The cost to upgrade public transport ticketing system to contactless - how much?

Pauliedragon

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122705167#Comment_122705167

It doesn't turn up half the time. I've waited over an hour more times than I care to remember for a bus thats meant to be every 15 mins plus the 220X. That's 5 buses an hour and none turn up. The town buses are just as bad if you speak to anybody who uses them regularly.

Pauliedragon

I'm not going to hammer the drivers I don't blame them for a second. I have 2 inlaws that were drivers. They need to go back to the old timetable of a 220 bus every half hr during the day and leave it at every 20mins at peak times. We don't need buses every 15 or 20mins during the day. When they get enough drivers go back to the current timetable. Ask anyone in Carrigaline and they'll agree. The promises I was refering to were from BE themselves via the local councillers. They openly admitted that drivers are instructed to skip stops if they are running late. That's not acceptable. It's better the people that are skipped be a few mins late rather than the bus going passed them and they have to wait god knows how long for the next one.

Sorry for the rant it's just very frustrating and again I put no blame on the drivers😀

breezy1985

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122706261#Comment_122706261

My bus was every half hour before and plenty didn't show up. 3 out of 4 is better than 1 out of 2. If a driver phones in sick on a 30min schedule you might as well cancel the route for the day.

Buses every 30mins is a huge turn off and way more so than some late and cancelled. High frequency is absolutely everything on a commuter service.

If a bus is running late it means the next one is coming up it's arrse which is why it's told to power on to the end of the route and reset. It's a better system than London where the bus behind is forced to stop and you are left sitting on a stopped bus.

Pauliedragon

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122706332#Comment_122706332

So what's the excuse when it's a hour and a half waiting time? That's 7 buses that simply didn't turn up. Then there's so many people waiting on the grand parade it's full so nobody at the South Mall or Anglesey street get picked up so they have to keep waiting. It happened 2 days in a row last week and 3 days out of 5. There can't be that many sick drivers. Why can't they just admit we can't staff the 220 route to the timetable even at 20mins so we'll go back to every 30mins. Look at the Carrigaline FB page you'll see dozens of the same comments I'm saying and I'm guessing the people in Ballincollig feel the same.

breezy1985

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122706384#Comment_122706384

To be honest I don't know. I have never heard of a bus service that bad and if 7 buses are missing then the problem is not whether it's a 15 or 30 minute service and it is not a nationwide problem so saying "don't bother" or get your hopes up with the town services is stupid whatever is happening on the 202 is a route only or Cork only problem.

kirving

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122700073#Comment_122700073

Thanks for the explanation, and the point on the daily tap limit is fair too. Could get messy.

But, I could never understand why, from the outset, the ability to run without an internet connection was such a requirement for Leap?

Why can't the terminal just read the card details, stack up payment for the day, and do a single debit at the end of the day? Reconciliation of Leap fares surely follows a similar process to prevent fraud by copied cards?

Sure you're taking a risk that a debit card may be cancelled or over it's limit, and then used on the bus, but the transaction can be pushed though another day, can it not? Ban the card on each terminal until the balance is paid.

Or maybe I'm missing something fundamental? If the checksum is the only thing that verifies a "valid" card number, I guess I could repeatedly generate fake cards all day long?

Pauliedragon

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122706413#Comment_122706413

Hopefully it'll improve they're are people behind the scenes doing whatever they can. I personally think the NTA is the problem and the poor people at BE get the brunt of the complaints from the public but look it'll get better I'm sure. That 7 buses is an extreme example. I do honestly appreciate your input. Sorry again for ranting😁

KrisW1001

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122706426#Comment_122706426

A tap doesn't provide the card number. All it gives you is a one-time token that can be presented to the "bank" for payment of the amount you asked for. As it's a one time token, it's very hard for a merchant (i.e. TFI) to cross reference until the transactions have fully cleared, which can be 24 hours or more for foreign cards, and the card can refuse to supply the token if you've exceeded your limit. Storing the card numbers is the greatest sin you can commit in payment processing, so all of the systems guide you away from being able to do it. The card details are actually on the magstripe, but not the cvv2 number that's printed on the back of your card, and making transaction requests without cvv2 is prohibitively expensive... but swiping cards is only done in the technological backwaters of the payment industry like the USA.

Running without Internet was, and still is, essential for fast and reliable operations. Consider a train station turnstile at rush hour: it takes one second to pass the gate, so anything that takes more than one second to process will become the bottleneck in getting people onto the train.

