Crazy price for Student Rail tickets

Zaph0d

Calina wrote:

Also, your efforts concentrate purely on those operations which are immediately obvious to you. Do you actually know what people who do not directly operate a train or sell tickets do in a train company?

Most service improvements in any company are initially suggested by customers. When there is little opportunity for customers to provide feedback or when there is a culture of deriding customers for their ignorance, a company tends to lose business to the competition- in this case bus, car and plane.

Calina

Zaph0d wrote:

Most service improvements in any company are initially suggested by customers. When there is little opportunity for customers to provide feedback or when there is a culture of deriding customers for their ignorance, a company tends to lose business to the competition- in this case bus, car and plane.

Zaph0d,

I wouldn't consider any of johnnyc's suggestions to even come close to representing a service improvement, given that he has suggested that several stations are closed and that the internet be the sole ticket distribution channel for Irish Rail.

The culture of deriding people works both way - and so that we are absolutely clear on this, I do NOT work for Irish Rail - I would say the whinging and complaining and name calling and derision directed towards employees of Irish Rail has been equally beneficial to people in their attempt to get customer service. That notwithstanding, there are plenty of contributions here highlighting the fact that trains are crowded, busy, people are standing. The number of passengers is up.

Zaph0d

Calina wrote:

The culture of deriding people works both way - and so that we are absolutely clear on this, I do NOT work for Irish Rail - I would say the whinging and complaining and name calling and derision directed towards employees of Irish Rail has been equally beneficial to people in their attempt to get customer service.

Unfortunately for IE it is businesses that must compete for customers and not the other way around. While no staff should have to deal with physical or verbal abuse, criticism should be welcome because that's what makes a company stronger.

calina wrote:

there are plenty of contributions here highlighting the fact that trains are crowded, busy, people are standing

From an internal company perspective, crowded trains are a good thing- lots of profit. From a customer point of view crowded trains are unwelcome. So the customer perspective is often not apparent to the internal experts too busy to listen their idiotic passengers.

The number of passengers is up.

I think your point here is that IE are doing very well thank you without the need to listen to whines and moans. IE carried a million less passengers from 2003-2004. If you exclude Dublin commuters they only sold about 4.5 million return journeys on their national rail network in 2004. Or about 1 return journey per head of the population per year. Clearly IE have a tiny market share and huge opportunity to improve and gain more passengers.

MarkoP11

Zaph0d wrote:

IE carried a million less passengers from 2003-2004.

That is linked to the DASH project the adjusted figure for 2004 was 37.2 million, up on the year before.

Calina

Zaph0d wrote:

Unfortunately for IE it is businesses that must compete for customers and not the other way around. While no staff should have to deal with physical or verbal abuse, criticism should be welcome because that's what makes a company stronger.From an internal company perspective, crowded trains are a good thing- lots of profit. From a customer point of view crowded trains are unwelcome. So the customer perspective is often not apparent to the internal experts too busy to listen their idiotic passengers.I think your point here is that IE are doing very well thank you without the need to listen to whines and moans. IE carried a million less passengers from 2003-2004. If you exclude Dublin commuters they only sold about 4.5 million return journeys on their national rail network in 2004. Or about 1 return journey per head of the population per year. Clearly IE have a tiny market share and huge opportunity to improve and gain more passengers.

Zaph0d, I don't have, per se, a problem with constructive criticism. But when the criticism is "Privatise everything, it's a waste of money" and no supporting argument as to how that is actually going to work in practice, well you'll have to forgive me, but I can't see how that is constructive or useful to anyone.

My main point - which you've clearly missed - is not that Irish Rail is doing very nicely without having to listen to whines and moans (which are rarely constructive to be honest with you) - but that it is nowhere near as catastrophic as 1) some people with no finger on the pulse of the reality of trying to run a rail operation make it out to be and 2) as it was 15 years ago when I started using the service. My view is there's a lot to be done, but strangely enough, I can see that it is being done, piece by piece, despite the fact that even by the standard of the massive increase in capital funding over the last six or seven years, it's still not being heavily funded.

