Irish Rail and NCPS

positron

Just wondering if anyone know what was the original reasoning or logic behind railway stations across the country to start charging for parking?

I have been commuting Drogheda-Dublin for nearly 5 years at this stage, and since they introduced pay parking in Drogheda station, I have been paying €2.00 most of the days for the privilege. However I fail to see any improvement anywhere, parking facilities or otherwise.

Once I ended up paying out €125 of hard earned cash (from what is leftover after paying tax and expensive commuter ticket) to get the clamps removed - all because the parking slip had slipped about an inch under the dark area of the windscreen (probably when I slammed the car door) making the date & time unreadable. After calling and paying for a penalty I don't really deserve, it took an hour for the NCPS guy to turn up, and then when I explained how the ticket had slipped under the windscreen and showed the ticket, he dismissed it in a second and said 'appeal if you want', before driving off with a smirk! I rang NCPS and didn't get anywhere as they were very arrogant on the phone to say its my fault.

This morning the machine swallowed the €2.00 and didn't issue a ticket. After speaking to one of the Irish Rail staff, he came around to have a look, pressed a few buttons, shook his head and said "yeah, some of these are broken, but, we don't know anything, its NCPS". His colleagues confirmed the same. At this stage I had already missed the train I wanted to get, and was going to miss the next one (which really would have screwed my schedule), so I ended up spending another €2.00 to get a ticket from another machine. Sigh..!

How can any government in this world set up essential infrastructure / service like railways for its subjects, and then put a greedy faceless private company around them to torture the people, is beyond my comprehension! Can I just add, there has been absolutely no improvement to the parking facilities since they started charging us...!

End of rant..!

PS: Another IrishRail employee did say that they have nothing to do with NCPS, which also means they won't share the security camera footage with NCPS either. I am not sure how true this is, but if so, that opens up another set of options...... :cool:

digital_d

Well, OP at least you don't have to put up with APOCA or whatever they are called at Pheonix park! Not only do they charge €4 for all day parking double that of any other station, they also won't let you play for more than 24 hours.

Not only this but, IE don't mention any details of the parking arrangements at this so called park and ride on the IE website. I got stung there when I returned a mere 30mins over my 24hour ticket and had been clamped, IE wash thier hands of the issue stating the developer owns the car park.

now fair enough I was late back, but had IE have listed the max period being 24hours on the website I'd not have parked there - I arrived to park willing to pay for 1weeks parking - how silly of my to assume there would be some sort of consistency - but couldn't nor could I rearrange my plans on the spot,

If IE see fit to take over a station with out having any power on the adjoining carpark, or at least agreeing consistent parking terms with the other stations on the network, or making any info available to customers about the parking arangments. topped off with an offical response of "oh well the developers own the car park - here's thier number" it just goes to reinforce how short sighted they are, and where service, and the customer lie in thier priorities!

Anyway, as a result I've given up on using them and thier rediculously under used station at pheonix park, and the developers park and ride which seems to get a max of 10 cars a day in it - I just drive into town - so much for making public transport a better option to driving!

(Sorry! bit of a rant!)

fh041205

Well in a place like Drogheda I can actually see a logic to pay parking. Scotch hall down the road charge 1.25 an hour so 2 quid for the day isn't bad. There were (and possibly still are) too many people parking there who don't need to. People of live nearby, people who work in the town or people going shopping etc. If it was free you would get loads of people who aren't even using the train taking spots on people who do, which isn't fair.

Your fine does indeed sound very unfair, although I have hear that NCPS are really intolerant about these things. They seem to impose the rules to the letter no matter what the circumstances.

If the machine took your money without giving you a ticket then NCPS are the only ones you can deal with. IR staff have nothing to do with the parking.

Carawaystick

positron,
if writing to them doesn't work,
contact the small claims court.

http://www.courts.ie/courts.ie/Library3.nsf/PageCurrentWebLookUpTopNav/Small%20Claims%20Procedure

Also contact the national consumer agency to see if they have any guidance. They probably won't though, they're usually useless and incompetent and afraid of actually using their powers.