Even today, online card transactions take around three to five seconds to process. That's "fast" if you're buying a coffee, but far too slow if you're trying to get a thousand passengers onto a platform. But the big problem is if internet connectivity is lost. The Mifare card systems (of which Leap is one) were designed to be usable as a standalone system, with no need for a live network connection. This was a great idea in 2004, and to be honest it's still a very good idea in 2024.

There are ways to get contactless card payments to run faster, but to do that you need to take on more of the job yourself than you do using a typical merchant terminal. You also need to take on more of the financial risk - taking on that risk is actually not a problem with something of the scale of Leap, which probably has 200 million+ transactions a year, but you still need someone to produce and maintain a secure system for you.

bk

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122706471#Comment_122706471

BE services have been terrible in Cork for far longer then the NTA have existed. In fact, things have improved greatly in Cork since the NTA turned up. Like the NTA reintroducing double decker buses in Cork, reversing the idiotic decision by BE management to use single deckers!

NTA introduced Leap cards and bus tracking, replaced the terrible BE stop signs and shelters which were falling apart and dangerous.

They have increased frequencies and brought in 24/7 routes.

NTA licensed private intercity coach services, so now we have a service every 30 minutes to Dublin running almost 24/7 and taking just 3 hours with toilets and wifi, before that you just had the shite BE service running every 2 hours, that took almost 5 hours, no toilet and last departure was 6pm!

You have to have serious rose tinted glasses to think BE services were better before the NTA!!!

Of course they are still many problems, the biggest one is simply lack of drivers. This issue also impacts Dublin and across the country and it is actually an EU wide issue.

As an aside, of course this has nothing to do with drivers, who are mostly lovely people, they can only drive the bus given to the rota, schedule and route they are given, not their fault if there aren't enough drivers. But boy is BE management pretty terrible, it is their job to hire and retain drivers, set work schedules, etc. A lack of drivers is BE's fault, not the NTA.

LXFlyer

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122706384#Comment_122706384

The reason is quite simply twofold:

• The shortfall of drivers in Capwell - Bus Éireann are 27 drivers short of the number that they need to deliver the timetable - it’s not that they’re sick, but rather that they just don’t have l enough drivers full stop - people aren’t viewing it as an attractive job in sufficient numbers anymore.
• Buses getting stuck in traffic and having to be curtailed to get back to where they ought to be

They are implementing a reduced timetable from Sunday week across the 202/a, 205, 207 and 220 routes which they hope should be deliverable.

The driver shortage is across the industry, and the housing crisis is not helping. All bus operators are suffering the same problem, but BÉ in Cork are suffering an acute staff shortage.

LXFlyer

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122707376#Comment_122707376

It’s a bit more than simply BÉ’s fault to be fair.

We have a situation where drivers can’t afford homes near their jobs due to the housing crisis, and where I suspect driving a bus around Cork city is becoming more and more frustrating due to the lack of bus priority, and roads narrowing with more cycle lanes etc.

At the same time, BusConnects infrastructure plans are being watered down by the same councillors who are complaining about the bus service.

I suspect city bus driving is becoming a less attractive job all the time (and not just in Cork).

hans aus dtschl

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122707376#Comment_122707376

I actually would take issue with a lot of what you're saying, having seen inside the belly of the beast. The NTA are not directly the source of all improvements and BE management themselves fought hard for a long time against the department to try to improve service. From what I could see, the department at the time of Brennan went gung-ho down the privatisation-at-all-costs route and were hell bent on running BE down (for a sale?). From my perspective the NTA-related improvements coincide with the department finally recognising BE as a core operator of a national transport system.

The department figured out (after a decade or more) that the private operators wanted more subvention than BE was getting to operate most of the routes, and BE were suddenly no longer the "unwanted child" of CIÉ. I actually remember management fighting the MINISTER directly to be allowed to run city routes at higher frequency, it got to that level of ridiculousness.

What I'm saying is that I agree that the NTA involvement coincides with the improvements we're seeing, but I believe a department change of attitude to BE is the main catalyst for change rather than NTA forcing improvements on BE.

But I agree that the service improved a LOT in the last few years. I didn't use the bus for the best part of a decade and I use it again now.

bk

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122707699#Comment_122707699

I actually broadly agree with you.