It's obvious enough to me that it is an article of faith with some people that Irish Rail is a complete waste of space and we should be flying everywhere, which leaves me wondering what's the point.

shltter

johnnyc wrote:

Seanw sorry to tell you we need roads (even if the price is over inflated) we dont need a 2nd rate train service such as irish rail. this section must be an irish rail fan club. Irish rail recievces alot more then a pittance of a subsidy if there are a well run company they shouldn't need a subsidy<too many staff doing nothing>. Car insurance has actually fallen (not like the price of a train ticket) but is still a rip.

can you show us an example of a well run train system with no subsidy in a country with a similar population size and spread as ireland

the Fact is that the train systems that recieve the most praise here france germany etc are the most heavily subsidised

we tried running our train system on little or no subsidy what we got was line and station closures that we could badly do with now

SeanW

this section must be an irish rail fan club

You remind me of a few seemingly unwell individuals who used to post on IRN, who more or less repeat the line that if you don't condemn Irish Rail's every move, you must be five miles up their arse. It is not possible to have a rational debate with people who hold that view - I've tried to often, and usually came out bruised by individuals who either A) have no clue what they're talking about, or went on the offensive and attacked me personally.

There's a lot Irish Rail has done wrong, a lot of things where they've foked up - ill advised rolling stock purchases, fare/ticketing policies etc, and a lot of their plans I do not like at all - such as their plan to run the Dublin-Sligo line with 2900 railcars - but basically the service you recieve is more or less what government will finance and maintain.

Nobody says Irish Rail itself is perfect, you obviously have no clue what you're talking about when you say that Irish Rail should not need a subsidy. You wonder why we don't have low fares, HST, electrified mainlines, Metro-consistent DART schedules, simple fact is government never sanctioned any kind of continuous development and the railways have up until now been the kicking boy of government transportation budgets. Given some of the crappy engineering budgets CIE/IE have had over the years its simply amazing we have such an extensive system left, inadequate as it is.

SeanW

BTW if you want an example of a country that tried to run a railway without a subsidy look at Amtrak in the US, the government has been trying to get it off subsidies for years - it lead to spate of fatal accidents in the early '90s. Even today it's not great - the company is always 5 min. from going t*ts up, its fares are ridiculous and the trains crash all the time.

Also look at the US in general ... Do you really want that to happen here?

Thomond Pk

johnnyc wrote:

another point thomond alot of other roads came on budget and a year ahead of schedule such as ballincollig bypass.

What percentage of road projects came in on or below budget over the past five years?

This observer suspects you could easily count them on one hand, whilst the NRA had no financial accountant to negotiate projects and no in-house planner to deal with route selection issues the very cause of a number of highly questionable route selections.

When you address these issues with statistical backing I will address the fact that Iarnrod Eireann's surplus was only 2.4m Euro for 2004.

johnnyc

shltter wrote:

can you show us an example of a well run train system with no subsidy in a country with a similar population size and spread as ireland

the Fact is that the train systems that recieve the most praise here france germany etc are the most heavily subsidised

we tried running our train system on little or no subsidy what we got was line and station closures that we could badly do with now

Theres none because they are all run by socialist states where competition is a bad word for trade unions(france).If a company which could use the ryanair type model and charge a resonable fare such as 15euro return dublin-galway they would make massive in-roads into irish rails profits.All i am saying is that theres too many stations which are not economically viable come on the main line from dublin-tralee only 5 people got off on banteer. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to work out if you closed banteer and updated the car park facailites in mallow irish rail could charge for car parking(make more of a profit).

enterprise

You disgust me!

How DO YOU PROPOSE that people living in or near Banteer (for example) which have NO ACCESS to a car get themselves to Mallow?

MG

enterprise wrote:

You disgust me!

How DO YOU PROPOSE that people living in or near Banteer (for example) which have NO ACCESS to a car get themselves to Mallow?

Point to point rail travel has been a failure in Ireland. It saves money in the short term but in the long term it drives people into cars and off the trains. Integrated rail is the best way to maximise rails benefits. There may be some point to having different categories of trains - direct/express and local- as they do in other countries with an integrated local system feeding to and from designated hubs on the main lines.

johnnyc

enterprise wrote:

You disgust me!

How DO YOU PROPOSE that people living in or near Banteer (for example) which have NO ACCESS to a car get themselves to Mallow?

Take a bus!

parsi

johnnyc wrote:

Theres none because they are all run by socialist states where competition is a bad word for trade unions(france).If a company which could use the ryanair type model and charge a resonable fare such as 15euro return dublin-galway they would make massive in-roads into irish rails profits.All i am saying is that theres too many stations which are not economically viable come on the main line from dublin-tralee only 5 people got off on banteer. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to work out if you closed banteer and updated the car park facailites in mallow irish rail could charge for car parking(make more of a profit).

So will this Ryanair type model operator supply their own infrastructure and rolling stock ?

