Question about the Luas and tickets

billy the squid

having been in dublin last weekend I had the opportunity to take a spin on the LUAS tram but noticed something odd.

people were expected to buy their ticket from the machine and then just get on.

there was nobody there to make sure that each passenger had a ticket. so my question is how do they make sure that everyone has paid to use it. I was on it three times over the weekend and not once was my ticket checked, and neither was anyone elses.

I had the whole tram to myself on sunday morning so it wouldnt have been to hard to check the ticket then.

My journey from the City Centre to heuston station on sunday (approx 6pm) was very uncomfortable, there must have been 400 more people on it than should have been. it made a sardine can look like a five star condominium. so I guess health and safety measures are not being policed either.

John R

billy the squid wrote:

having been in dublin last weekend I had the opportunity to take a spin on the LUAS tram but noticed something odd.

people were expected to buy their ticket from the machine and then just get on.

there was nobody there to make sure that each passenger had a ticket. so my question is how do they make sure that everyone has paid to use it. I was on it three times over the weekend and not once was my ticket checked, and neither was anyone elses.

I had the whole tram to myself on sunday morning so it wouldnt have been to hard to check the ticket then.

My journey from the City Centre to heuston station on sunday (approx 6pm) was very uncomfortable, there must have been 400 more people on it than should have been. it made a sardine can look like a five star condominium. so I guess health and safety measures are not being policed either.

There is not full coverage ticket checking, the idea is that it is not worth the risk of the high penalty fare.

There should be no need to police for overcrowding, the trams are full of people not cattle if there are too many people trying to get on then speak up and tell them to wait for the next one. Throughout the world there are commuter railways that are overcrowded at times, most if not all do not require staff to ensure that the passengers do not crush each other to death.

Trojan

It seems the clever people who designed the machines which dispense tickets were hungover on the day that they err, designed and manufactured them. It takes roughly 2.7 years for the machine to dole out a single ticket, which gives one plenty of time to watch the Luases float by while you're waiting patiently in line. You need to wait because there's only 2 machines to cater for the crowds - but that's ok, because the Irish Rail are downgrading so that trains arriving into Heuston only carry 5-10 passengers at most, and surely none of them want to go into town on the Luas - it's well known that the frequent and under-crowded #90 bus is the way to go.

Traffic

Three ticket machines are located at Heuston

Most ppl when buying their rail ticket will buy an add on for the Luas or the 90 into town
Most commuters will have a rambler ticket or weekly/monthly luas ticket to save them buying tickets on the platform

I think these are some of the reasons why there are not more ticket machines at the above stop.

Trojan

Traffic wrote:

Three ticket machines are located at Heuston

Two (2) ticket machines are on the city-bound side of the stop. I'm guessing you're not advocating running across the tracks when there's a Luas arriving shortly

Traffic wrote:

Most ppl when buying their rail ticket will buy an add on for the Luas or the 90 into town

If by "most" you mean "a small minority", then you might be right. "Most" people are in a rush when they get to Heuston station where they purchase their return ticket to Westport/Galway/Athlone and they're not thinking of adding on the price of a Luas onto their ticket, particularly when they're going to use it coming back. And when one arrives back it's hard to know if there'll be a 90 anytime soon, and if the Luas coming from Tallaght will have any room on there for the hoards waiting to get on.

A quick select button for a 1.25 one-way ticket from a machine that doesn't act like a lift in the Heart of Gold would be nice and might see a higher turnover of customers. And it won't make me livid as I have to watch another Luas go past as I wait in a queue of 11 people in the freezing cold on a Sunday evening because I'm afraid to get on without a ticket.

Ok, rant over

Trojan

And in case anyone doesn't know what the Heart of Gold is, here's a picture:

murphaph

For crying out loud, the ticket machines (made by Scheidt & Bachmann of Germany) are no slower or faster than any (of the very many systems I've used) around the world. People will have to either wait to buy their tickets or buy seasonal tickts. That's how it is everywhere too.

