eflow "Pay as you go" mess.

oclugg

Go to to the "pay as you go" section on eflow.ie and type in a car reg, any car reg, a car reg from next year even, heck it doesn't even have to be a reg number I typed in "Bertie Ahearn" and it still couldn't tell the difference. It just bills you 3 euros, no questions asked. On a serious not you could make a mistake typing in your reg, it doesn't tell you but takes the money anyway and then down the road could hit you with a penalty for not paying. This thing is a joke.

murphaph

oclugg wrote: »

Go to to the "pay as you go" section on eflow.ie and type in a car reg, any car reg, a car reg from next year even, heck it doesn't even have to be a reg number I typed in "Bertie Ahearn" and it still couldn't tell the difference. It just bills you 3 euros, no questions asked. On a serious not you could make a mistake typing in your reg, it doesn't tell you but takes the money anyway and then down the road could hit you with a penalty for not paying. This thing is a joke.

Sounds like a serious fault.

Guy:Incognito

Surely a case of chck what you type instead of just mashing the keyboard with your hand and entering your cc details?

murphaph

Stekelly wrote: »

Surely a case of chck what you type instead of just mashing the keyboard with your hand and entering your cc details?

That's not sufficient for a system whereby if you make a mistake you leave yourself open to potentially very severe penalties. The system should check your reg against the national vehicle database (which eflow have full access to as can be seen when you try to set up an account) and ask you if the make and model are correct, just like the motor tax online site. It's a poor show not to do this when they have access to the information and penalties can go as far as imprisonment for failing to pay the toll!

I bet if you ring the call centre to pay your €3 they ask you to confirm your vehicle make and model.

Patrickof

No they don't confirm anything. They ask you your name, car reg and how many times you crossed the barrier. I asked the girl if she can't tell me how many times I crossed the barrier as she has my reg - she said they don't have that detail!!!

I asked her what the cameras were for - she told me they take a photo of the tag on your windscreen!!!!!!!!

Also, as the call centre is in Birmingham (I asked her) she took about 6 attempts to spell my name - a fairly common Irish name.

Bad bad bad.

murphaph

I thought the call centre was in Newry? (either way-I am not happy that a state agency, the National Roads Authority, which owns eflow, has sent employment outside the state and is paying 'foreign' wages out of our bloody tolls!)

Anyway, I can understand that the system accepts 'unusual' entries as it has to be able to accept foreign vehicle information, which they have no access to, but we are in ireland and the vast majority of users will indeed be, irish, so I maintain that they should confirm your vehicle details before taking an erroneous payment and later billing you and adding penalties for non-payment.

The system should be as foolproof as possible and it clearly isn't.

Red Alert

The transponders may be indeed in the same housing as the camera but they're totally separate :pac:

godtabh

murphaph wrote: »

The system should check your reg against the national vehicle database (which eflow have full access to as can be seen when you try to set up an account)

Does it not do this already? When I was registering when I typed in my detail it said car not found a few times. I got it sorted once I selected the correct car colour. Or maybe that was just a bug?

markpb

murphaph wrote: »

I thought the call centre was in Newry? (either way-I am not happy that a state agency, the National Roads Authority, which owns eflow, has sent employment outside the state and is paying 'foreign' wages out of our bloody tolls!)

NRA awarded the contract to a French company called BetEire Flow. BEF then outsourced the call centre to a company in Newry, the billing to another company (don't know the location), the cash acceptance and credit card collection to Payzone (in Dublin). Other smaller Irish companies were also involved in other parts of the project. That's what happens when you aware contracts, they might not go to Irish people but you get (hopefully) the cheapest contract.

Anyway, I can understand that the system accepts 'unusual' entries as it has to be able to accept foreign vehicle information, which they have no access to, but we are in ireland and the vast majority of users will indeed be, irish, so I maintain that they should confirm your vehicle details before taking an erroneous payment and later billing you and adding penalties for non-payment.

Exactly. The site should let you know if the car's reg doesn't match an Irish record. It won't affect foreigners but would be a big help to Irish people. Seems strange that it was done for one part of the site but not others.

The system should be as foolproof as possible and it clearly isn't.[/QUOTE]

murphaph

kearnsr wrote: »

Does it not do this already? When I was registering when I typed in my detail it said car not found a few times. I got it sorted once I selected the correct car colour. Or maybe that was just a bug?