Pineapple stu

digital_d wrote: »

Well, OP at least you don't have to put up with APOCA or whatever they are called at Pheonix park! Not only do they charge €4 for all day parking double that of any other station, they also won't let you play for more than 24 hours.

Not only this but, IE don't mention any details of the parking arrangements at this so called park and ride on the IE website. I got stung there when I returned a mere 30mins over my 24hour ticket and had been clamped, IE wash thier hands of the issue stating the developer owns the car park.

now fair enough I was late back, but had IE have listed the max period being 24hours on the website I'd not have parked there - I arrived to park willing to pay for 1weeks parking - how silly of my to assume there would be some sort of consistency - but couldn't nor could I rearrange my plans on the spot,

If IE see fit to take over a station with out having any power on the adjoining carpark, or at least agreeing consistent parking terms with the other stations on the network, or making any info available to customers about the parking arangments. topped off with an offical response of "oh well the developers own the car park - here's thier number" it just goes to reinforce how short sighted they are, and where service, and the customer lie in thier priorities!

Anyway, as a result I've given up on using them and thier rediculously under used station at pheonix park, and the developers park and ride which seems to get a max of 10 cars a day in it - I just drive into town - so much for making public transport a better option to driving!

(Sorry! bit of a rant!)

Are you seriously complaining about being charged €4 for all day parking? Its far less than other Station car parks who charge €8.
IE is right, the developer of the apartments own the car park and your issue is with them and not IE.
You were late so you got clamped, you have no grounds for complaint.
You would complain if the car park was over full and you are whinging here that its under used, whats the problem there.
I think you are just annoyed at getting clamped so you blame IE instead of yourself.
If you use the Pheonix park station then id assume that you lived close to it so why not just leave the car at home and walk to the station?

fh041205

cymro wrote: »

Are you seriously complaining about being charged €4 for all day parking? Its far less than other Station car parks who charge €8.

Really?:eek: Where?

cymro, surely you would agree that this is unreasonable to only be allowed park for 24 hours. I agree with you though, that the rules are there and theres nothing IR staff can do about it.

Pineapple stu

After reading through a few threads it seems that a lot of the angry posts towards Irish Rail is done after the posters have been clamped. Is it just a case of people looking to blame others for their own mistakes?

Pineapple stu

fh041205 wrote: »

Really?:eek: Where?

Sallins used to be €5 now €8. I stand corrected though if it was €2 to €5. Anyway €4 a day is cheap.

Pineapple stu

fh041205 wrote: »

Really?:eek: Where?

cymro, surely you would agree that this is unreasonable to only be allowed park for 24 hours. I agree with you though, that the rules are there and theres nothing IR staff can do about it.

No its not . Why would you want to park your car in a Train station car park for more than 24hrs? If you are going to be away longer then you leave the car at home wouldnt you .

positron

fh041205, I am sorry but I can only agree to disagree on that point of non-rail users using IR car park.

On a normal day, the station car park is full to the brink by around 7:30am. I don't think many casual shoppers, or even people who work full-time in Drogheda will ever get in before 7:30am! Now, if that is indeed their original concern, they could have simply sorted that by providing an optional 'parking disk' at a nominal charge to rail ticket holders that is valid for the duration of the ticket (monthly, yearly etc), rather than penalizing every single train user by about €400 a year (on top of the €2000 approx train ticket..). :rolleyes:

digital_d, that sounds terrible. I am lost to understand how IR can just wipe their hands clean by saying its them (NCPS). Such a joke.

cymro, surely you noticed digital_d was complaining not complaining about €4 but about the lack of notice / information from IR? I thought that was obvious..!

Carawaystick, I will look into that - thank you!

I am still a bit curious about what the guy in orange west told me - he said they don't share the security footage with NCPS...! Angle grinder comes to mind.. but of course I wouldn't suggesting anything illegal..!!

fh041205

cymro wrote: »

No its not . Why would you want to park your car in a Train station car park for more than 24hrs? If you are going to be away longer then you leave the car at home wouldnt you .