Obviously the government under invested in public transport for decades, up until the 80's because we were largely broke, but from the 90's we had money, but there was real distrust in government in the competency of CIE and that the unions were too powerful. There was a fear in government of just directly pumping money into CIE and that it would just disappear with no obvious improvement in service.

The NTA aren't just a coincidence, their creation was a direct consequence of the above. It was the government putting in place a regulatory body to oversee how increased government investment in public transport got spent and to make sure it actually resulted in improved services for the public.

The NTA were needed to reverse idiotic decisions made by CIE management like single deckers in Cork or Single door operation in Dublin. To have a higher level vision of how buses, trams, darts, cycling, etc. could work together rather then the disjointed at best, if not down right obstructive nonsense of the past.

I disagree with you on the private operators. They were a badly needed kick up the arse of DB and BE, a warning to them that they no longer have a monopoly, that the government had other options and DB/BE had to shape up and actually work with the NTA on the changes being made rather then being obstructive. There has been a marked improvement in DB/BE services after GAI started up and they realised they don't have a monopoly any more.

Also I don't think private operators are going anywhere, Metrolink certainly won't be operated by CIE and GAI continues to expand with new routes like the N2.

I agree that the government don't want to break up or privatise DB/BE like happened in London, but they do want enough private involvement so there isn't a monopoly, to keep them on their toes, so that when BE cock up so badly like they did in the Dublin commuter routes, that they can lose their license to another operator.

Overall things have definitely improved a lot of the last 15 years. Enough and fast enough, no, but still much better. The driver shortage is definitely a massive pain in improving services and needs to be sorted.

hans aus dtschl

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122708232#Comment_122708232

Yep I can't find fault with any of that.

In Cork right now our biggest problems are people advocating (whether knowingly or unknowingly) for car priority. On top of that we have councillors who are actively working to undermine bus priority measures. The majority of the fault isn't with BÉ any more.

Although one big BÉ fault is see in Cork is that we get buses short-cutting back to the city centre instead of picking up customers, leaving a >1 hour wait in a 20-minute schedule. If they're short staff or buses, I'd prefer if they just run as frequently as they can even if not to schedule. In my experience nobody cares that the 16:00 service is on time if it means they just cancelled the 15:40. With no bus priority measures it's always going to be behind schedule, so just run at the highest frequency possible please, and leave a gap at the terminus. This race from the terminus to the city centre ignoring passengers is totally unacceptable! And I've seen it a good few times.

scrabtom

Are they going to do much in terms of infrastructure with BusConnects Cork?

kirving

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122706655#Comment_122706655

Thanks for the detail on the token, I knew I was missing something fundamental…

swiping cards is only done in the technological backwaters of the payment industry like the USA.

and this is probably some of the reason why. I live in the US now and my perception of how cards are used is just totally different here than in Ireland. I can go to a bar, hand my card just once, and have drinks deducted all night, or even have a tip added to my bill long after I've paid.

It can actually be a bit of a nightmare with work expenses, as I've even had a tip go through as an entirely separate transaction the following day, since the waiter might have just rung them all up later, so a one time token never crossed my mind.

Now that I look up Mifare, I see that it's the same as used in San Francisco's Clipper Card. What I like about their implementation is that I can used my phone as a wallet and don't need a physical card. I'm mixed on card/phone though tbh. I like not having to take space in my small wallet, but if your phone is out of battery you're stuck. I'm one of the few gobshites who pay my fare tbh, seems everyone else doesn't.

Interestingly too, you can now even find some iPhones and Google Pixel phones even after they're switched off. Obviously a tiny amount of power remaining in the battery is enough to keep the Bluetooth LE or UWB radio can still operate. It would be cool in future if the same could be done for NFC and specific types of cards only, as so many people no longer carry a physical wallet.

p_haugh

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122709390#Comment_122709390

"It would be cool in future if the same could be done for NFC and specific types of cards only, as so many people no longer carry a physical wallet."

Apple pay already provided this functionality in some instances for their "Express Cards".

https://support.apple.com/en-asia/105123#:~:text=Use%20Express%20Mode%20with%20power,have%20Express%20Mode%20turned%20on.

KrisW1001

Modern smartphones are never really off, unless the battery is flat. "Off" is just a state where the communications and user interface aren't running, and the software does very little except monitor the power button and perform a very small number of other tasks, such as controlling the battery charging.