That's the whole point-it does check and confirm your details when setting up an account but it doesn't check and confirm when making a one off payment which is arguably more dodgy as you will be completely oblivious that you have failed to pay for a toll until you get your penalty notice.

murphaph

markpb wrote: »

NRA awarded the contract to a French company called BetEire Flow. BEF then outsourced the call centre to a company in Newry, the billing to another company (don't know the location), the cash acceptance and credit card collection to Payzone (in Dublin). Other smaller Irish companies were also involved in other parts of the project. That's what happens when you aware contracts, they might not go to Irish people but you get (hopefully) the cheapest contract.

Maybe I'm just all cynical and sick of the 'race to the bottom'. The whole blasted thing is a bloated mess of needless administration of an unfair toll in the first place. Abolish ALL tolls NOW and increase tax on fuel. If it's critical enough national infrastructure to build at all, it's critical enough for everyone to pay for. I don't mind paying tax for the Limerick/Lynch tunnels or the Cork motorway despite my rarely/never using them and I'm sure Limerick and Cork people would feel the same about Westlink. Needless administration. Abolish tolls and abolish PPPs which exist purely to keep such infrastructure off the government balance sheet but which actually cost the PEOPLE more!

godtabh

murphaph wrote: »

That's the whole point-it does check and confirm your details when setting up an account but it doesn't check and confirm when making a one off payment which is arguably more dodgy as you will be completely oblivious that you have failed to pay for a toll until you get your penalty notice.

That’s ridiculous. Doesn’t sound like much R&D was done on this at all.

This stuff isn’t new yet it appears like they are reinventing the wheel on it

egan007

True True.....these things have to be Moron proof.

r3nu4l

murphaph wrote: »

If it's critical enough national infrastructure to build at all, it's critical enough for everyone to pay for. I don't mind paying tax for the Limerick/Lynch tunnels or the Cork motorway despite my rarely/never using them and I'm sure Limerick and Cork people would feel the same about Westlink.

I would also be quite civic-minded like yourself, however, I think you'd find that if the Government went with your suggestion you'd have a load of people from all over the country giving out about having to pay for roads they don't use. Not everyone is civic-minded.

As for the website not confirming your reg plate, that's a problem. It should do imo.

Do you get a receipt with a reference number when you pay online? Can you not use that to call the payment centre and say, 'oops, typed the wrong registration, here's the reference number, please credit my registration instead?'

Davidth88

Why the hell do I have to give a CC detail if registering my car ?

I want to pay by cash .....

What would happen if I don't have a CC/Laser , I get charged extra


RIP OFF RIP OFF

I have paid for this bridge via my taxes already ...... this is a stelth tax


Grrrrrrrrrrrrrr

RedPlanet

Maybe they didn't want to spend the extra € on IT and burdening the system with a database query when they can just put the onus on joe public to make sure he gets his reg right?

murphaph

RedPlanet wrote: »

Maybe they didn't want to spend the extra € on IT and burdening the system with a database query when they can just put the onus on joe public to make sure he gets his reg right?

or (more likely) they forgot.

Seriously, are we to believe that they are running this system on a Commodore64 and they don't have enough KHz of processor speed or kb of precious memory to process that many transactions or database queries?

This whole bloody thing is a scam, just like how the NRA classes THE SAME VEHICLE as being a car in the Dublin Port Tunnel and a truck on Westlink (same M50 road!) so the owner (Mercedes Sprinter van btw) gets stung both ways. SCAM. RIP OFF. 18 years of paying a private company and now another 18 years+ of paying this not-so-stealthy tax instead of taxing EVERYONE fairly. There are TWO river Liffey crossings in county Dublin. One is the Westlink and the other is a 200 year old hump bridge in Lucan. This is completely insufficient for the numbers of peple needing to get around and now that the state owns the Westlink outright, the tolls should be removed. End of story.

marmurr1916

People should start contacting eflow to make them aware of the flaws with the system, especially the one-off payment form that doesn't ask you to confirm your car details against the registration number.

Why can't you have the toll deducted from your bank account if you don't have a credit/Laser card?

