[PR] Irish Rail Smartcard coming this Autumn

Victor

http://www.taxsaver.ie/en/News/Irish-Rail-Smartcard-coming-this-Autumn-/

Irish Rail Smartcard coming this Autumn

The new Irish Rail Smartcard for Monthly and Annual taxsaver Customers in the Short Hop Zone (Balbriggan, Maynooth, Hazelhatch and Greystones) will be commencing in October/November.

The new “credit card” type card will be available to Rail Only Customers.

loyatemu

The new “credit card” type card will be available to Rail Only Customers.

This suggests that Irish Rail smartcard is not compatible with the Dublin Bus smart card - surely 2 companies that are part of the same organisation would not be so incompetent as to introduce incompatible smartcard systems? (obviously I'm being sarcastic here, but I genuinely hope this is not the reason...)

noelfirl

loyatemu wrote: »

This suggests that Irish Rail smartcard is not compatible with the Dublin Bus smart card - surely 2 companies that are part of the same organisation would not be so incompetent as to introduce incompatible smartcard systems? (obviously I'm being sarcastic here, but I genuinely hope this is not the reason...)

AIUI there will be interim individual smartcards for all of DB, Luas and Irish Rail, to be superceeded "somewhere" down the line by a single card, which will apparently be compatible with all the already installed infrastructure on buses and at rail stations and Luas stops.

Zoney

noelfirl wrote: »

AIUI there will be interim individual smartcards for all of DB, Luas and Irish Rail, to be superceeded "somewhere" down the line by a single card, which will apparently be compatible with all the already installed infrastructure on buses and at rail stations and Luas stops.

I'm not hopeful when something as simple as the magnetic stripe tickets dispensed by the automatic machines for prebooked tickets, don't work in the newly installed ticket barriers (in Heuston at least). And that's entirely within Iarnród Éireann's sphere.

KC61

loyatemu wrote: »

This suggests that Irish Rail smartcard is not compatible with the Dublin Bus smart card - surely 2 companies that are part of the same organisation would not be so incompetent as to introduce incompatible smartcard systems? (obviously I'm being sarcastic here, but I genuinely hope this is not the reason...)

From my understanding this is a "phased" project.

Starting off with the rail only products (and bus only products in the case of Dublin Bus) and then the second phase will be the combined bus/rail tickets.

Like most things better to start off with the simpler products and then move onto the multi-modal ones.

Dublin Bus introduced their various smartcards on a phased basis rather than altogether. It gives an opportunity to rectify any problems experienced in a far more focussed manner.

Ernest

I notice that DART stations have been installing panels similar to the ones used by Dublin Bus for use by their yellow "Smartcards". These bus "smartcards" have limited use and are useless for short bus journeys. As these were being introduced the geniuses at Dublin Bus discontinued the sale of the very convenient prepaid "Two Easy" tickets that were perfect for prepayment of short journey fares or occasional bus journeys. As a result of this, all passengers for short journeys or occasional bus users now have no choice but to queue up with cash and delay buses while coins are rolled down the chute and no change given if the fare is not exact. ( It is beyond belief that Dublin Bus are permitted to continue to refuse to accept banknotes despite every car- park in Europe being able to handle these without problems!!)
Presumably the technology embedded in these rfid cards is "smart" enough to facilitate their use for a range of possibly complicated journeys including short journeys and combinations of bus, dart, diesel and tram applications. Is there nobody at Government level able to just tell CIE and the Luas operators to just "make it so"

L1011

The DB smart-card system is clearly able to communicate with the Luas smartcard; as from experience if I have one of their fairly flimsy smartcards and my Luas card in my wallet, it picks up the Luas as "UNAUTHORISED", but any other RFID cards (Oyster for instance" come up as "BAD READ"

Ste.phen

MYOB wrote: »

The DB smart-card system is clearly able to communicate with the Luas smartcard; as from experience if I have one of their fairly flimsy smartcards and my Luas card in my wallet, it picks up the Luas as "UNAUTHORISED", but any other RFID cards (Oyster for instance" come up as "BAD READ"

Put one in each side of your wallet, and open the wallet before pressing the appropriate side against the reader.
Haven't had a single bad read (caused by interference between Luas and DB cards) since I started doing that

markpb

Ernest wrote: »

These bus "smartcards" have limited use and are useless for ...
Presumably the technology embedded in these rfid cards is "smart" enough to facilitate their use for a range of possibly complicated journeys including short journeys and combinations of bus, dart, diesel and tram applications. Is there nobody at Government level able to just tell CIE and the Luas operators to just "make it so"

It's actually the other way round. DB asked DoT for permission to add ePurse and integrated ticketing functionality to their smartcard but were denied because it would replicate work currently being done on the RPA's "official" smartcard ticket.

MYOB wrote: »

The DB smart-card system is clearly able to communicate with the Luas smartcard; as from experience if I have one of their fairly flimsy smartcards and my Luas card in my wallet, it picks up the Luas as "UNAUTHORISED"

They don't communicate with each other - they just use the same radio frequency and underlying protocol (ISO14443) because it's a standard for contactless smartcards.

L1011

markpb wrote: »

They don't communicate with each other - they just use the same radio frequency and underlying protocol (ISO14443) because it's a standard for contactless smartcards.