I agreed with you up until this comment. There are people who park their cars for over 24 hours (I would have though this an obvious fact). Since you asked, holidays, night out taking alcohol, staying with friends, taking a ferry, visiting a relative down the country, music/comedy festival, overnight in hospital. Not everyone lives within walking distance of a train station or bus route. Leaving the car at home isn't always an option.

Positron, NCPS take care of the parking, IR can do nothing for you. Thats fact, not a joke. Plus, since pay parking I've yet to see that car park full at 7.30. I used to be full, but even on the first morning of pay parking, there were spaces after 9:00. Parking disk would be the same cost, just a different and more awkward system.

Pineapple stu

positron wrote: »

fh041205, I am sorry but I can only agree to disagree on that point of non-rail users using IR car park.

On a normal day, the station car park is full to the brink by around 7:30am. I don't think many casual shoppers, or even people who work full-time in Drogheda will ever get in before 7:30am! Now, if that is indeed their original concern, they could have simply sorted that by providing an optional 'parking disk' at a nominal charge to rail ticket holders that is valid for the duration of the ticket (monthly, yearly etc), rather than penalizing every single train user by about €400 a year (on top of the €2000 approx train ticket..). :rolleyes:

digital_d, that sounds terrible. I am lost to understand how IR can just wipe their hands clean by saying its them (NCPS). Such a joke.

cymro, surely you noticed digital_d was complaining not complaining about €4 but about the lack of notice / information from IR? I thought that was obvious..!

Carawaystick, I will look into that - thank you!

I am still a bit curious about what the guy in orange west told me - he said they don't share the security footage with NCPS...! Angle grinder comes to mind.. but of course I wouldn't suggesting anything illegal..!!

cymro, surely you noticed digital_d was complaining not complaining about €4 but about the lack of notice / information from IR? I thought that was obvious..!

Read his first line again where he says the €4 is double that of other stations

Pineapple stu

fh041205 wrote: »

I agreed with you up until this comment. There are people who park their cars for over 24 hours (I would have though this an obvious fact). Since you asked, holidays, night out taking alcohol, staying with friends, taking a ferry, visiting a relative down the country, music/comedy festival, overnight in hospital. Not everyone lives within walking distance of a train station or bus route. Leaving the car at home isn't always an option.

Positron, NCPS take care of the parking, IR can do nothing for you. Thats fact, not a joke. Plus, since pay parking I've yet to see that car park full at 7.30. I used to be full, but even on the first morning of pay parking, there were spaces after 9:00. Parking disk would be the same cost, just a different and more awkward system.

And if the car was broke into then they would blame Irish rail again. Surely the parking spaces should for those who commute daily and shouldnt miss out on a parking space because someone has abandoned their car and gone on holidays for the week. Most IR car parks allow you to pay daily or weekly, so again the chaps issue is with the developers and not IR. But their is no way i would leave my car overnight in any station car park.

serfboard

cymro wrote: »

And if the car was broke into then they would blame Irish rail again. Surely the parking spaces should for those who commute daily and shouldnt miss out on a parking space because someone has abandoned their car and gone on holidays for the week. Most IR car parks allow you to pay daily or weekly, so again the chaps issue is with the developers and not IR. But their is no way i would leave my car overnight in any station car park.

I once left my car in a train station for 3 weeks! That was before it was being charged for, mind you. When I came back, the car was perfectly fine and I drove it away.

And no, if it had been broken into, I wouldn't have blamed IE.

digital_d

cymro wrote: »

cymro, surely you noticed digital_d was complaining not complaining about €4 but about the lack of notice / information from IR? I thought that was obvious..!

Read his first line again where he says the €4 is double that of other stations

Cymro, As far as I can see on Irish Rails car park info

http://www.irishrail.ie/your_journey/carpark_information.asp

Hueston & connolly are the only stations that charge more than €2 per day - And my main issue is about pheonix park not being listed here at all so the details listed may not even be correct anyway!

