Ridiculous ticketing system

fletch

Just noticed this on the dublinbus website...

Like, talk about ridiculous!! What are you supposed to do, if, take for example you want to get the first luas from Sandyford in the morning (leaves at 5:30a.m.) Well, simple you can't, unless you can find a bus ticket validator...small problem....buses don't run that early in the morning.
I understand that the Luas operates a trust system but surely there must be some better method of integrating the two ticketing systems.

Steve Conway

This is indeed a very serious flaw.

Many sensible people pointed this out to the RPA very early on, and asked for validators (like the one on the bus) to be put at the stations or in each tram, but the RPA was against this.

fletch

Steve Conway wrote:

but the RPA was against this.

I would love to hear their reasons why they were against this? Can't think of one logical one....oh wait financial...oh it makes sense now....

vinnyfitz

Is this part of the testbed for our elaborate and expensive integrated ticketing system or is this an element of a temporary solution?

Traffic

I find the system a bit ridiculous all right but the one reason i can think of not having a validator onboard the tram is that if one was placed on the tram it would facilitate fare evasion. eg. dont validate your ticket until you see the ticket inspectors coming but having validators at the stops would be ok

fletch

Traffic wrote:

I find the system a bit ridiculous all right but the one reason i can think of not having a validator onboard the tram is that if one was placed on the tram it would facilitate fare evasion. eg. dont validate your ticket until you see the ticket inspectors coming but having validators at the stops would be ok

Luas tickets don't need to be validated but they should have validators for tickets that do need to be validated.

Traffic

Thanks fletch i realised that anyways sorry for the confusion, i was referring to the ones that need to be validated

Andrew Duffy

You can buy a bus/luas ticket at the luas stop, and it won't need to be validated. Of course, this is far from ideal. I'd like to be able to buy daily and single use tram and combined tickets in advance and keep them in my pocket, like I do with the unfeasibly useful 90 minute Dublin Bus tickets.

Anyone care to give Scheidt a call and find out how much a validator costs? I bet it's less than a grand.

antoinolachtnai

I wouldn't think they want to put in a system that will be defunct in a year or two with integrated ticketing. It's not just about the cost, it's the maintenance (the unit would have to be outdoors on the platform) and the confusion it would cause (it's hard enough to get a luas ticket on a sunny day).

Nuttzz

Sense at last

http://www.unison.ie/irish_independent/stories.php3?ca=9&si=1288273&issue_id=11695

A €30M high-tech 'Smart Card' allowing passengers to use a single ticket on all forms of public transport is to be introduced by the end of the year, it was learned yesterday.

The card which cost €29.4m in taxpayers money to develop will eventually be fully integrated with all forms of public transport allowing passengers to opt out of queues for tickets.

The cards, which resemble telephone cards, will be scanned by equipment to be installed on public transport.

The smart cards can be charged weekly or monthly - in the same way that people top up their mobile phones - with multiples of 10 journeys. The card will work in much the same way as groceries are checked at supermarket tills. Instead on having to insert the card into a machine, passengers will simply touch the card in front of a reader screen.

Before getting on a Luas, a passenger will simply pass their smart card over a validator machine on the platform.

The fare will be calculated automatically based on the journey.

Transport Minister Martin Cullen is to roll out the system first on the Luas by the end of the year. This will be followed by Dublin Bus, Iarnrod Eireann and Bus Eireann during 2005.

The smart card will represent an effective 'universal pass' onto all public transport services, first in and around Dublin, and later to be extended nationwide.

It will eventually integrate with the Northern Ireland system.

Exchequer funding is being made available by Mr Cullen to finance the ambitious project.

vinnyfitz

How would ticket inspectors be able to check whether such a card had been correctly validated or not? I suppose they would have to have portable card readers. Is that the idea?

I presume private bus operators will also be covered by the scheme?

The main problem I see with this project is that it is being managed by the RPA. :eek:

Zaph0d

vinnyfitz wrote:

How would ticket inspectors be able to check whether such a card had been correctly validated or not? I suppose they would have to have portable card readers. Is that the idea?

