€27m bill for the integrated ticketing project

They use contactless smart cards (CSCs) on the new tram system in Montpellier. Ticket validating machines are in place at each entrance door on the tram. You don’t have to remove the CSC from its container – it can stay in a woman’s handbag, purse or wallet and she just swipes the bag within 3cms of the reader and it beeps to acknowledge the validation. CSCs work far faster than the chips on bank payment cards, which take about three seconds to read and authenticate themselves to the POS or ATM device.

Each tram stop has a ticket vending machine which dispenses ordinary cardboard tickets with a magnetic stripe on the back (ISO credit card size) for single trips (cost EUR 1,20) and day tickets (cost EUR 5,00 and this covers 1 to 5 people travelling together – putting groups of people off using a car).

The vending machine also recharges CSCs with ticket value. Two types of recharge are available.

(a) A time recharge – ie add another week or month’s unlimited travel to your card or

(b) A trip recharge – ie add another 10 or 20 trips to your card.

The ticket vending machine accepts coins, debit and credit cards, and is online to the banknet for card authorization, and has five language options. Coins and credit cards are a lower security risk than a machine that takes banknotes.

Each tram stop seems to be on a data network to support the ticketing machine, credit card validation, the information display signs which show when the next tram is due, take the feed from the security cameras, and deliver PA announcements to waiting passengers – all doable over a single IP network.


The downsides of the system:

1) Any form of ticket validation on a tram is a potential safety risk. Trams move off from a stop relatively quickly and while this is not a problem for people who are seated or who are catching on to something, I have noticed the odd elderly person engrossed in taking a ticket card out of their wallet losing their balance as the tram moved off. The two hands were occupied holding the purse or wallet and removing the ticket card, leaving nothing to hold on with. Dangerous. Might get away with it in a civil law country - hardly in where's my lawyer Ireland.

2) The CSC system is expensive to install and maintain.

An alternative to validation overkill and safety risks:

1) Few tickets need to be validated for control purposes, and those that do can be validated at the tram or bus stop in advance of boarding.

a) One off tickets don’t need validation. The ticket vending machine at the stop issues them with a time limit already printed on them at the time of issue.

b) Tickets that are valid for a day, week, month etc. don’t need to be validated during each trip. They can be validated at the start of their use once at the tram stop ticket machine.

c) Multi-trip tickets (eg valid for 10 trips) can be validated at the start of each trip at the tram or bus stop.

d) One or two ticket dispensing and validation machines combined at each tram stop are cheaper and easier to service than a dozen smart and mag stripe readers on each tram – on top of the ticket machine at each stop.

3) Montpellier is a small city (about 30,000 more than Cork) and has only one tram line with a single fare. In a large urban area you will need multiple fare zones – ie a trip from O’Connell Street to St. Stephen’s Green should cost less than a trip from the city centre to Sandyford. The on tram validation process doesn’t do anything to stop someone pay for the short journey and staying on the tram until it gets to Sandyford.

You therefore need ticket inspectors performing spot checks on a systematic basis across the network. A tram has perhaps eight doors for people to get on and off. This gives it a short dwell time at each stop.

One of the inefficiencies of the urban bus systems in Ireland is the dwell time at each stop due to the absence of multiple doors, and ticket issuing and validation queues. An average of 1 minute wasted at each stop during the peak period will add 20 minutes to a journey involving 20 stops. Not very efficient either for the bus operator in terms of maximising return on assets and driver labour costs. It also needlessly holds up traffic (including other buses) on ordinary streets and roads that aren’t equipped with indented bus stops.

Cities that have trams in Switzerland and Germany for example generally also have no on board ticket issue or validation formalities, because it is such a global resource waster.

Stations that don’t have ticket checking machines can be smaller and therefore occupy less real estate to process the same peak time flow as passengers walk straight to the train. Since road pricing was introduced in London, many metro stations suffer peak time queues into the street – part of this is due to the ticket checking process. A station that allows the passenger walk straight to the train is more efficient and user-friendly – particularly for someone with a suitcase or other large object!

Statistical sampling and random inspections on board the vehicle would offer a better solution. Equip each ticket inspector with a PDA that can read the magnetic stripe on the ticket and confirm their validity. The PDA should be equipped with a receipt printer and credit card reader to facilitate the efficient collection of unpaid fares at “on board” ticket prices. i.e. it is much cheaper to buy your ticket before you get on the tram or bus!

The PDA could collect a rich source of data for analysis:

1) The incidence of fare avoidance on each route by time of day, day of week, amount of fare, route number, zone number, etc. This would allow the probability of avoidance to be computed for each service from the statistics built up over time – allowing ticket inspection manpower to be deployed in the most efficient manner.

2) It would collect all the statistics necessary for divvying out the revenues in the pot of money collected into the integrated ticketing pool between the various participating operators on a zone by zone basis.