One reason Mr Aircoach is cheaper is that he only has to supply buses and drivers - the cost of repairing potholes isn't borne by him, the cost of new roads that will speed up his hourney isn't borne by him. So the logical comparison is between Bus Eireann and AIrcoach - both services are similarly priced.

enterprise

If you such an expert on Banteer, which quite frankly your not, you would know that Banteer has only two buses a week on Tuesdays and Thursday from Tralee to Cork via Ballydesmond. There is no bus service along the Rathmore - Mallow corridor.

Calina

MG wrote:

Integrated rail is the best way to maximise rails benefits. There may be some point to having different categories of trains - direct/express and local- as they do in other countries with an integrated local system feeding to and from designated hubs on the main lines.

I'd normally go along with this except that as far as I recall, the Kerry line is a single track which may make it difficult to implement on that line from a timetabling and signalling point of view.

The point is no matter what we do, however we decide to organise it, it's going to cost money to implement and johnnyc doesn't appear to be able to understand this.

MG

CIE have not been allowed to follow a Ryanair strategy because they have been starved of investment for years and are unable to develop capacity. In the circumstances they took the logical step where demand outstripped supply and increased prices.

Calina

johnnyc wrote:

Theres none because they are all run by socialist states where competition is a bad word for trade unions(france).If a company which could use the ryanair type model and charge a resonable fare such as 15euro return dublin-galway they would make massive in-roads into irish rails profits.All i am saying is that theres too many stations which are not economically viable come on the main line from dublin-tralee only 5 people got off on banteer. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to work out if you closed banteer and updated the car park facailites in mallow irish rail could charge for car parking(make more of a profit).

To be able to make money running a train service much as Ryanair does flying planes, a company is going to have to have an awful lot of sources of ancillary revenue. Such as agreements with car hire companies and hotel booking companies and they are going to have to sell a lot of car hire and a lot of hotel rooms to get anything like enough commission to subsidise their train fares. Also, they will be selling a lot overpriced food on their trains. To be honest with you, I'm not really that sure if a full implementation of the Ryanair business model is a goer in a market of fewer than 100million people, train or plane. Also, Ryanair depends on a lot of indirect government subsidies - Charleroi and Strasbourg being two major examples.

Still going to cost money, you know...

MarkoP11

MG wrote:

CIE have not been allowed to follow a Ryanair strategy because they have been starved of investment for years and are unable to develop capacity. In the circumstances they took the logical step where demand outstripped supply and increased prices.

IE do not set the fares, they apply through the Dept of Enterprise if they want a fare increase. IE rarely get what they want. This is the upper price, only the turn up and go single and return (child and adult) are controlled so IE are free to deploy a Ryanair yield management style system provided the fares do not exceed the upper limit. They had tried it out but without the capacity it makes little sense

Student prices are uncontrolled and have increased by a greater extent than normal fares

MG

The point is that there is always pressure on the government and IE to keep subventions low. In a situation where demand is greater than supply (and there is no ability to increase supply) the incentive to increase prices is always greater than yield management-type systems. As you say, IE would like to actually increase these further than they are allowed. The governments historical unwillingness or inability to invest in the railways and simultaneous need to keep subsidies low lead to price increases. A double whammy on IE restricted in their ability to change away from a higher price model and unable to get higher prices under the current model.

Zaph0d

Calina wrote:

To be able to make money running a train service much as Ryanair does flying planes, a company is going to have to have an awful lot of sources of ancillary revenue. Such as agreements with car hire companies and hotel booking companies and they are going to have to sell a lot of car hire and a lot of hotel rooms to get anything like enough commission to subsidise their train fares. Also, they will be selling a lot overpriced food on their trains.

Did you wonder how Irish Rail managed to lose €1.3m last year on its catering division? The business model involves selling pints to Irish people locked into a box. How in Christ's name could this not result in a profit?

Blaming the staff for stealing the takings won't do when companies like Ryanair can extract profits from unsupervised airborne staff selling food.

Zaph0d

MarkoP11 wrote:

...so IE are free to deploy a Ryanair yield management style system provided the fares do not exceed the upper limit. They had tried it out but without the capacity it makes little sense

Are off-peak trains always full? surely not?

Calina

Zaph0d wrote:

Did you wonder how Irish Rail managed to lose €1.3m last year on its catering division? The business model involves selling pints to Irish people locked into a box. How in Christ's name could this not result in a profit?

Blaming the staff for stealing the takings won't do when companies like Ryanair can extract profits from unsupervised airborne staff selling food.