That's what they do in London with the Oyster card. I found it a bit freaky that the inspector on the bus could scan my card with a proximity detector andf show me on a little screen my previous five journeys. I don't think it's too long before all public and private vehicle journeys are logged in a database somewhere.

The main problem I see with this project is that it is being managed by the RPA. :eek:

What is bad about the RPA? Do you think the Luas went far over budget? Do you blame them for the red line having too many crossings? Is it the Luas/Busaras/Connolly track layout? To me the RPA seems to have done OK.

Nala

Ah, good old Dublin Bus...

fletch

neev wrote:

Ah, good old Dublin Bus...

lol lol lol (nice job)

sliabh

Nuttzz wrote:

Before getting on a Luas, a passenger will simply pass their smart card over a validator machine on the platform.

The fare will be calculated automatically based on the journey.

It's not stated here but can I assume that you have to swipe again when you get off the vehicle. Or how else do they know how far you have travelled?

tribble

If it's like Hong Kong then yesh, you "swipe" (wave near) a radio reciever (looks like a small panel)

elivsvonchiaing

Thoughts on this are: Oyster card failed in London think only 2 million customers so far. Used only for public transport. Mr Cullen's predecesors have spent serious money on the RPA to develop integrated ticketing - shouldn't there be a government lead directive to mainstream smart-cards for public consumption.

Ideas being: points from supermarkets/petrol stations = cash - you no longer need to specifically register with a poxy chain in particular. Laser/Visa/Mastercard do a deal to live off the same transport smartcard for small money transactions (< €10), no need for immediate dial up - end-of-day settlement - + machines could have a downloaded bad cards list in advance - this could work!

Parking everywhere... Taxis... Hmm can only think sign on roof: "I do smart cards" 'coz Mr. C won't be paying for that methinks!

If the RPA have really cost €29m already for this project (integrated ticketing) it should be extended well beyond its original scope - but how much will we have to pay for that? :mad:

antoinolachtnai

I don't think you could say that Oyster has been a 'failure'. It is still building steam. It appears to me to have been a very careful, methodical roll-out.

What we can certainly learn from this is that it will take several years (maybe 5 or so) to get a transport smartcard system into full swing in Dublin.

The whole point of cashback/points systems in supermarkets is to force you to register.

All that stuff with general-purpose cash cards has been tried in other countries umpteen times (particularly in Singapore, but also in Paris, Ennis and other metropolises). The reality is that at this point these systems are solutions searching for a problem, and there is no great public appetite for them. The main application for public smartcard systems remains transport (including tolls, petrol, taxi fares and car parking as well as public transport).

elivsvonchiaing

I'm fairly sure the UK government is publicly funding some other smart-card technology in the making. Much like the RPA I think. Oyster carriers will have to pay-the-piper to upgrade the scanners when this emerges, or simply not comply (probably not an option).

Totally agree with the 5 years though...

The cashback/loyalty thing serves the chain, and customers are forced to comply by registering now. Think this could be reversed by - an -er fascist :eek: govermental approach. Just like the smoking ban! This would turn things on their head and instead serve the customer - okay not everyones cup of tea, or that practical I suppose. Just food for thought.

antoinolachtnai

Well, not being fully compliant with an emerging standard is always the price you pay for being early to market.

I think you are overestimating the difficulty of dealing with the new standard. All these proximity card readers are basically electromagnets with radio transceivers tuned to a certain (ETSI allocated) frequency. Apart from that, the standards for proximity cards seem to be pretty vague and low-level, even the proposed new ones.

It would be surprising if any more than a firmware upgrade was required to get the old machines to work with the new cards.

Governments (and it has to be said, particularly the british government) have a habit of coming up with complicated standards and systems that don't really work when it comes down to local level. This looks like it might turn out the same.

It is unlikely that anyone else, however well resourced, will come up with a better system within a two or three year timeframe. Think about it. TfL has spent five or ten years working on this system. The have chucked a massive budget into it, and have gotten it to work in the context of one of the biggest public transport systems anywhere. They have obviously thought about this a lot. They must be pretty confident it works, otherwise they wouldn't have trusted it with a big percentage of their cashflow.

