€27m bill for the integrated ticketing project

Victor

Originally posted by Floater
There is another analogy between public transport and shops too. Years ago all the merchandise used to be kept behind the counter and the customer had to ask the shopkeeper for each item. The supermarket brought self service and business volumes grew as a result because the customer preferred it. Open access buses are self service and are part of the initiative necessary to drag public transport into the 21st century - SO IT CAN COMPETE AND WIN AGAINST THE CAR, against which it has been losing market share for decades.

Not a perfect analogy - it depends on your accounting method. If you take a loaf of bread from the supermarket, then it has actually cost the supermarket in terms of buying the bread and having someone put it on the shelf. If you don't pay your tram fare, the only extra cost to the tram operator is the tiny amount of **extra** electricity that is needed to transport you (maybe 70kg out of 50,000kg).

One thing spain does is attach your claim agianst the transport operator's insurance to your ticket. No ticket, no payout (for passengers).

embraer170

Will the tram drivers agree to open any doors behind them ? ( Dublin Bus drivers make a big issue about not doing this ).

I presume the LUAS will be open access.

Victor

Originally posted by embraer170
I presume the LUAS will be open access.

generally yes, I don't know what inspection / enforcement régime will exist.

BuffyBot

Will the tram drivers agree to open any doors behind them ? ( Dublin Bus drivers make a big issue about not doing this ).

The drivers will be employed by Connex, not CIE (unlike DB) so I can't see them having the same problems as CIE have had with unions etc...but see my point below anyway...

Dublin Bus drivers make a big issue about not doing this

I think this is a bit of an urban myth - while it started out that way many years ago when double doors were brought in and the unions were uptight about their operation, I don't think it really is the case now. From what the non-usage comes down to:

a) Some drivers don't bother/want to use them
b) Some drivers try but the passengers still clamber out the front/don't bother with rear door
c) People obstructing the doors

This is apprently why Dublin Bus have all but given up on buying dual-door buses :rolleyes:

Floater

Originally posted by antoinolachtnai
[

But you are assuming a homogeneous zoned system with a small number of operators. We may not have that (current plan from my reading of all the documentation is that we probably won't.) I can see why the government might want to incorporate some flexibility to allow for a possible future change of plan.

I am assuming a totally open system of integrated ticketing covering any number of operators involving bus, tram, mainline rail, DART, boat, balloon, whatever comes on stream.

My model is based on the www.zvv.ch system

ZVV is the Zurich region transit authority.

The participating service providers are listed at http://www.zvv.ch/partner.asp

Please see my earlier postings where I outlined how the pot of integrated ticketing fare money can be divided among the participating service providers on the basis of passenger km capacity * average load factors (as observed by the ticket inspectors and input to their PDAs).

It seems to me that whoever is planning the ticketing system urgently needs the services of a public transport revenue statistics expert – someone who has or is working with an efficient open access, multi-mode regional urban transport system.

You still need some way to purchase tickets on the bus for medium frequency bus users. So you need to deploy all that equipment anyway.

Why? You phase in the new system of get your ticket before you board and dump the old on board bus driver kit at the same time on a route by route basis.

Start with Luas and self service operation with ticket machines at tram stops.

Next convert the so called QBCs to bus stop integrated ticket machines.

Finally roll out the system on the rest of the bus network, DART, and other regional rail systems.

I don't agree with your analogy about chasing out after my neighbour. After all, it's not my bus, so I have no reason to chase after him. It is the bus driver's bus, so it is not surprising that he might want to check on things. Besides, there's no bus stop outside my gate.

The Mr Murphy story was intended to highlight the folly of the current system. Mr Murphy is a microcosm of a population of transport users. The message I am trying to get across is that there is no need to look at his ticket every time he gets on board. You can come to statistical conclusions about behaviour from sampling it.

Mr Murphy could equally be a drug addict who has superman delusions and who believes that he is above having to buy a ticket. That doesn’t matter in terms of the system because every time you (the statistical observer) are sitting next to him on the train and an inspector comes along, your first reaction will probably be something like “Oh no! Here we go again” because you know Murphy won’t have a ticket, as usual. In this case the financial model protects the system because Murphy will have to pay EUR 30 or more plus the fare. They only have to catch him about one in ten or fifteen times and the system is still in profit.

The system is effectively charging Murphy in bulk for his fare dodging (using a rough measure) to save the cost of trying to catch him every time.