Trojan

murphaph: they are ridiculously slow.

I've also presented a reasonable solution to the fact that they take 2.7 years from starting to request ones ticket until printing.

Under my new system the voice recognition, adapted to take into account the difference between the northsoiders buying at Amien Street, and the southsiders buyin dem at De Sqeer, it should only take 0.5371ns for a ticket to be printed.

(For crying out loud).

I don't think that a quick-buy button is all that uncommon elsewhere...

enterprise

Taken from the Croydon Tramlink yahoo group.

Take a look at what he says about the Ticket machines - bet most of ya will be surprised. I wasn't!



The service was excellent (frequent and largely to time).

The trams were fantastic - very clean, very quiet, very smooth. I liked
the all glass partition behind the driver. The seats were good. Even
though only 2.4m wide, they felt roomier than NETs Incentros. Internal
PIDs quite poor - why are the LED arrays spaced out to give a line
missing each character and appear to flicker?
The fine of EUR2000 to pull the emergency door handle seemed harsh, but
perhaps it would help in Croydon - no fine at all mentioned on the
handle - probably something in a bylaw.

Ticket machines were outstanding. By far the best I've seen with clear
interface, even a map on how to connect from Abbey Street to St Stephens
Green.

PIDs were accurate, if a little small but building them into the advert
poles was interesting and made them fit in well. Some appeared in odd
positions though - those at Harcourt appeared the wrong way round with
respect to the side the trams departed from and the shelter blocked
their view.

The whole design of the system was very good and modern and things had
been designed to look good, not just be functional.

The Bridge at Dundrum was impressive - the LUAS logo at the top really
completing the landmark. The Green Line was far more interesting that I
had expected, considering it was ex-railway. A special stop for an
apartment block south of Dundrum was good. The Green line was very, very
fast.

The depots both looked extensive. They seemed a bit touchy about us
getting too close even to the entrance gate at Red Cow.

Passenger numbers were huge. Many trams were absolutly packed even
though they are very long, high capacity trams. Despite the lack of
conductors, the trams were absolutly spotless. Not a scratch, a mark, a
bit of litter - really good and the door open/close bleeps were nice and
quiet with a useful visual indicator.

On the down side, the Information at stops was appalling, bordering
non-existant. Information on interchange was non-existant. We wanted to
get a bus interchange from Red Cow to the Green line and gave up. We
also wanted to interchange to the Airbus at St Stephens Green as
advertised and gave up. Even the timetables are minimal.

The DART map didn't include LUAS. There was no integrated ticketing with
buses, DART and the Airbus. We saw no inspectors at any point, not even
on stops. A survey was being carried out on destinations but no other
questions were asked. Those in Croydon and Nottingham were much more
extensive and would have given better feedback and stats.

The trackwork looked very unfinished in many places - concrete slab
track looks awful and will only get worse as debris and dirt accumulate.
Traffic Light priority was poor too - we sat at one signal on the Red
Line for over 3 minutes awaiting a proceed. At others, we just had to
wait our turn.

Overall, a good day out and it only took just over 3hrs from stepping
off a LUAS tram to stepping on a Croydon Tram.


regards
--
Stephen J. Parascandolo (West Wickham, Kent, UK)
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Trojan

Accepted - they are pretty good. I love the Luas, think it's brilliant. Not perfect, but nothing is, and things can be improved.

Given the fact that "trams were absolutly packed even though they are very long, high capacity trams", and that we have the hardware in place (touchscreen), let me for the 3rd time in this thread suggest that a "quick-pay" option for a single journey would be extremely beneficial, particular at Heuston Station, where a lot of passengers-to-be arrive at the limited number of machines at the same time, and would be relatively simple to implement in software.

Wow, not really that unreasonable now is it? (For crying out loud)

enterprise

There is quick pay options for single / return journies from the various RED and GREEN zones into the CENTRAL zone.

However I do agree with you - a quick pay option at Heuston and Connolly for customers travelling within the CENTRAL zone would be of great benefit.