Their contact details are:

LoCall (from Ireland): 1890 50 10 50
UK / NI: 0845 30 15 405
International phone number: +800 50 10 50 11
Fax (from Ireland): 01 443 0555
Fax (from outside Ireland): +353 1 443 0555
Email: customerservice@eflow.ie

Post: eFlow, PO Box 11302, Dublin 17.


I don't know though why people are getting so angry now about a toll that's been in place for about 16 years!

Davidth88

Why am I upset ....

I now have to pay 2.50 , if I give cc details , or 3 euro

Or

Pay 1 euro per month PLUS leave a sum on deposit to pay the same 2 euro I paid last week.

As for business customers , they can't claim their VAT back any more

Why when the system should be more efficient do I have to pay more ?

Never mind the stupid system that you have to pay by 8pm the day after , what if you are driving to the airport to go away .......You should be able to pre-pay ( by cash )

godtabh

Davidth88 wrote: »

Never mind the stupid system that you have to pay by 8pm the day after , what if you are driving to the airport to go away .......You should be able to pre-pay ( by cash )

That system works in London with the congestion charge

Davidth88

I think in London you can pay in advance .

Out of interest , what is the tag for , why do you need a tag AND ANPR ?

You don't get charged extra for paying cash either, AND the money is ringfenced for travel systems in London

If the money from the bridge was used for public transport , then all well and good , but it won't be, it will be frittered away like all the rest.

ga2re2t

Jeez, they could simply start by adding a basic Javascript to the webpage so that only valid reg numbers are entered. Of course, this would need to be combined with a drop down menu to select your country so that the script can be tailored to various reg plate configurations. An intern from any univeristy or college computer science course could put a basic one together in a day or so.

This type of thing is used all the time on websites for verifying phone number entries and e-mail addresses. A quick google search brings up some examples:
http://www.smartwebby.com/DHTML/phone_no_validation.asp

Run_to_da_hills

Davidth88 wrote: »

Why the hell do I have to give a CC detail if registering my car ?

I want to pay by cash .....

What would happen if I don't have a CC/Laser , I get charged extra


RIP OFF RIP OFF

I have paid for this bridge via my taxes already ...... this is a stelth tax


Grrrrrrrrrrrrrr

Unfortunately you have NO choice of a cash option any more, You have to surrender all your registration details no matter what way you want to go about crossing this inland "border control".

The toll bridge is no longer about collecting money for a bridge which has been paid many times over, it is now all about subsidising a sophisticated electronic tracking system and one is heavily penalised for not complying to it, i.e. fitting an electronic tag to your car.

Del2005

Davidth88 wrote: »

Why am I upset ....

I now have to pay 2.50 , if I give cc details , or 3 euro

Or

Pay 1 euro per month PLUS leave a sum on deposit to pay the same 2 euro I paid last week.

As for business customers , they can't claim their VAT back any more

Why when the system should be more efficient do I have to pay more ?

Never mind the stupid system that you have to pay by 8pm the day after , what if you are driving to the airport to go away .......You should be able to pre-pay ( by cash )

AFAIK you can pre pay. But if you are going to the airport you'll know you are going through the toll. You can ring them when you get to the airport and pay.

The toll is there, unfair and all as it is, so you either drive across and pay or use an alternative route. It's up to the driver to make sure they are legal not the NRA or anyone else.

Ham'nd'egger

Davidth88 wrote: »

Why the hell do I have to give a CC detail if registering my car ?

I want to pay by cash .....

What would happen if I don't have a CC/Laser , I get charged extra


RIP OFF RIP OFF

I have paid for this bridge via my taxes already ...... this is a stelth tax


Grrrrrrrrrrrrrr

If you want to pay by cash or if you don't have a CC, isn't there retail outlets to do so? For the record, I set up a a debit with E Flow as I felt I'd prefer to settle on a post user basis.

And lest you never heard before, NTR built the bridge not your taxes.

Davidth88

Hi,

NTR may have built it, however a few hundred million of my taxes purchased it off them, they didn't donate this cash-cow ( bridge ) to the NRA.

As for paying cash, yes I can but 3 euro instead of 2, and 2.50 IF I have a cc/debit card to register .