Everybody assumes that these things are easy and that if you just took a logical, top-down approach, you'd sort the thing out in a few months, have more features, better extensibility and scalability, and all the rest. Sure, there is always waste and stupidity, but some of it is inevitable, and things like this are never easy.

(It is worth pointing out that the Dublin system will be quite a bit more complex to implement than the London system, because there will be at least 4 fareboxes from the outset, and there could be as many as thirty or forty in the medium term. London basically only has one farebox.)

It is highly unlikely that any government will get into the loyalty card business. Loyalty schemes are massively expensive to set up and run. The government has enough trouble managing its own information, without getting stuck with everyone else's.

elivsvonchiaing

antoinolachtnai wrote:

Well, not being fully compliant with an emerging standard is always the price you pay for being early to market.

Totally agree!

antoinolachtnai wrote:

I think you are overestimating the difficulty of dealing with the new standard. All these proximity card readers are basically electromagnets with radio transceivers tuned to a certain (ETSI allocated) frequency. Apart from that, the standards for proximity cards seem to be pretty vague and low-level, even the proposed new ones.

It would be surprising if any more than a firmware upgrade was required to get the old machines to work with the new cards.

This would make perfect sense - I have my doubts tbh!

antoinolachtnai wrote:

It is unlikely that anyone else, however well resourced, will come up with a better system within a two or three year timeframe. Think about it. TfL has spent five or ten years working on this system. The have chucked a massive budget into it, and have gotten it to work in the context of one of the biggest public transport systems anywhere. They have obviously thought about this a lot. They must be pretty confident it works, otherwise they wouldn't have trusted it with a big percentage of their cashflow.

Agree with timeframe. Think there are several projects worldwide already underway...

antoinolachtnai wrote:

Everybody assumes that these things are easy and that if you just took a logical, top-down approach, you'd sort the thing out in a few months, have more features, better extensibility and scalability, and all the rest. Sure, there is always waste and stupidity, but some of it is inevitable, and things like this are never easy.

A big project contains a galaxy of vendors all of which have to do business with each other - total communication nightmare. These things are easily underestimated by Joe Public tbh!

antoinolachtnai wrote:

(It is worth pointing out that the Dublin system will be quite a bit more complex to implement than the London system, because there will be at least 4 fareboxes from the outset, and there could be as many as thirty or forty in the medium term. London basically only has one farebox.)

Fairly sure this isn't true. Think the Oyster card is used by more than Lul, buses and think docklands light rail is seperate from LUL. Can only see 8 or 9 fareboxes in Ireland tbh!

antoinolachtnai wrote:

It is highly unlikely that any government will get into the loyalty card business. Loyalty schemes are massively expensive to set up and run. The government has enough trouble managing its own information, without getting stuck with everyone else's.

Totally agree - but I still maintain the fantasy... I just won't detail it here

antoinolachtnai

DLR, LU, buses, all basically going into the TfL farebox now. (http://www.tfl.gov.uk/tfl/abt_tfl.shtml). Not to say they aren't cost-accounted separately, but it's basically all one farebox.

In Ireland, you have loads of bus companies. The problem is that many of these are very small. Just off the top of my head, I see:

the three CIE operating companies.

Translink

Aircoach

Citylink

Morton's

St. Kevin's Bus Service

Lough Swilly Bus and Rail

JJ Kavanagh

Eirebus

An Post (Lisdoonvarna post bus)

There is another firm on the Galway-Dublin route whose name I can't remember.

There are also more buses (with licences) on the Inishowen routes. McGonagle's at least.

Plus, if you want to go truly intermodal, there are all the island ferries.

From memory, I think there are about 25 services that accept the social welfare/DoD free travel pass (and that presumably receive the diesel rebate).

There is also the Bus Service that Dare Not Speak Its Name, i.e., the various 'travel clubs'. There are probably 20 companies operating these, and together, these represent a significant proportion of the national transport infrastructure. The government can't go on ignoring these guys forever.

There are also the Rural Transport Initiatives.

If the government franchises out routes in Dublin, we will probably end up with 5 or 10 more operators initially.

Remember, even a relatively high-profile company like Citylink is basically a small operator with miniscule revenues (maybe 0.5 percent of the national public transport marketplace) in the grand scale of things.

