Queue for the Luas at Stephens Green

jesus_thats_gre

This was the queue to buy a Luas ticket at a about 3:30pm this evening..

From using the Luas regularly, the design at St. Stephens Green is the biggest flaw I have noticed. 4 ticket machine really is not sufficient.

This was only what was in front of me. The queue stretched behind me to the end of the platform towards Harcourt Street. The same length of queue was present on the opposite side of the tracks also.

murphaph

jesus_thats_gre wrote:

From using the Luas regularly, the design at St. Stephens Green is the biggest flaw I have noticed. 4 ticket machine really is not sufficient.

People will have to learn to use season tickets. I know that at the moment with the horribly dis-integrated system this is easier said than done. Please God the introduction of smart cards (not integrated ticketing!) to Luas will have some impact. It's gonna be 2006 before we see integrated ticketing rolled out, and even then God knows how effective it will be. The queues do show one thing-the massive pent-up demand for rail based travel in Dublin. DRP anyone?

De Rebel

jesus_thats_gre wrote:

This was the queue to buy a Luas ticket at a about 3:30pm this evening..

Week before last (Thursday 3rd) i arrived at Stephens green at about 10.30am hoping to join the luas. 2 of the 4 ticket machines were out of order. There were no more than 8 people ahead of me in the queue. It took the best part of 20minutes to get a ticket. 3 trains departed while I was queueing.

Totally and completly infuriating. I don't know what it is about those machines and the way people react to them, but for some reason they are a real bottleneck.

I use the luas infrequently, certainly not enough to warrant getting a season ticket. A carnet would be much more useful, even if it didn't offer a discount.

jesus_thats_gre

It nearly made me hop on without getting the ticket.. I had planned to show the ticket inspector the queue as an explanation of why I had no ticket 3 came and went while I was in the queue too.. Sucks

John R

jesus_thats_gre wrote:

It nearly made me hop on without getting the ticket.. I had planned to show the ticket inspector the queue as an explanation of why I had no ticket 3 came and went while I was in the queue too.. Sucks

They are under strict orders not to accept that excuse and issue a penalty fare.

JDxtra

murphaph wrote:

People will have to learn to use season tickets.

Season tickets are useless for occasional Luas travellers like me. What I would like is to be able to pre-purchase a pack of 5 or 10 single trip Luas tickets and keep them in my wallet for whenever I need them.

ixoy

Hey jesus, I was at that queue about 15 mins before you and it was annoying - however, at that time, noone was using the opposite side. My friend pointed out and we ran over and got our tickets - but the queue split then and followed u - sorry

More seriously, people seemed to be having trouble with the machines. It seemed only one was working on the side of the green and people were hovering over it, with confused looks on their faces. Personally I think it's fairly straightforward but it still seems to be a bottleneck point. Not sure what can be done though.

Makaveli

Massive queues have started forming since the new Dundrum shopping centre opened. Most of the time it's because people havent a clue what they are doing when they get to the machines. Luas should have a few people there to show people how to use the machines like they did when Luas launched.
It's a pain in the ass, but usually I have a return ticket so I don't have to queue up for a ticket at Stephens Green.

murphaph

jdempsey wrote:

Season tickets are useless for occasional Luas travellers like me. What I would like is to be able to pre-purchase a pack of 5 or 10 single trip Luas tickets and keep them in my wallet for whenever I need them.

But if all the frequent users had them the queues for you would be reduced. Your idea for a 10 journey ticket will soon be available to you, albeit in electronic form (smart card).

penexpers

The biggest problem I think is the type of tickets they sell. I.e single/return tickets have to be used within 90 minutes etc... In other cities they have it that a ticket can be used whenever, which means people can buy say 10 tickets at a time and use them up as they go along.

kenmc

Makaveli wrote:

Most of the time it's because people havent a clue what they are doing when they get to the machines. Luas should have a few people there to show people how to use the machines like they did when Luas launched.

Yeah the machines are incredibly slow. even if you know the exact sequence of presses you can only do it so fast. And the printing/change process is very slow. Then you get people thinking it's a bloody playstation and pressing all the buttons looking for tetris....

Victor

Why didn't all these "revellers" have return tickets :rolleyes:

John R

De Rebel wrote:

I use the luas infrequently, certainly not enough to warrant getting a season ticket. A carnet would be much more useful, even if it didn't offer a discount.

That would only work if there was validation on entering the tram or station.

The electronic ticketing will act in a similar way, you will be able to buy x number of tickets or a certain amount of credit.
Maybe the queues will help to encourage less frequent users into getting the smartcard when it is available.

jesus_thats_gre

The number and location of the ticket machines are the problem..