So I will be stung, I do have a CC but I am dammed if I am giving it this bunch of clowns, they no doubt would lose the laptop they copied it to , or they would take money without my asking .

Somehow they ( the gmvt / NRA ) have managed to make the most complex system.

Run_to_da_hills

Hamndegger wrote: »

If you want to pay by cash or if you don't have a CC, isn't there retail outlets to do so? For the record, I set up a a debit with E Flow as I felt I'd prefer to settle on a post user basis.

And lest you never heard before, NTR built the bridge not your taxes.

You still have to furnish your registration details and a possible 10% surcharge from retail outlets providing this service adding to the rip off for those that don't want the e_tag.

Ham'nd'egger

Davidth88 wrote: »

Hi,

NTR may have built it, however a few hundred million of my taxes purchased it off them, they didn't donate this cash-cow ( bridge ) to the NRA.

As for paying cash, yes I can but 3 euro instead of 2, and 2.50 IF I have a cc/debit card to register .

So I will be stung, I do have a CC but I am dammed if I am giving it this bunch of clowns, they no doubt would lose the laptop they copied it to , or they would take money without my asking .

Somehow they ( the gmvt / NRA ) have managed to make the most complex system.

If you feel that strongly about it, may I suggest you purchase a map and find an alternative route. I find that not using toll roads is a very good way of not paying tolls

Incidentally, if you choose not to register your CC and go the tagged toll way, you will give them even more money. And we can't be having that.... can we?;)

ga2re2t

I contacted eFlow by e-mail regarding the issue of appealing a toll charge.
Here is their reponse:

We will open a dispute on these transactions. You can do this by phone on LoCall 1890-50-10-50, or on the website www.eflow.ie. The enforcement department will then investigate the dispute and inform you of its decision. As the images will still be on file we will be able to confirm if it is a different vehicle or not.

(and yes, I did let them know that I may copy their reply to an Internet forum).

bauderline

Regarding Northern Ireland registrations, since when does the NRA have access to the DVLNI registration database ? The last time I checked the Gardai didn't even have access to that information...

If this has quietly changed then there could well be grumbles of discontent once word gets out North of the border !!

Fratton Fred

markpb wrote: »

NRA awarded the contract to a French company called BetEire Flow. BEF then outsourced the call centre to a company in Newry, the billing to another company (don't know the location), the cash acceptance and credit card collection to Payzone (in Dublin). Other smaller Irish companies were also involved in other parts of the project. That's what happens when you aware contracts, they might not go to Irish people but you get (hopefully) the cheapest contract.

the joys of the EU procurement directive I believe. All government tenders have to be advertised and any (reasonable) company within an EU state that wants to submit a bid has to be included.

I think that's how it works anyway.

darsar

I have a northern reg car and I went into the newsagents yesterday to pay for a two passes throught the toll.

The guy asked for my reg number and I said YCZ 1234*. He tells me the payzone machine doesnt give him an option to put letters in. My receipt says my reg is 929 1234*!! So the guy obviously used the payzone transaction pad the way a mobile phone is with 9 = Y, 2 = C and Z = 9!

I said before that i wasn't going to pay for this and wait to see do I get a penalty notice but now i definitely will not be paying! They can't even take my reg.

arctictree

I use the M50 a few different times a day and had to collect receipts for billing to different clients depending on the job I was doing at the time.

How do I do that now?!

Del2005

arctictree wrote: »

I use the M50 a few different times a day and had to collect receipts for billing to different clients depending on the job I was doing at the time.

How do I do that now?!

The NRA send out monthly invoices, you can use that.

P.C.

markpb wrote: »

NRA awarded the contract to a French company called BetEire Flow.

Why is it that everytime I read that, I read it as Bertie Flow

rameire

if you dont like it dont use the m50 toll area, go somewhere else, use a boat, use a plane.
i have a motorbike.
i could just suggest getting on with your life we only live for around 80 years.

murphaph

Hamndegger wrote: »

And lest you never heard before, NTR built the bridge not your taxes.

NTR built it-taxpayers' money bought it and even if they hadn't, taxpayers' money (irish and european) paid for the rest of the M50 to funnel suckers customers into it. It was a brown envelope job from day one and it still is-see Shane Ross' article about the board of directors of the NRA-ALL political appointees bar one man. They are all puppets for FF.