THIS IS A CORE ISSUE OF OPEN ACCESS PUBLIC TRANSPORT AND CAN’T BE IGNORED. Let’s say Dublin has a fleet of 1,000 buses for simplicity to meet peak time demand. It is similar to electricity generation providing generating capacity for the peak demand is very expensive because it requires expensive generators that are not in use for the rest of the day.

Let’s say that at peak time each bus is stopped for 20% of the time as people board through the one and only door and are either paying the driver or validating their ticket. (As previously indicated in this thread, French experience would tend to indicate that five years after CSC validators are installed on buses only about 20-25% of passengers have a CSC.)

Therefore 20% of your thousand buses are engaged in ticket processing exercises at peak time rather than doing the job they were designed to do – ie move people.

200 buses costing the best part of EUR 200k each = EUR 40 million sitting idle + 200 drivers labour costs as he does something that a ticket machine could have done automatically before he reaches the stop – say another 10 million in recurring payroll costs.

Add to that the customer time wasted as the minutes tick by with a bus full of people held up while people boarding the vehicle deal with ticketing formalities.

Add to that the lost revenue from people who have a choice and could have taken public transport but won’t because it is so slow, unreliable and inefficient. A key driving factor behind this slowness is the on board ticket crap and the vicious circle of car users in traffic who won’t use public transport because if its inefficiency.

I think you underestimate the size of the problem of delinquency and abuse of drivers. Lone drivers are very vulnerable and are afraid of groups of youths boarding the bus. Whether this is a perceived or a real problem, it has to be dealt with.

I don’t. I’m saying that the driver should have nothing to do but drive. In a locked bullet proof cab if Dublin is as bad as you paint! Ticket sales and cash handling is a machine’s job – you don’t have parking wardens selling parking authorization stickers in Dublin – a street side machine does it. Why should bus tickets be any different?

If the passenger doesn't have a valid ticket and has no money there is very little the authorities can do about it in Ireland, other than tell you to go to the transport office and pay. If you don't pay, it is very difficult indeed to convict you, because it will be extremely difficult to prove your identity in court. The bus inspector doesn't have powers of arrest. It is extremely unlikely that Gardai will be any more available available to provide more hard-line policing of recalcitrant fare evaders (although there probably should be if you want my opinion).

If the authorities want to clear the transportation crisis in Dublin there is no other way than facilitating penalty fares or on board surcharges – whatever you like to call them. The system needs an advertising campaign to make people aware combined with posters at the stops warning of the penalties. During the first few weeks the inspectors might have discretion to charge a small penalty – say double the fare and give the passenger a don’t do it again leaflet and warning letter. After that the system goes into full operation.

ID cards are irrelevant because people won’t carry them or pretend they don’t have one with them. Should the need arise, a few high profile cases in court against people who refuse to pay the penalty will make hard liners think twice. The scale of penalties and allowable costs can be set to make it economic for garda resources to be committed if it comes to it.

The cost of bus stop ticket machines is more than self financing if you take into account the efficiencies outlined above – ie getting more passenger kms from the same fleet of buses and drivers and the money saved on the current proposed EUR 27 million ill conceived ticket machine "system".


Floater

Floater

Originally posted by Victor
Not a perfect analogy - it depends on your accounting method. If you take a loaf of bread from the supermarket, then it has actually cost the supermarket in terms of buying the bread and having someone put it on the shelf. If you don't pay your tram fare, the only extra cost to the tram operator is the tiny amount of **extra** electricity that is needed to transport you (maybe 70kg out of 50,000kg).

That element of the anology was only intended to show that people don't need to carry ID cards to be effectively prosecuted!

While the fare dodger "stealing a fare" is far less cost to the bus or tram operator than someone stealing merchandise from a shop let's not get deviated into marginal costing alleyways!

Floater

John R

Originally posted by an_taoiseach
Will the tram drivers agree to open any doors behind them ? ( Dublin Bus drivers make a big issue about not doing this ).

If not, where does that leave Dwell Time

If they will, could it lead to a change in the way the Dublin Bus operate their doors ( heres hoping )

An T

You may not have noticed but all the buses purchased in the last 3 years (the wheelchair accessable lowfloor double deckers ) have no rear doors.

John R

Originally posted by Floater

Let’s say that at peak time each bus is stopped for 20% of the time as people board through the one and only door and are either paying the driver or validating their ticket. (As previously indicated in this thread, French experience would tend to indicate that five years after CSC validators are installed on buses only about 20-25% of passengers have a CSC.)

Let's NOT say that each bus is stopped for 20% of the time as people board because it is a ridiculously high figure plucked out of your head.