Well, personally I wouldn't start by automatically blaming the staff for stealing the takings, first off. Without actually having a look at the catering accounts specifically, I wouldn't even pretend to guess, but that's just me.

Secondly, has it occurred to you that maybe - just maybe - not everyone wants to get hammered on a train? That there are more convivial places to do it? Personally, after an aeroplane, it's the last place I want to go drinking.

If I was forced to make a guess, I'd be looking at two things 1) the range of items on offer and 2) the level of stock on board. It doesn't have to be all alcohol related. Also, if you'll look back at some of my earlier posts you might have noticed alternative sales channels for food on trains namely vending machines?

johnnyc

Calina wrote:

I'd normally go along with this except that as far as I recall, the Kerry line is a single track which may make it difficult to implement on that line from a timetabling and signalling point of view.

The point is no matter what we do, however we decide to organise it, it's going to cost money to implement and johnnyc doesn't appear to be able to understand this.

Calina i do understand what you are saying but i recon irish rail could become more competitive by remvoing train stations that dont deal with enough commuting traffic for example banteer is only 5 minutes up the road from mallow, rathmore is only 15 mins up the road from killarney so they dont have a massive customer base what is the fuss about. If irish rail want to become competive it should update its car parks it also should have a bus terminal to deal with customers from outside the main train stations?

Zaph0d

Calina wrote:

The point is no matter what we do, however we decide to organise it, it's going to cost money to implement and johnnyc doesn't appear to be able to understand this.

Many improvements don't cost money just imagination and courage or political support. In a world where the politicians put the needs of passengers ahead of the short term interests of the rail staff, the catering division would be disbanded and outsourced or the manager fired and the division restructured. We choose politicians who perpetuate this system so we can only blame ourselves.

The other option would be to provide a larger subsidy to the loss making catering division at the expense of taxpayers.

Have you ever noticed all the office workers buying their lunches from vending machines? I haven't. Tayto for main course, skittles for dessert. And you can't sell a bottle of beer at 200% profit from a vending machine due to age restrictions.

Calina

johnnyc wrote:

Calina i do understand what you are saying but i recon irish rail could become more competitive by remvoing train stations that dont deal with enough commuting traffic for example banteer is only 5 minutes up the road from mallow, rathmore is only 15 mins up the road from killarney so they dont have a massive customer base what is the fuss about. If irish rail want to become competive it should update its car parks it also should have a bus terminal to deal with customers from outside the main train stations?

Yes, but you have signally failed to prove it as an idea. I'm sorry, all I'm seeing here is piecemeal un-thought out ideas. Nor am I actually seeing any evidence that you understand what I'm saying. Please tell me WHY you think closing Banteer and Rathmore would make Iarnrod Eireann more competitive. I agree with you that the whole carparking at railway stations needs to be improved where possible - but I'm absolutely not with you that Iarnrod Eireann need to charge. It's counterproductive to getting people onto the train system which is important on environmental grounds. In any case, you've failed to even describe HOW it would make IE more competitive.

Additionally, it would be useful if the main railway stations had bus terminals connected. Unfortunately, there isn't much room for that in Cork or at Heuston. Busaras is straight across the road from Connolly Station so I guess you have your wish there.

Rathmore has a massive customer base. At the weekend, people travel sixty miles from the end of West Cork to pick up the train there. I'm starting to think that you passed through Banteer on one occasion and counted the people who got off the train there and assumed it was the same every time. Of course, I could be wrong, but it's not like you've given me any reason to think otherwise.

Closing two stations on the Kerry line is unlikely to increase competitiveness for Irish Rail. You might as well make an argument for closing Farranfore because God help us all, Farranfore actually has an airport, so what do they want with a train station. But hell, maybe people get the train from Banteer to Farranfore to pick up planes to London. I don't know, but I know it's what I'd do if I lived in Banteer or Rathmore rather than dragging my ass to Cork or Shannon if it was possible. They wouldn't be able to do that if you closed Banteer or Rathmore railway station.

But above all else, you've signally failed to prove that your plans would result in Iarnrod Eireann requiring lower subsidies, and making greater profits. A number of people have pointed out to you that what you have suggested has led to a major deterioration in the rail services in the UK, along with a five fold increase in required government subsidisation. Given the population of the UK, and the size of the network, that's almost criminal. All the best run and operating train services in the world are heavily subsidised, unionised and functioning. You have failed to come up with a single example of one that isn't, and actually claim not to able to. That hugely weakens your position.