This country is a sham.

murphaph

rameire wrote: »

if you dont like it dont use the m50 toll area, go somewhere else, use a boat, use a plane.
i have a motorbike.
i could just suggest getting on with your life we only live for around 80 years.

You suggest the roll-over-and-take-it-up-the-a$$ method of living your life-it's because so many people in this country are like you that the place is the way it is.

rameire

murphaph wrote: »

You suggest the roll-over-and-take-it-up-the-a$$ method of living your life-it's because so many people in this country are like you that the place is the way it is.

my choice , my life, i enjoy it,
ive more important things to worry about
and come to think about it,
its not all that bad, could be worse,
yes could be better,
but its a work in progress.
you cant just click your fingers and everything is ok,

dodgyme

rameire wrote: »

my choice , my life, i enjoy it,
ive more important things to worry about
,

I dont even know what ye were arguing about but when I see "I have more important things to worry about" even though you are posting on the topic, that is a cop out. You obviously do not have more important things to think about.

MOH

ga2re2t wrote: »

Jeez, they could simply start by adding a basic Javascript to the webpage so that only valid reg numbers are entered. Of course, this would need to be combined with a drop down menu to select your country so that the script can be tailored to various reg plate configurations. An intern from any univeristy or college computer science course could put a basic one together in a day or so.

This type of thing is used all the time on websites for verifying phone number entries and e-mail addresses. A quick google search brings up some examples:
http://www.smartwebby.com/DHTML/phone_no_validation.asp

The whole joke is that they've already done exactly this on the other page for registering in advance - you give your plate details and it shows the model and colour of your car for confirmation. If you enter garbage it tells you it's not a valid plate for this country. For some reason they've decided not to use it on the 'Pay as you go' page.

I.S.T.

MOH wrote: »

The whole joke is that they've already done exactly this on the other page for registering in advance - you give your plate details and it shows the model and colour of your car for confirmation. If you enter garbage it tells you it's not a valid plate for this country. For some reason they've decided not to use it on the 'Pay as you go' page.

I'm not saying this is the reason they have no validation, but people who passed through the toll could use the pay as you go system (if it validated the registration) to check if the cameras picked up their registration plate correctly. Imagine the cameras got one digit wrong on your reg, you put your correct reg and the system tells you you didn't pass through the toll on that particular day, hey presto you get away without paying for it. But with no validation you will never know if the cameras made a mistake or not so more than likely go ahead and pay.

MOH

IrishSpeedTraps wrote: »

I'm not saying this is the reason they have no validation, but people who passed through the toll could use the pay as you go system (if it validated the registration) to check if the cameras picked up their registration plate correctly. Imagine the cameras got one digit wrong on your reg, you put your correct reg and the system tells you you didn't pass through the toll on that particular day, hey presto you get away without paying for it. But with no validation you will never know if the cameras made a mistake or not so more than likely go ahead and pay.

I presume it validates the registration against some central database of registrations, from the motor tax office or something. It wouldn't be validating against a list of cars it was waiting for payment from.

Can't see any logical reason for not having validation on the pay as you go page.

[tin foil hat]
Unless of course they know some people will mistype their reg, pay the original toll and think it's done with, then get hit with penalties later on because there's still an outstanding charge against their reg.
[/tin foil hat]

Yoda

Well. I tried to sign up using Safari under Mac OS 10.5. Safari not supported. So I used Firefox. Doesn't work: when you click the button to change from Residential to Business or from Tag to Video it gets stuck trying to load some java script or another. Undaunted, I tried Firefox and Internet Explorer in XP under Parallels. Same woe. There's no way to sign up.

Muppets.

watty

Firefox 2.x on XP works. But once you create an account you don't seem to be able to delete it or change it (not a browser issue).

anyway, eflow is operated FOR the NRA, not by the NRA

Background information

BetEire Flow is a consortium comprising the French toll operator Sanef and the French systems designer, supplier and integrator CS.

Sanef, part of albertis, Europe’s leading infrastructure group has 40 years of experience in toll road operations, electronic toll collection and traffic management. They have 3,600 employees serving more than 700,000 customers every day worldwide. They manage toll services on 33% of all French motorways and 66% of Paris motorways.