Fares should be structured to encourage people to subscribe to the system on a long term basis. Anyone buying a one-off ticket should be expected to pay a high price. Integrated ticketing is also a national issue. The inter-city tickets issued in Cork, Limerick and Galway etc should have travel rights for at least the central zone in Dublin as standard, and the EUR 1 or 2 cost added to the intercity fare. Use public transport when you get to Dublin because it is “free”. If you decide to use a taxi or get someone to clog up the streets in their car to pick you up at the station, consider the EUR 1 or 2 an environmental tax on your chosen mode of transport! The huge numbers of people who get off trains could then jump on buses or trams without any ticket issuing or validation delays – reducing end to end journey times and making the public transport option even more efficient.

I can’t see any systemwide benefit in using a contactless smart card. It is impractical on a tram and expensive to implement. The security benefits associated with credit cards do not arise because if you asked each passenger to enter a PIN as well to confirm their identity the process would take ages.

Switzerland, Germany and many other continental countries have had integrated ticketing for decades – long before the CSC was invented. Involving multiple independent service providers. Keep it simple or it will take ages. While Montpellier’s designer tram system was conceived after Luas came on the radar screen, it has been up and running for at least two years!

One doesn’t have to wait for the PDAs and related software to be put together to get the new tram system running. Ticket inspections can be done visually during any hiatus period that might arise. All that is required is one or two ticket issuing and validation machines at each stop to start the money rolling in.

Floater

Originally posted by Victor
I don't think this is a problem if you have notices like the Docklands Light Railway "This is a high accelleration vehicle - you MUST always hold onto a safety rail". Once this message is put across, biddy has little reason to sue.

Then biddy doesn't have to pay! The second I got into the tram it shot off your honour. I held on tight and was unable to validate my ticket. Next minute a ticket inspector is next to me asking to check my ticket and now wants to surcharge me EUR 50 on top of the ticket price. I refuse to pay the extra. My health and safety is more important. Here is my EUR 1.20.

Besides they don't have on board validation on DLR. Ages since I have been on it. Scenic in parts. Dreadfully unreliable.

Floater

Originally posted by maxheadroom
We already have something similar to this. Its called short hop, medium hop, long hop, giant hop. Its not integrated though (although you can buy integrated bus/rail short hop tickets). Theres a very rudimentary map of it on bus eireann's site here

You can't run an open integrated ticketing system on the basis of that type of concentric zone structure. I'll post something on creating a fair fare system in the next day or so.

Floater

The existing fare zone system used in the Dublin region is centred on Dublin city centre, and makes no provision for someone living in one town or suburb commuting to another town or suburb – short of purchasing a very expensive ticket every week or month for what is a short trip because of the ill-conceived concentric circle system in use. Neither does the existing system provide for full integration across multiple independent suppliers which may be required at a future point.

Integrated ticketing is all about time and distance travelled across a network of shared resources. Instead of a ticket being valid for the No 82 bus between x and y, the ticket is valid for all modes of transport between the zone that x is located in (say Dublin 18) and the zone y is located in (say Dublin 2).

Time validity could range from anything between 30 minutes for a 1 zone ticket to a year of unlimited use in a specified number of zones for a year for someone who holds an annual ticket.

Zones can be thought of in terms of postal zone (district) numbers. You buy a 1 zone ticket in Dublin 4 and you can use that for say 30 minutes on any bus, tram, train or other public transport in Dublin 4 for half an hour. If you are going into Dublin 2, you will need a 2 zone ticket – (because you are purchasing a right to use the public transport resources of both Dublin 1 and 2. This ticket might be valid for 60 minutes. During this period you can hop on and off buses, trams, trains, etc within the zone boundaries.

If you are travelling from Dublin 2 to Blackrock (lets call that Dublin 30), you need a three zone ticket – ie to cover Dublin 2, 4 and 30.

The passenger doesn’t have to worry about zone boundaries when purchasing a ticket. The ticket machine allows them to specify a destination, eg “Blackrock” and will issue the appropriate zoned ticket. In Zurich they have the added refinement of allowing one to enter the postcode (eg 8058 = airport) of where one is going. This saves time paging through menus of destination towns or looking up the station name in a list.

In practice zones may not be identical to postal zones. The central zone in Dublin would probably occupy Dublin 1, 2 and perhaps 7 and 8.

The idea of having equal size zones outside the centre is to achieve approximate kilometric ticket pricing – without involving the passenger or ticket inspector in the computation of the exact kilometric distance of one’s journey.

The conversion of fares from the old fashioned stage system to zones is relatively simple and can be done by example. How much is a bus from Ballsbridge to Dublin 2? That becomes the 2 zone ticket price. Blackrock to Dublin 2 becomes the 3 zone ticket price, etc. There may be some upwards adjustment in the ticket price for the first zone to allow for the transfer from one mode to another without getting a fresh ticket.