If the authorities want to clear the transportation crisis in Dublin there is no other way than facilitating penalty fares or on board surcharges – whatever you like to call them. The system needs an advertising campaign to make people aware combined with posters at the stops warning of the penalties. During the first few weeks the inspectors might have discretion to charge a small penalty – say double the fare and give the passenger a don’t do it again leaflet and warning letter. After that the system goes into full operation.

ID cards are irrelevant because people won’t carry them or pretend they don’t have one with them. Should the need arise, a few high profile cases in court against people who refuse to pay the penalty will make hard liners think twice. The scale of penalties and allowable costs can be set to make it economic for garda resources to be committed if it comes to it.

The cost of bus stop ticket machines is more than self financing if you take into account the efficiencies outlined above – ie getting more passenger kms from the same fleet of buses and drivers and the money saved on the current proposed EUR 27 million ill conceived ticket machine "system".


Floater [/QUOTE]

And what about the time taken trying to deal with an uncoperative fare dodger, how much time is wasted dealing with just one. For it to be effective the threat of penalty fares have to be backed up with enforcement, to deal with an individual who refuses to pay, give a name or get off the vehicle the guards have to be called, wasting lots of people's time.

Floater

Originally posted by John R
You may not have noticed but all the buses purchased in the last 3 years (the wheelchair accessable lowfloor double deckers ) have no rear doors.

An efficient single deck bus has three sets of doors – front, middle and rear. Twice as many on the articulated variety. It has a totally flexible suspension system to allow floor levels to be lowered and the entire vehicle to be angled to get past tight situations (eg double parking) avoiding damage to the vehicle. Scratched and battered buses put people off using them and cost money to repair.

A triple door bus pulls into the stop. Doors at the front, middle and rear open immediately. People get on and off in a few seconds. The bus moves off. Anything less than that in terms of access, and you are designing in delays into the system.

Delays that compound at peak times. The consequences - more buses are needed to provide the same service levels.

There is less timetable reliability.

It involves longer journey times for everybody.

A higher capital investment than if the job was done properly.

Higher wage costs to pay drivers to sit in traffic and deal with ticketing formalities that should have no part of the job of driving a bus. This leads to frustrated drivers who are forced to deliver a sub standard service to the people they have to meet face to face day in, day out.

Double deck buses are a designer made bottleneck. They are only suitable for tourists and should have nothing to do with an urban transit network.

The stairs are a bottleneck.

There can’t be any doors for the upstairs passengers to enter or exit via.

Downstairs it would appear that Dublin Bus are proud of the fact that they have neither three nor two sets of doors. Just one!

You then go on in a subsequent posting to question my estimate that approx 20% of Dublin Bus’s fleet and driver man hours is wasted through access delays!

Open access to the public transport systems essentially requires two things:

1) A well thought out public communications exercise to bring the public on board – ie by showing them the benefits of compliance in terms of having a more on-time public transport service, freedom of interchange en route across all modes of transport, without having to purchase new tickets, and less cost for the government in providing a better infrastructure.

2) A simple low cost infrastructure to manage the implementation of integrated ticketing might include –

a) Personal digital assistants for the ticket inspectors that can read tickets and process debit and credit card payments online.

b) An off the shelf database to record the “shapshots of usage” gathered by the roaming inspectors on their PDAs.

c) An off the shelf data mining software package to analyse usage. Among other things this would

i) Provide a basis of apportionment of fare revenue among any number of service providers

ii) Provide a statistical basis for the allocation of ticket inspection staff to the most productive targets based on route, fare zone, time of day, day of week, special events, public holidays, and other criteria.

iii) Measure performance of service providers and inspection staff and provide intelligence on where additional public transport resources are required or where resources are being wasted for the benefit of service providers and planners.

v) An open ended information base to track travel patterns based on detailed surveys of actual usage. While the theory is similar to the that employed in say electoral opinion polls, it is far more accurate because it is based on ticket sampling – ie no electorate changes of mind are involved, no lying about voting intentions in possible etc. It produces a more accurate apportionment of revenue than a validation based system which will invariably be distorted by fare evasion.

You paint a picture of a lawless city. The vast majority of public transport users who keep the system going are anything but. The vast vast majority of Irish people don’t want to dodge fares. THEY JUST WANT TO GET HOME AND GET TO WORK AS QUICKLY AS POSSIBLE. The inspection based system is far better attuned to dealing with the odd bastard than a bus driver on his own with a cashbox full of money. Inspection intensity can be varied like a volume control on a radio - anything from full inspection of every passenger on a vehicle to zero - depending on what is necessary at any point in time to ensure compliance.

