Train + College ID = Fined??

Cr8or

A friend of mine from kilester college got fined 80 euro today for presenting a College id as identification.. Is this the norm & why would you need a USIT id when you have your REAL student identification?

Seems like a money making exercise by the Bus / Rail network..

MarkoP11

I don't know why they don't take college id, it probably a central admin issue to keep a track of matters and to provide a single definitive card that staff have to deal with. There is a fraud issue fake ID cards where a major problem for CIE through the years it has reached the point where the annual tickets now have your photo on them

CIE dropped USIT a number of years ago and took the job in house which reduced the price by a fair bit and made it a lot quicker get one issued as well since it was doable by post not something I remember USIT doing

The rules are simple you must have a id card issued by CIE/Luas spin off http://www.studenttravelcard.ie/ infact your friend should never have even been issued the ticket (if it was a rail only bus and rial can be bought without production of id from shops)

Its 12 euro and you make that back in the first monthly ticket or first round trip to Cork/Limerick/Galway

Us students are killing CIE by traveling at almost child fares

Genghis

Its quite simple. You get vastly reduced fares as a student. All CIE ask in return is that you carry an verified ID which they sell for a reasonable €12. If you don't then you shouldn't be surprised if you are treated like a fare-dodger and fined.

There are probably a couple of hundred qualifying student centres in the country (Universities, DITs, ITTs, VECs, PLCs), all of whom issue their own IDs. It would be difficult in fairness to verify student ID with so much variety (not to mention fake ID).

Also, the reason CIE issue you with a student card is that it can be linked (via a unique number) to your ticket, which will have it printed on. This is to stop students / others transferring tickets between friends. It is also to ensure that the annual card expires (thus ensuring you don't claim student discounts for life).

Finally, all adult users who avail of discount fares (commuter, monthly, weekly, etc tickets) must carry ID, and are liable for the same fine. I am grateful for the discount my monthly ticket gives me, I carry the ID with me.

So money making exercise it is not. Hard luck maybe, carelessness more likely.

Capt'n Midnight

He could try writing in to see what the story is.

But with Tax disks for cars the fine is for "not displaying a valid tax disk" so in that case you'd have to pay up even if you had it at home.

John R

The tickets are not valid for travel if the student card is not with them.

Students have a damn cheek to complain about this, for a small fee and a 2 minute application form they are entitled to heavily subsidised fares that the rest of the population cannot get. And why? Because they are attending an institution where they are recieving free education, also subsidised by the rest of the population.

ubu

^^^ I wouldnt call €775 free education.

John R

ubu wrote:

^^^ I wouldnt call €775 free education.

I wouldn't call it paying for your own education either.

Besides the point I was making was about moaning over having to get a card to avail of cheap fares.

dundalk cailin

im over in france i got the 12-25 card, its 50 euro but gets u half price on trains, b4 i got that me n 2 others bought students tickets to where we were goin, we got caught but the woman let us off, bascally we were supposed to have that 12-25 card, i can c the point. we were jus chancin our arm

sceptre

John R wrote:

Students have a damn cheek to complain about this

Leaving aside the whole unrelated rant thing, I can only see one person actually veering towards actually complaining and that person (the OP) hasn't said whether he's a student or not. Nor whether his friend (the certain student) is actually complaining.

Moving on (and back), the first three responses have it pretty much bang on. It is the norm, the reduced fare is dependent on carrying and producing a designated card that entitles the particular individual to the reduced fare. Whatever the reasoning and whatever the logic, it's a simple rule, easy to understand and relatively easy to follow. As for the "why" question, also addressed, there's more control over the central issuing of a single ID card than there is in the individual institutions (I've at least one entirely authentically produced on an official machine UL ID card which states that I'm doing a PhD in applied ****aboutery, valid for another two years) as well as it being easier to recognise a designated single card than cards from a hundred different institutions. It makes perfect logical sense from the point of view of CIE in that they know whether a presented card is valid or not and from the point of view of the student in that the alternative to an easily-recognised card is a myriad of cards which may or may not be valid, which would probably lead to CIE dropping reduced fares for students altogether.

John R

sceptre wrote:

Leaving aside the whole unrelated rant thing, I can only see one person actually veering towards actually complaining and that person (the OP) hasn't said whether he's a student or not. Nor whether his friend (the certain student) is actually complaining.

Rant; yes, unrelated; no.

I took the "seems like a money making exercise" line from the OP as being a complaint, maybe I should have quoted it.

Even though the Student Travelcard is new there has always been a charge by CIE for a valid student identity. Previously it was through the CIE travelsave stamp on the back of a USIT card.

BTW the Student Travelcard is only necessary for Irish Rail and Dublin Bus student tickets. Bus Eireann accept student ID from most Irish 3rd level colleges (the full list is on their website) or a USIT card. Obviously they will accept the travelcard but it is not necessary to get one if you are only using Bus Eireann.

enterprise

I'm only going to say one thing!

HA HA and serves your mate right!

MarkoP11

There are a long list of reasons why CIE issue the cards, there are issues with the data protection act, how do you get the home address of a student if you didn't issue their id ? How would you allow students to use automatic and online ticket services without the system having a record ?

The current student travelcard is accepted by IE, DB, Luas and Bus Eireann

It will even be accepted by Translink in Northern Ireland

It is cheaper than the old setup with USIT 12 euro vs 15 pounds and there appears to be a growing list of discounts with various companies

I paid for mine with a single 88 mile journey, stop complaing and be thankful Iarnrod Eireann haven't found a way to kick students off the busiest Friday evening trains in favour of those paying higher fares

sceptre

John R wrote:

I took the "seems like a money making exercise" line from the OP as being a complaint, maybe I should have quoted it.

As did I but as I said above, he didn't say he was a student, just his friend. It would have been the same even if you'd quoted it. I suppose Cr8or could come back and confess but that'd be something we didn't have yesterday at 16:02.

BuffyBot

All CIE ask in return is that you carry an verified ID which they sell for a reasonable €12.

Most parts. Bus Eireann seem to accept normal college ID's. If they can, I'm not sure why the other bits of CIE and Connex can't follow along the same line.

http://www.buseireann.ie/site/your_journey/colleges.asp

embraer170

im over in france i got the 12-25 card, its 50 euro but gets u half price on trains,

A carte 12-25 is €24 last time I checked.

penexpers

embraer170 wrote:

A carte 12-25 is €24 last time I checked.

Must have been a long time ago then. In 2002 I paid €42 for mine and according to sncf.fr it's €49 this year.

Victor

penexpers wrote:

Must have been a long time ago then. In 2002 I paid €42 for mine and according to sncf.fr it's €49 this year.

Maybe theres a student discount.

embraer170

Must have been a long time ago then. In 2002 I paid €42 for mine and according to sncf.fr it's €49 this year.

I stand corrected. I bought mine this year but for some reason had €24 in my head. Sorry.

dundalk cailin

embraer170 wrote:

I stand corrected. I bought mine this year but for some reason had €24 in my head. Sorry.

well 49euro as penexpers said, i find that quite reasonable for the year, iv already saved the 50euro on a trip i made to friends of mine stayin elsewhere in france. got a bus ticket too for the town im staiyn 14euro for the month and u can use any town bus, v handy

dundalk cailin

france has a lot of good offers for students, bus ticket, train ticket, etc plus for people under 25, not jus students. and the min wage is higher here (i know this is not related exactly, but i was giving out bout the min in ireland in another thread)