A well conceived and implemented zone ticketing plan will greatly increase the use of public transport because it brings the customer from a mindset of thinking of public transport in terms of the 123 bus that runs near their house and can get them to College Green to a new mindset of seeing the network as providing an end to end solution for every journey. E.g. one mightn’t be going to College Green today. One might be going to Heuston Station instead. With integrated ticketing the same ticket will do to get there. This also reduces the transaction processing cost for the transport system operator. Many people move on to purchasing weekly, monthly or annual tickets as they discover the convenience of public transport. The car gets left in the garage more and more. A public transport system is essentially a fixed cost operation. The more people who can be lured on board, the more economic it becomes.

The cellular zone layout (as opposed to a concentric circle zone layout) gives more flexibility to the passenger. e.g. someone with a three or four zone ticket living in Dún Laoghaire who commutes to the city centre during the week can use the same 3/4 zone ticket to travel south three or four zones at weekends (eg Greystones) from the same Dún Laoghaire starting point.

It takes more than integrated ticketing to do the job. The system must also deliver in terms of reliability, speed, efficiency and comfort.

One of the key missing elements (in Dublin) for making the most with integrated ticketing is interchange point optimization.

In Zurich the city has a number of central hubs where everything comes together where one can get off one thing and get on another, with covered enclosed waiting areas for the wet/cold day – nothing luxurious – just a covered enclosed space. e.g. Central/Bahnhofquai/HB (interchange point for trams 3, 4, 10, 6, 7, 4, 15, 10,11,13, 14, & 15 + all SBahn trains + intercity), Bellevue (7 tramlines + buses), Tiefenbrunnen (2 trams, lots of buses, 3 Sbahns). There are others. At suburban SBahn (speed rail) stations, and at or near many tram stops one will find a fleet of buses ready to roll once a train or tram dumps its load of passengers. If Zurich followed the Dublin system, these buses would instead be stuck in traffic on long journeys into and out of town, unable to provide a predictable, punctual service to the customer.

Revenue issues

Under the integrated ticketing process, the operator of the integrated ticketing system collects a big pot of money from all the ticket sales and divides it out to each operator on the basis of passenger revenue kms carried.

Example. Mr A and Mr B operate a bus and a mini DART service in a small part of Dublin – say Dublin 4.

Mr A’s bus has 60 seats and 10 standing spaces. He operates 100 times a day along a 10km bus route. His daily capacity is therefore 100 * 10 * 70 = 70,000 passenger kms.

Mr B’s DART train has 500 spaces. Mr B’s DART train runs 20 times a day over a 10km track. His daily capacity is 20 * 10 * 500 = 100,000 passenger kms.

The pot could be divided in the above ratio (A gets 70/170ths and B gets 100/170ths of the total pot. Alternatively it could be refined by other variables – such as the average percentage load factor (derived by periodic sampling from the inspector’s PDAs).


You don’t need complex ticketing arrangements to divvy out the revenue to the various participants in the integrated transport system. It can be done statistically by sampling passengers on buses, trams and trains, noting the zone they are in and the machine and ticket number they are carrying. The PDA ticket machines carried by inspectors could be used for this.

The surveys only need to be done periodically and need not be a part of all normal ticket inspections. A database of ticket types, issuing machine numbers, which service they were sampled on, together with the date and time of sampling could provide a wealth of information for revenue accounting, ticket inspection campaign fine tuning, optimizing schedules, monitoring load factors, and planning new services based on an in-depth knowledge of the travel patterns by time of day, day of week, mode, etc. One could predict with a high level of confidence, for example, how many passengers on the 123 bus at 22.06 on a Friday will not have a valid ticket, enabling one to make an informed decision on whether or not it is worth sending inspectors to that bus. Will the EUR 30 on board ticket service charges collected cover the cost of the exercise?

The focus with integrated ticketing should be to get people to commit to public transport by subscribing to it on a long term basis. It should become part of the culture and deserves a strong advertising campaign to kick it off. It should be made as easy as possible to subscribe to. For example, every Eurocard / Laser / Mastercard / Visa / cardholder should be able to have a combined credit/debit card and annual ticket on the same plastic. The only variable needed on the card is the number of zones subscribed to. The issuing bank charges the cost of the ticket to the cardholder automatically every year which simplifies the administration cost for the operator of the integrated ticketing system.

Management of the integrated ticketing system could be operated by the CIE group or outsourced by tender to an independent agency who would be responsible for the inspection process across all modes of transport.


Floater

The attached map is of the cellular zone structure used in the Zurich region. The distance between Zurich centre (white zone 10) and Winterthur (white zone 20) is about 26kms - a four zone trip between the pair.