Irish people are the least worried about money or cost in Europe. The country has one of the lowest crime rates. No other government I know of has to run adverts to tell the population to shop around to save money! Wake up and smell the coffee. People just want to get from A to B efficiently with a minimum of hassle. You can’t let a perceived tiny minority dictate an inefficient public transport system on everybody else.

Fares need to be rebalanced. Charge higher fares for one off ticket purchasers to cover the high cost of servicing one-off users and help fund bus stop ticket machines. Reduce the fares to people who buy period or multi-trip tickets and promote them heavily - particularly at bus stops!

Integrate ticketing with everything else – intercity rail – even air travel. Get people more committed to the system. Remove silly conditions forcing people to use multi-fare tickets within a specified time period.

Why not behave as if you were trying to run a business in a competitive environment and please the customer, instead of sticking your head in the sand a la the CIE group in the 1960s.

Floater

John R

Originally posted by Floater
[EDIT: Blah Blah Blah]

Complete rubbish, without any sources to back any of it up.

Victor

Bus Éireann claim they already have an integrated ticketing system (with who!).

antoinolachtnai

I believe that the system they have is specified such that it _can_ be integrated with the integrated ticketing scheme in the future, whenever the scheme is finished. I suspect that Dublin Bus has more or less the same plan. Of course the assumption is that this system will be contactless smartcards. (So the discussion above is really moot.)

Floater

Open access with shorter stop dwell times could be likened to Ryanair’s fast turnaround of aircraft (boarding and deplaning using the front and back doors) – allowing the aircraft to carry more passengers every day by squeezing in extra flights with the same equipment investment.

The e-ticket, another airline industry innovation, could also be implemented for weekly, monthly and annual ticket holders using buses, trams and trains – including inter-city.

Purchase your ticket online or via a call centre, using your credit card. When the ticket inspector comes along he just swipes the card into a special PDA, which has an encrypted list of valid card numbers and their related travel entitlements stored in flash memory.

On regional transport services the system will tell him that the holder of the card with this number has a valid e-ticket for zones x, y and z. People without credit cards can avail of the same e-ticket benefit by getting a special card from the transport authority – which could last indefinitely and be credited with travel entitlements (e.g. weekly, monthly, annual etc) via phone or www with the cost being direct debited to the matching bank account. A phone top-up type system could be used for people who don’t have a bank account or credit card (eg buy a EUR 10 or EUR 20 voucher, call an automated voice server, enter your card number, your PIN and the top up voucher number) and the value is transferred to your e-ticket account.

On inter-city services, the PDA would indicate the number of passengers paid for, the starting and end-point of the journey, the seat numbers reserved, the urban zones at the origin and destination cities that can be used by the card holder to connect with the train, etc.

Integrated ticketing is all about minimalism. Instead of three or four tickets to complete a journey you need just one or even none.

It is also about minimalisation of bureaucracy and customer inconvenience. It doesn’t matter what legacy systems are used on buses or trains. From day-one, people who start their journey with inter-city, DART, Arrow, or Dublin bus tickets could complete their journey on Luas or any other mode by showing their ticket if/when required.

It is a matter of a change in the regulations, primarily incorporating a zone system that is fair for both customers and service providers irrespective or origin and destination, rather than a €27 million spend on a smart card system that most people won’t be bothered with.

As people who use the occasional bus or train discover that services have got more punctual, journey times have become shorter and the system more user-friendly (the doors open, you sit down and off it goes) they will use it more, and a virtuous circle takes effect with more people using public transport more of the time.

The focus should be on making the travel experience as close as one could get to having a chauffeured car waiting for the customer virtually outside their door. This is the only way one can reverse the never ending growth in vehicle use, and its related pollution, congestion, parking problems, and help put a stop to the mushrooming respiratory health issues in Ireland.

While this may sound like a tall order, they have achieved it in Zurich, a city of similar size to Dublin which has a far higher level of vehicle ownership than any Irish city.

Anything less than this is surely not acceptable given the traffic situation and the large investment that is in the process of being made in the network over the next five to ten years?

Floater

Victor

Originally posted by Floater
Open access with shorter stop dwell times could be likened to Ryanair’s fast turnaround of aircraft (boarding and deplaning using the front and back doors) – allowing the aircraft to carry more passengers every day by squeezing in extra flights with the same equipment investment.

Yeah, I hate airlines that insist on everyone boarding by the one door and then loading the passengers nearest that door first, so that subsequent passengers then need to fight their way past people standing in the aisle to put their hand luggage in the overhead compartments. All so business class can "go first". Muppets.

But thats a different days argument.