My main gripe is not that I was clamped. I accept that I was late back,

my issue is that prior to planning a journey, there is no details anywhere on this carpark. Inc. IE's website,
If they where a bit more customer and service focused, they could publish the information - which would have led to me planning my journey differently,

Or indeed if they could be bothered about consistency they could work with the owner of the land to make the parking more consistent, if not in cost of parking at least in the options available, ie. longer than max 24hrs.

instead they display an attitude of "it's not our car park so it's not our problem" and that's pretty lousey.

I commented on the car park being empty to highlight the lack of business sence in the current practice at what should be a prime park and ride site. IE customers don't have anything to tell them there is a car park available, and the developer is not really making much from it as is.

fh041205

cymro wrote: »

And if the car was broke into then they would blame Irish rail again. Surely the parking spaces should for those who commute daily and shouldnt miss out on a parking space because someone has abandoned their car and gone on holidays for the week. Most IR car parks allow you to pay daily or weekly, so again the chaps issue is with the developers and not IR. But their is no way i would leave my car overnight in any station car park.

True. But 24 hours is unreasonable. Its not IR fault but it is unreasonable. Your taking an incredibly narrow minded viewpoint if you don't think anyone should be allowed park more than 24 hours. Anyone who uses the train should be entitled to a space if its available. Nobody should get priority.

Pineapple stu

digital_d wrote: »

Cymro, As far as I can see on Irish Rails car park info

http://www.irishrail.ie/your_journey/carpark_information.asp

Hueston & connolly are the only stations that charge more than €2 per day - And my main issue is about pheonix park not being listed here at all so the details listed may not even be correct anyway!

My main gripe is not that I was clamped. I accept that I was late back,

my issue is that prior to planning a journey, there is no details anywhere on this carpark. Inc. IE's website,
If they where a bit more customer and service focused, they could publish the information - which would have led to me planning my journey differently,

Or indeed if they could be bothered about consistency they could work with the owner of the land to make the parking more consistent, if not in cost of parking at least in the options available, ie. longer than max 24hrs.

instead they display an attitude of "it's not our car park so it's not our problem" and that's pretty lousey.

I commented on the car park being empty to highlight the lack of business sence in the current practice at what should be a prime park and ride site. IE customers don't have anything to tell them there is a car park available, and the developer is not really making much from it as is.

Hueston & connolly are the only stations that charge more than €2 per day

No they are not.

Why should there be any info on the Irish rail web site on a car park that isnt theirs?

Pineapple stu

fh041205 wrote: »

True. But 24 hours is unreasonable. Its not IR fault but it is unreasonable. Your taking an incredibly narrow minded viewpoint if you don't think anyone should be allowed park more than 24 hours. Anyone who uses the train should be entitled to a space if its available. Nobody should get priority.

You missed the point.
What if all the spaces were taken up by people who went down the country for a week or more? Could you imagine the grief on here with people complaining that there was no room for them to park their car on a monday morning so could go to work and then adding to the traffic around town.

Its a bit of fuss over nothing to be honest.

Tipsy Mac

Even worse is the fact that a couple of thousand people could buy a weekly parking ticket for a station yet it only holds 50 cars. There is also no contract terms made public regarding the contract between Irish Rail and NCPS, it could be written on the same M50 toll bridge special paper.

fh041205

cymro wrote: »

You missed the point.
What if all the spaces were taken up by people who went down the country for a week or more? Could you imagine the grief on here with people complaining that there was no room for them to park their car on a monday morning so could go to work and then adding to the traffic around town.

Its a bit of fuss over nothing to be honest.

I got your point. Thats tough luck but not unfair, deal with it, I would say. Agreed on the last bit.

Ok time for some on topic-ness. I have several problems with the carparks.