The NFC chips used in Leap cards can be phantom powered by the reader device… a wire coil collects enough energy from the terminal's RF transmission to power the card IC for just long enough to perform the operation. The transmitter in the reader is deliberately power inefficient so that the card can harvest that "waste" energy. (RFID tags are a simpler form of NFC, where the on-tag IC just broadcasts back a code when the coil is energised)

It would be possible to do the same phantom powering on phones, but it would need a standalone NFC chip and an additional coil (in addition to the one already used for wireless charging) and no phone maker would spend the extra money needed to accommodate this when the device is always on anyway.

LXFlyer

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122709386#Comment_122709386

See the link below.

https://busconnects.ie/cities/cork/cork-sustainable-transport-corridors/

Sam Russell

Mod: I've edited the title because there is no clear price put forward to justify the headline price quoted, and it looks like click-bait.

Sam Russell

Just to give my personal view - It is likely to be expensive, or very expensive, or hugely expensive.

It all depends on how they go about it.

The cost must cover ticket machines on each bus and coach nationwide. Dublin buses have over 1,000 of them and are getting more. If it cost, say, a €1,000 per unit, well that is a million or two - or even €5 million. Remember, these are going to buses with a working system already.

Software is expensive to write and maintain, but maybe buy a working system from somewhere else might be cheaper.

Then there is revenue protection which is easier if the system and pricing structure is simple, and well resourced to enforce the purchase of tickets and protect the fare-box.

Now, about 50% of people have a free pass, so that is a consideration.

So, how does it all come to €2.7 billion? It would take a lot of mismanagement to get to that - or dodgy journalism unable to tell the difference between a plus sign and a multiplication sign, or a total price and an annual cost, or the number of years over which that cost will run.

No post appears to give a definite version of cost from a reliable source.

KrisW1001

I've a fair idea of other transport projects and software backend development, and I'd put the cost in the hundreds of millions over a 10 year term. My gut feeling is that €1000 per terminal is about 3x too high, even including fitting costs. The bare electronics and computing piece of the terminals can be implemented for about €50, or even less for vehicles that offer on-board wifi (and thus have an existing internet connection), but that's only a part of the hardware cost.

A lot of the costs wouldn't be technology per se: anything involving payment systems attracts a lot of very expensive certification and auditing costs.

PlatformNine

I think 1000 per terminal is too high but I don't think its going to be that much cheaper all things included. The Hardware isn't that expensive but its not quite 50 euro cheap, even with the scale they would be ordering. Eitherway the expensive part is going to be the process of going into every bus, ripping out the old system, updating wiring as needed, and installing the new one. Where I think the big savings to made with the new system is with ordering a "compatible hardware" for incoming busses as soon as possible, even if it means the card readers aren't activated for a few years. I can't imagine it would add much to the cost of a new bus, as it would just be the difference in hardware.

If they are implementing contactless payments though I hope they make some "quick ticketing" system for Luas (and DART/commuter rail if possible with the fare structure?). What I mean by that is say at the Luas platform, if you know you are going to be paying the standard fare, instead of having to properly interact with the machine, on the machine there would be a reader that will quickly buy and print a standard fare ticket.

KrisW1001

If you were paying me to do it, I'm reasonably confident I could spec you a terminal at €50 bill of materials cost for the electronics. Any €10 microcontroller can handle the transaction logic, a €15-20 IoT modem will handle the comms (TLS included), and the rest of the cost goes on passives, power, NFC air-interface and the PCB. Just needs a ruggedised enclosure, a 12 volt supply and fitting. cost of enclosure and fitting would bring things closer to €300, but the point was that €1000 is not a realistic price.

The electronics part of it is really cheap these days. The big costs are in the installation, backend software interfacing, certification and maintenance. Bit those are not related to number of vehicles.

Regarding your Luas example, the ideal system is just "tap on, tap off", so you don't have to worry about ticket zones.. this is pretty much like how Oyster works in London (to pick an example people would be most familiar with). Your only obligation as a user is to tap your card (Leap or payment card) on entry to the bus, or on entry and exit at a tram platform or train turnstile... the backend software system does the rest, figures out where you've been and what you've used, and ensures that you never pay more than you have to for public transport.

Right now we've already got that level of convenience for Leap card holders, but adding general payment cards to that would make transport much more accessible to more casual users.