With so many tiny operators, it's going to be very tricky indeed. How will disputes be resolved? How will the audit work? Who will carry the can for administrative mistakes? Who will have access to the database? The business issues are as compex as the technical issues.

At the moment, there isn't even a map of all the public transport routes in Ireland.

The NRA could decide not to work with smaller operators, but where will that get us? It certainly won't get any more competion into the marketplace.

elivsvonchiaing

antoinolachtnai wrote:

DLR, LU, buses, all basically going into the TfL farebox now. (http://www.tfl.gov.uk/tfl/abt_tfl.shtml). Not to say they aren't cost-accounted separately, but it's basically all one farebox.

In Ireland, you have loads of bus companies. The problem is that many of these are very small. Just off the top of my head, I see:

Totally misunderstood your fairbox concept here... thought you were talking about just Lul. Isn't buses+ LUL already 3 fare-boxes? Each has a right to raise fare/km by route at will, by ticket type at will or have I missed something here?

antoinolachtnai wrote:

the three CIE operating companies. will be enforced into a schema with luas, and other operators - not so bad imho!

Translink

Aircoach

Citylink

Morton's

St. Kevin's Bus Service

Lough Swilly Bus and Rail

JJ Kavanagh

Eirebus

An Post (Lisdoonvarna post bus)

There is another firm on the Galway-Dublin route whose name I can't remember.

There are also more buses (with licences) on the Inishowen routes. McGonagle's at least.

Plus, if you want to go truly intermodal, there are all the island ferries.

From memory, I think there are about 25 services that accept the social welfare/DoD free travel pass (and that presumably receive the diesel rebate).

There is also the Bus Service that Dare Not Speak Its Name, i.e., the various 'travel clubs'. There are probably 20 companies operating these, and together, these represent a significant proportion of the national transport infrastructure. The government can't go on ignoring these guys forever.

There are also the Rural Transport Initiatives.

If the government franchises out routes in Dublin, we will probably end up with 5 or 10 more operators initially.

Remember, even a relatively high-profile company like Citylink is basically a small operator with miniscule revenues (maybe 0.5 percent of the national public transport marketplace) in the grand scale of things.

With so many tiny operators, it's going to be very tricky indeed. How will disputes be resolved? How will the audit work? Who will carry the can for administrative mistakes? Who will have access to the database? The business issues are as compex as the technical issues.

At the moment, there isn't even a map of all the public transport routes in Ireland.

The NRA could decide not to work with smaller operators, but where will that get us? It certainly won't get any more competion into the marketplace.[/QUOTE]
Biggest question - how many of them will be able to afford the RPA smart-card reader????

John R

elivsvonchiaing wrote:

Totally misunderstood your fairbox concept here... thought you were talking about just Lul. Isn't buses+ LUL already 3 fare-boxes? Each has a right to raise fare/km by route at will, by ticket type at will or have I missed something here?

About 15 years of political change.

TFL is a local government body under the control of the office of the Mayor of London (Red Ken in short) who have responsibility for most if not all transport matters in London. London Underground is still under public ownership although there are some complex PPP arangements over the maintenance area. All buses are run by private operators under franchise from TFL who set the operating terms including fares and schedules. DLR and Croydon tramlink are also directly controlled by TFL, basically they are incharge of all public transport in the city and are able to set terms and conditions that must be adhered to.

It is now a very good example of an integrated management but it has taken a long time, considerable funds and a committed, progressive government to reap the benefits.

elivsvonchiaing wrote:

Biggest question - how many of them will be able to afford the RPA smart-card reader????

It along with a dozen other basic provisions (such as a published timetable and minimum service requirements) should be necessary before ANY operator is allowed run a public service.

antoinolachtnai

As I understand it, London bus routes are not run under franchise. They are run under contract. Operators are paid on a per-mile basis, and are paid bonuses for good performance. They don't get any of the farebox. (This is somewhat similar to how Bus Eireann operates some routes.) It's not completely unproblematic (there are driver supply, pay and welfare issues) but it's not bad. It basically means that TfL can fire the management of a particular section of the network at the end of a contract if it isn't coming together.