There should obviously be more than 4 ticket machines for such a central location. They should also be slightly further back from the track. It is chaos when there is large queue's for the machines, people waiting for an arriving tram on the edge of the platform and then people exiting the same tram.. Just too many people for such a cramped space. The barriers should be moved back about 10 feet. The existing machines shouldnt be side by side. There should be some machines about 20 feett back down the platform towards Grafton Street as well, i.e. totally away from the platform.

parsi

kenmc wrote:

Yeah the machines are incredibly slow. even if you know the exact sequence of presses you can only do it so fast. And the printing/change process is very slow. Then you get people thinking it's a bloody playstation and pressing all the buttons looking for tetris....

Oh ? There isn't Tetris - well that was a waste of time..

I've only used them a few times but I note that if you go for the quick option it doesn't actually display a "put in your money now" message - I can't remember the actually terminology but it did seem unclear..

Imposter

The problem with the setup is the irish mentality. How long does it take to load buses in Dublin due to the amount of people that want ot pay in cash despite there being all manner of prebought tickets available?

Over here in Linz (admittedly a smaller city, but still has a heavily used tram system) the tram system has similar ticket machines but there is only ever one (on each side) at each stop. There is never a long queue. Maximum I've seen is 3 or 4 people in front of me. People can buy multitrip tickets in newsagents, they can buy weekely and monthly tickets from the machines as well as being able to buy all of the above and yearly tickets from the companies HQ. The multitrip tickets need validation and the machines can handle this. I really can't understand why it's not in some way similar in Ireland.

Tarabuses

Imposter wrote:

I really can't understand why it's not in some way similar in Ireland.

It seems that someone forgot to put validators in the ticket machines over here. As a consequence we cannot buy tickets in advance of travel unless we are regular users of the tram who can avail of weekly, monthly or annual passes.

Metrobest

Four machines does seem a bit ridiculous. I witnessed a huge queue at about 1pm today. My heart went out to the lemmings stuck in it.

There should be conductors on peak-time trams to handle ticket sales. Conductors have the dual role of checking tickets as people enter, therefore ruling out the need for ticket checkers. This system operates on most of Amsterdam's tram lines - which means you don't have people tearing their hair out in unneccessary queues.

Occasional users/tourists cannot be expected to buy season tickets, so that's out. The ticket that DOES work is the Dutch 'national strip ticket' which doesn't have to be used within a particular time and is valid on all forms of transport. And it's cheap!

Victor

Imposter wrote:

Over here in Linz (admittedly a smaller city, but still has a heavily used tram system) the tram system has similar ticket machines but there is only ever one (on each side) at each stop. There is never a long queue. Maximum I've seen is 3 or 4 people in front of me. People can buy multitrip tickets in newsagents, they can buy weekely and monthly tickets from the machines as well as being able to buy all of the above and yearly tickets from the companies HQ. The multitrip tickets need validation and the machines can handle this. I really can't understand why it's not in some way similar in Ireland.

Except for the multitrip tickets, Luas is nearly identical, except that you can get your tickets from local (to Luas) newsagents instead of Luas HQ.

Alun

Metrobest wrote:

Occasional users/tourists cannot be expected to buy season tickets, so that's out. The ticket that DOES work is the Dutch 'national strip ticket' which doesn't have to be used within a particular time and is valid on all forms of transport. And it's cheap!

Ah, the dreaded "Strippenkaart"! Lots of tourists are confused about these as well, so usually enter the tram/bus waving them at the driver who validates them for them.

John R

The luas smartcard is now operational. So there should be little excuse for these queues in the future, or at least there should be no excuse for all the non-lemmings to be caught up in the queues.

http://luassmartcard.luas.ie/index.shtml

Zaph0d

Is the smart card transferable?

Looks like it to me?

John R

Zaph0d wrote:

Is the smart card transferable?

Looks like it to me?

If you mean transferable between people then yes.
If it is bought from a shop it is anonymous, registering your details with luas is voluntary.

It is not allowed for two or more people to use it at the same time though.

murphaph

Alun wrote:

Ah, the dreaded "Strippenkaart"! Lots of tourists are confused about these as well, so usually enter the tram/bus waving them at the driver who validates them for them.

Funny, I've seen exactly the same confusion with the Streifenkarte on German systems. They rarely seem to work out good value either.

mackerski

murphaph wrote:

Funny, I've seen exactly the same confusion with the Streifenkarte on German systems. They rarely seem to work out good value either.

I can't speak for other cities, but the Munich Streifenkarte is the cheapest way for infrequent (or irregular) users to travel. It's cheaper than a single ticket, which helps avoid queues at machines. It's more expensive than a daily ticket _if_ you intend to do a lot of hop-on-hop-off, but people purchasing daily tickets don't clog up the vending machines either.

The biggest snag with the Streifenkarte is that visitors unfamiliar with them always need to be shown once how to use them.

Dermot