PlatformNine

My thinking with a system like that was partially I didn't realise a tap-on/tap-off system was possible with a bank card. However it was mainly that I think there would still have to be some "proof of ticket purchased" because of how the Luas works. Unless they can just scan a bank card(which I dont think they can do?) there would still need to be some printed ticket anyways.

riddlinrussell

TfL take the money off your card at the end of the day, its not instantaneous. I assume there is some threshold value that the machines "charge" instantaneously and if that's unsuccessful it refuses entry?

KrisW1001

@PlatformNine - In London, the ticket checkers ask you to present the bank card or phone/watch that you used to buy your ticket. As part of the transaction information, there's a unique payment method ID (not the 16-digit card number!), which stays the same for every use of the card/watch/phone. The ticket checker's terminal does a database lookup to check if the card is currently "tapped-in" (London says "in" and "out"; we say "on" and "off"). If it's not, you get a fine.

@riddlinrussell - Correct. Tapping in creates a kind of pre-authorisation on your card to the value of a one-day travel pass. If your card issuer does not approve this, then the tap-in will fail, and you'll have to either use a different card or go through some hoops with your own one to get it to work again. If you're successful, then at the end of the day, you get charged only for what was used. At the end of the week, you can be refunded again if your spend that week exceeded the weekly fare cap for the times and zones you were travelling in. No monetary amount is requested on a tap out, so that will always work.

A common user problem with contactless payments is that users will sometimes tap on with one card, and off with another - that results in one full price day pass (no tap out), and one penalty fare (tap out without tap in). This is a particular tripwire for people using Apple's Watch and iPhone as payment methods, because the Watch and Phone do not share the same ID (they're not allowed to); they are two "cards" on the same payment account.

markpb

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122716406#Comment_122716406

You can't just cobble together a card reader from a kids science kit, install it on thousands of buses and hundreds of train & tram stations and expect it to work. There are major obstacles to that.

The first is certification. Before a reader can start accepting payments, it has to pass PCI PTS security certification to make sure that it can't be compromised to leak or (improperly) capture card details. Then the software on it has to pass acceptance certification by the acquirer. The second test is straight-forward, the first is not.

The second, and maybe the harder problem, is that is has to work in a hostile environment. The on-board units must work 18h a day, 7 days a week, attached to a pole that vibrates constantly (but not evenly). It has to carry on working even though it's being shook all day long. You also have to account for it taking a wallop several times a day as people hit it on the way on/off the bus, probably with the anvil collection in their bags. Depending on the age of the bus, it probably won't have a reliable power supply so you'll have to deal with that as well.

And once you solve all that, your software will need to receive updated configuration constantly, it might need new firmware occasionally (also acquirer certified). You'll need a management application to handle all that and a gateway to process the taps from the reader and get them to the acquirer. That gateway needs to be PCI DSS certified and, depending on the protocol used (transit has its own card acceptance protocol), it might need to be scheme certified.

Your reader will probably die at some stage (hardware has a tendency to do that) and will need to be replaced (not repaired - the security requirements make them hard to repair) so you'll need to budget for a supply of spare hardware and people to fit it. If it's lucky to live to the ripe old age of 5, it will probably see it's PTS certification expire so you'll need to build a new reader that meets any new requirements.

Luckily no-one takes that approach so they buy off the shelf readers that already have their certification and have dealt with all those problems. But you'll pay a premium for that. The management software is generally licensed on a per-device basis so that cost will scale with the size of the fleet.

The other part that people are ignoring is that the total project costs will presumably include the card processing costs for the lifetime of the contract. Acquirers charge a fixed fee per transaction and a percentage of the transaction value. Gateways will do the same. That means a small percentage of everyone's travel costs will be paid to those companies every day for over a decade and that will probably be included in the figure being mentioned by Newstalk. DB alone carried 146m passengers last year. If they had a (totally invented) average fare of €1, then the card processing costs could easily be over a million euro a year.

PlatformNine

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122716798#Comment_122716798

fair enough. I didn't realise that was possible. I suppose if that's the case they could mostly replace regular leap cards provided they use leap card fees rather than cash fees?

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122717377#Comment_122717377

If there are the added fees for contactless payments would that mean they would be operating on a higher fare? Or would the NTA eat the costs? Or does it not add enough to warrant a higher fare?

markpb

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122717456#Comment_122717456

The NTA are already paying card scheme fees as part of the Leap card, it's just that those fees are paid when the Leap card is topped-up, not when the passenger travels. There's no change because of the new ticket type.