Most of your ideas are examples of tinkering, and unfortunately, tinkering is what has Iarnrod Eireann in the state it's in. Very few people have the guts to sit up and suggest that a lot of things need to be done to get us a viable train service. Things which cost a lot of money.

You don't appear to be able to look at a large scale picture. For example, some people have talked about the electrification of the train service. Yes, it needs to be done, for the obvious reason that the oil is going to run out - face it - and therefore alternative sources of power will be required. At least alternative sources of electrical supply are being looked at at the moment. But it's not anyone's top priority at the moment. We need to get more long haul travel on to the rail system for environmental reasons - but to do that, we have to put a lot of money into public transport - not just the train system because if you have a look at a rail route map of Ireland, currently, there are huge swathes of the country which are not served by rail lines.

We could do with highspeed lines between Cork and Dublin and Belfast and Dublin but they will cost an absolute fortune and will not show a return on investment for years and years and years. Even if we could get them past planning in this country - not very likely to be a quick operation - they will still take years and years to build. Given the country's inability to accept that things we need will cost money and may not show a return on that investment for years, and our inability to viably manage large scale projects apart from a handful of roads out of a massive roadbuilding programme, I think the odds of it happening are analagous to a snowball's chance in hell. I know someone suggested that as Iarnrod Eireann already owned the lines the planning side of things would be easier. I don't agree because for highspeed rail to be a goer, it really needs dedicated lines that it doesn't share with local traffic. Kildare to Dublin is a case in point. We need new lines for a highspeed service there.

My view is this. We have no hope of getting a first class train service without making huge capital investment and recognising that while it will cost money directly, it will have other indirect benefits on an environmental and social level.

If, by the way, you wanted to run a Ryanair model, the result would be Tralee Dublin would actually be something like, oh, Rathmore to Cherry Orchard.

Helpful.

Calina

Zaph0d wrote:

Have you ever noticed all the office workers buying their lunches from vending machines? I haven't. Tayto for main course, skittles for dessert. And you can't sell a bottle of beer at 200% profit from a vending machine due to age restrictions.

I haven't seen anyone buying lunch on a train for ages. Something to do with the lack of options on board.

You're hung up on selling beer on trains - personally I think alcohol should be banned from trains and aeroplanes but that's just me having had to deal with a few too many drunken louts on both and it's an argument for another day.

Either it is inherently unprofitable to sell catering on board a train or it isn't not. If it is profitable then mostly I find that when things aren't making profits it's a lack of management vision issue, not a staff issue.

johnnyc

Calina my business model would involve reducing the number of staff by two ways close train stations such as rathmore and banteer because they haven't a large customer base and also by using the net. Eventually we will be booking tickets through the net for trains.

I would relocated the farranfore train station and place it closer to the airport. Killarney train station and mallow should have a bigger car park which would deal with the demand from west cork and mid cork.

I actually agree with u that we should have a high speed lines from dublin-cork, dublin-belfast and galway. This is why i have mention a goverment agency to deal with the configuration of the railways. I honestly believe if we had a goverment agency their we would see faster change within the country. This body would be made up of people lets say from the irish rail companies and managers of other bodies outside of this country who have experience of high speed trains.

MarkoP11

Zaph0d wrote:

Are off-peak trains always full? surely not?

But you have to come back, IE tried this on off peak trains, but with the classic 3 trains a day on many lines there is little choice but to travel at the peak times, that will be addressed starting from December when Sligo goes from 3 to 5 trains a day, extra services have been added to Galway and Waterford over the last few years

shltter

johnnyc wrote:

Theres none because they are all run by socialist states where competition is a bad word for trade unions(france).If a company which could use the ryanair type model and charge a resonable fare such as 15euro return dublin-galway they would make massive in-roads into irish rails profits.All i am saying is that theres too many stations which are not economically viable come on the main line from dublin-tralee only 5 people got off on banteer. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to work out if you closed banteer and updated the car park facailites in mallow irish rail could charge for car parking(make more of a profit).

France is a socialist state when did that happen has anyone told Chiraq what are the other socialist states is berlusconni a socialist.I suppose Bertie is a socialist as well along with comrade harney :rolleyes:


what you are suggesting was tried by the tories in the UK and it has been an unmitigated disaster from a passenger safety point of view from the taxpayers point of view where the subsidy to the now private operators has increased 5 fold

there is no ryanair style rail operator in the UK fares have risen the unions are actually stronger than ever they were under BR. Employees have little loyalty to the company they are currently employed by

the ryanair model can not be just transfered tp different modes of transport just because you want it to

there is little or no spare capacity on irish rail to offload at cheaper prices