CS is ranked number 3 in the world in intelligent transportation systems and leads in remote toll, free-flow and traffic management systems. With 3,200 employees they have major systems in over 20 countries.

In October 2006, Sanef and CS (their operation in the US, Intrans) were appointed Preferred Bidder for the Golden Ears Bridge project in Vancouver. This project is similar to M50 Free Flow and comprises the design, build, operate and maintain an electronic toll collection system for the Golden Ears Bridge. The Contract for this project was due to be signed in early February.

In addition, Sanef and CS have experience in developing free-flow toll systems in North America (Virginia and California) and in France (A86 tunnel in Paris).

This contract is a fixed services contract that includes the design, construction, and operation for eight years valued at €113 million, plus VAT.

BetEire Flow Ltd runs eflow
http://www.nra.ie/News/PressReleases/htmltext,8987,en.html
http://www.sanef.com/en/institutionnel/presse/communiques_detail.jsp?id=1007

Sanef through its subsidiary BetEire Flow has been awarded a contract by the Irish National Roads Authority for a free flow Electronic Toll system at a single toll point on the M50 around Dublin.

This contract will replace the existing toll barrier with a free flow service based on overhead gantries, allowing drivers to pass through the toll system without stopping or slowing down.

The new system will start in June 2008 with an estimated 120 000 customers per day. BetEire Flow will operate the system for an additional 7 years, providing complete services for management and collection of electronic tolls: DSRC tolling, video tolling, enforcement procedures, accountmanagement and equipment maintenance.

Sanef (80%) owns BetEire Flow with CSSI (20%). Bet’Eire Flow will subcontract the turnkey provision of the system and then subsequently operate it.

So when you type in your reg. additional details from the Registration Database are automatically given to a pair of French Companies. The IT partner does most of its business in US (CS, 20% of BetEire Flow Ltd.).

The tag is huge and ugly.

murphaph

murphaph wrote: »

You suggest the roll-over-and-take-it-up-the-a$$ method of living your life-it's because so many people in this country are like you that the place is the way it is.

you legend! Pity more arent like you, I want you by my side when the apocalypse comes! A nation of gutless ****s

michael_d

Does anybody used eFlow tag on M1 toll plaza at Drogheda exit?
Is that works ? ?

Our man in Havana

It works ok.

Guvnor

I've a number of issues with this whole thing most of which have been raised by others.

1. Do the cameras on the gantry read/meant to read your car reg or road tax disc?
2. At this stage nobody actually knows if they can process the data?
3. Is it possible for such a system to work smoothly and without much human input?

There is no way any foreign car incl NI need bother paying imo as I seriously doubt them chasing up a Swiss tourist for example. The whole thing is a complete mess and as someone said I think they are relying on joe public to pony up because they cannot process the data fast enough or are not even processing the data!

I have a serious issue with them not telling me how many times I went through is this because they do not know!?!?

Red Alert

The system in the Dundrum town centre and Dublin airport car parks reads the number plates in real time of cars as they move through the complex. The cameras on the M50 are helped out by induction loops so they've a decent enough idea of when a car is underneath them. Once the snap is taken, it's pretty simple for a bog standard computer to figure out the number.

L1011

Guvnor wrote: »

I've a number of issues with this whole thing most of which have been raised by others.

1. Do the cameras on the gantry read/meant to read your car reg or road tax disc?
2. At this stage nobody actually knows if they can process the data?
3. Is it possible for such a system to work smoothly and without much human input?

There is no way any foreign car incl NI need bother paying imo as I seriously doubt them chasing up a Swiss tourist for example. The whole thing is a complete mess and as someone said I think they are relying on joe public to pony up because they cannot process the data fast enough or are not even processing the data!

I have a serious issue with them not telling me how many times I went through is this because they do not know!?!?

It reads your reg plate. Your tax disc is far too small to capture at speed as well as being printed in an horrific font to OCR even if they could

We know it works - people are already receiving payment demand notices for not having a tag / video registration / paying by payzone.

Its entirely possible for such a system to work properly, but this is Ireland after all - hence them not having put enough development effort in to being able to tell you how many times you went through when you call the call centre.

The London Congestion Charge works *identically* and is virtually flawless.