...except it gives an entirely different error with another ISO14443 contactless smartcard...

penexpers

Zoney wrote: »

I'm not hopeful when something as simple as the magnetic stripe tickets dispensed by the automatic machines for prebooked tickets, don't work in the newly installed ticket barriers (in Heuston at least). And that's entirely within Iarnród Éireann's sphere.

AFAIK the prebooked tickets are not magnetic at all.

Carawaystick

Why would you introduce nonmagnetic tickets and magnetic ticket barriers????
The Mind boggles at IÉ some times....

munchkin_utd

Zoney wrote: »

I'm not hopeful when something as simple as the magnetic stripe tickets dispensed by the automatic machines for prebooked tickets, don't work in the newly installed ticket barriers (in Heuston at least). And that's entirely within Iarnród Éireann's sphere.

This seems to be fixed.
I travelled to Ballina and back at the weekend and had no problems with my ticket from the prebooked machine in the barriers at Heuston.

KC61

munchkin_utd wrote: »

This seems to be fixed.
I travelled to Ballina and back at the weekend and had no problems with my ticket from the prebooked machine in the barriers at Heuston.

It's not the machine issued tickets that are the problem. It's the pre-booked tickets printed in the booking offices or sent out by post - they are printed by a laser printer onto pre-printed stationery.

There is no coding onto magnetic stripes involved.

L1011

KC61 wrote: »

It's not the machine issued tickets that are the problem. It's the pre-booked tickets printed in the booking offices or sent out by post - they are printed by a laser printer onto pre-printed stationery.

There is no coding onto magnetic stripes involved.

What happened to the pre-printed ones with a floppy plastic popout section? Thats what I used to get when booking the Enterprise in advance (by post).

KC61

MYOB wrote: »

What happened to the pre-printed ones with a floppy plastic popout section? Thats what I used to get when booking the Enterprise in advance (by post).

Those are exactly the tickets I am talking about.

They are printed on laser printers. There is no magnetic coding.

L1011

KC61 wrote: »

Those are exactly the tickets I am talking about.

They are printed on laser printers. There is no magnetic coding.

There *was* a magstripe on them last time I used them. However the last time I used them you were also using the wooden add-on checkin area and they checked all tickets manually so its entirely possible that the magstripe is never written.

KC61

MYOB wrote: »

There *was* a magstripe on them last time I used them. However the last time I used them you were also using the wooden add-on checkin area and they checked all tickets manually so its entirely possible that the magstripe is never written.

They are simply printed on normal laser printers using the pre-printed stationery, which has an uncoded magnetic stripe.

They have to be manually checked.

I'm not sure how else I can put it? :-)

L1011

KC61 wrote: »

They are simply printed on normal laser printers using the pre-printed stationery, which has an uncoded magnetic stripe.

They have to be manually checked.

I'm not sure how else I can put it? :-)

Ah, so the stripe is still there... ever so slightly pointless of them to put it there if its not used!

Victor

Carawaystick wrote: »

Why would you introduce nonmagnetic tickets and magnetic ticket barriers????

All the barriers that have been installed over the last few years are already smartcard capable.

Irish Rail staff have been issued with smardcards for their own use. There will be a small public trial in September and then they will be gradually rolled out.

Rashers72

I picked up my rail only annual smartcard today via my employer (bought through taxsaver scheme).
However, there was absolutely no information available around how to use it.
The card itself refers you to www.irishrail.ie/smartcard
but wait for it..... website does not exist!:mad:

Anyone got any links to up to date information on this - i.e. tagging on and off, can I add anything onto it for a non suburban/DART journey? etc.
Tried to google it, and got to this webpage. All the other results relate to the rollout last year, and the concept, but not the reallity of day to day use.

penexpers

Rashers72 wrote: »

I picked up my rail only annual smartcard today via my employer (bought through taxsaver scheme).
However, there was absolutely no information available around how to use it.
The card itself refers you to www.irishrail.ie/smartcard
but wait for it..... website does not exist!:mad:

Anyone got any links to up to date information on this - i.e. tagging on and off, can I add anything onto it for a non suburban/DART journey? etc.
Tried to google it, and got to this webpage. All the other results relate to the rollout last year, and the concept, but not the reallity of day to day use.

I got this

http://www.taxsaver.ie/en/FAQs/Using-your-Taxsaver-Smartcard/

What kind of ticket do you have?

RTTH

You can have good fun with these cards if you disolve them in acetone.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lGRoOq2VgcY&feature=related

Carawaystick

Mine looks like this
No start or finish date on it.
supposed to start in Feb

below the front side is a line with a number, my name, my surname and my pic on the top right side.
there's a No./Uimhir below the line with a number/name/surname also

If I swipe it at a turnstile, I think it says "top up"


The letter it came with made a big deal about it being an *interim* smartcard

Rashers72

I rang the taxsaver number. It turns out they did send a letter with it, but my HR department decided not to give them out with the smartcards. They are now posting out same.
IE confirmed the website on the smartcard is not live yet, as they are still in pilot. It would have been so easy to put a link from that site to the taxsaver site.
Would like to find out about topping it up, if I want to take a journey outside the short hop zone?