs-nach-koeln-hauptbahnhof%2F&edit-text=

Berlin for the size of it is very cheap (for the sheer size) for a monthly ticket and much less complicated, but the wages aren't as good

Anyways, the price list mentioned for Amsterdam aren't necessarily the case, you need to live on a line served by GVB (Metro Preferably) and then you are paying big money in rent.

/rant over

DublinCJM

I've an annual Bus, Commuter Rail and Dart ticket. Costs €150 a month, and I get half that back in tax.

€75 a month for unlimited Bus / Rail use, including Airlink, Nitelink etc.

It's great value.

VinLieger

whisky_galore wrote: »

I'm pretty sure most if not all transport systems the world over have unions.

Fair point ill be more specific..... irish transport unions

FTA69

VinLieger wrote: »

Fair point ill be more specific..... irish transport unions

Yeah unions have heavy density in transport all over Europe and often they're far more militant and organised than their Irish counterparts.

mfceiling

Pauliedragon wrote: »

On that list I can only speak for Sydney and I'm wondering where they get the no's from. There is no weekly or monthly system. It's a simple pay as you go.

Are you sure? I lived in sydney from 99 - 01 and could buy a weekly ticket (covered the red zone??) for $35 or $40 a week. Unlimited use on the bus, train and ferries as long as you stayed within your designated zones.

end of the road

VinLieger wrote: »

This post had been deleted.

they have nothing to do with it. they don't set the fares or the level of subsidies or policy. that's government/NTA. the policy seems to be "the passenger must pay the greater share" a policy i don't agree with either.

Permabear wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

fares and subsidy are the funding model for transport in a lot, if not probably most places tbh. so it's not unique to here.

redcup342

mfceiling wrote: »

Are you sure? I lived in sydney from 99 - 01 and could buy a weekly ticket (covered the red zone??) for $35 or $40 a week. Unlimited use on the bus, train and ferries as long as you stayed within your designated zones.

That disappeared some years back with the Introduction of the Opal card (Same as Leap,OV Chipkaart,Oyster Card)

Idbatterim

weldoninhio wrote: »

Dublin Bus are a joke. I’m currently in a dispute with them about dangerous overcrowding on their buses.

good luck with that! thats what happens when all the spend goes to staff and pensions and not actual buses!