1. A lot of the machines don't work in various ways (credit card/swallowing money/out of order)
2. Not all car parks have credit card facilities
3. Awkward to buy train/carpark tickets separately
4. Weekly/Monthly tickets don't guarantee you a space
5. NCPS very very seldom cut people any slack. Sometimes its warranted.
6. IR have washed their hands of the problems by contracting it out, which is frustrating for customers.
7. There has been no improvement to most of the carparks where payparking is introduced. People are parking in the exact same places now, as when they where free. They are literally paying something for nothing.

I would say thats a pretty comprehensive list. I must admit that I speak only for NCPS carparks here as privately owned ones have different prices/times etc.

positron

fh041205, couldn't agree more with that list of issues, especially Point 7.

What exactly am I getting for paying €2 more per day and risking €125 fine every single day for even the tiniest of the unintentional / accidental mistakes (followed by a call to an unpleasant NCPS faceless voice, depressing wait for their guys to turn up, 'we gotcha' look on their guy who denies any reasoning, impossibly arrogant response from NCPS if you even mention the word 'appeal'.).

This is what we need: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/3112670.stm

Well, as they say 'need is the mother of creation'....

BrianD

I would support the pay and display car parking regime that IR has brought in. There's absolutely no reason why you should not be asked to pay for a scarce resource nor does it, as others would contend, deterr people from using public transport.

I would contend that all these car parks, where possible, should be multi-story allowing for increased capacity and that there should be a simple way of buying a parking and train combo ticket. By all means get NCPS to manage and enforce the car park on contract but allow commuters to buy a ticket and parking in the same transaction

fh041205

nice link positron:D.

Carawaystick

BrianD wrote: »

I would support the pay and display car parking regime that IR has brought in.

IÉ haven't brought in paid car parking. CIE, the landowner/property development company has.

positron

BrianD wrote: »

There's absolutely no reason why you should not be asked to pay for a scarce resource nor does it, as others would contend, deterr people from using public transport.

Are you saying an addition of 25%-40% to the in cost of using public transport won't deter some people from using it?

The point is, I would consider parking as an essential service associated with a long distance commuter train service by any half decent government. I am already paying huge money for the ticket. On top of that, since they introduced pay parking, there has been absolutely NO improvements what so ever anyway. So what exactly is that I am paying for? Would you now pay a new health levy if asked to, and be happy to live with the current level of service? Would you pay a new say a 'internet tax' and be happy to continue getting the exact same service what you are getting now anyway?

fh041205 mentioned earlier that since the introduction of paid parking there are free spaces in Drogheda car park well past 9am. I would like to know how many of those who used to park there stopped it because (a) because its too expensive (b) because they lost their job/recession and (c) because its better to drive. I wonder if IrishRail publish the number of people travelling from Drogheda year to year..?

mandz

You can add me to the list of ranters... I could repeat the above but I won't. I've had issues on a number of occasions with NCPS. On the first week of it starting I got a warning for causing a hazard as there was a skip or scaffolding erected... when I had parked that morning at 6.45am there was nothing there to be causing an obstruction for!! And then the story continues...

I park most days at the train station in Mullingar (however if I'm running early I'll park in the free car park 2 mins away) and I've lost track of how many times I've had problems. The ticket machines break down quite often taking money and not giving tickets and twice in two weeks I've had my ticket get stuck in the machine so I've had to pull it out.

In fairness to IR in Mullingar, if two of the three machines are not working you basically get to park for free that day. Also, in the case of the machine swallowing your money they will give you the number of NCPS to ring to tell them, I have done so in the past, you give them your car reg and they make note of it... handy number to have, will post it later when I get home.

A thought just struck me...do NCPS actually come in and check all the cars or is it a case that IR staff go round the car park and then ring to say there's a car without a ticket?

dcr22B

mandz wrote: »

A thought just struck me...do NCPS actually come in and check all the cars or is it a case that IR staff go round the car park and then ring to say there's a car without a ticket?

The latter would be slightly ironic given that IE are at pains to say that the car park is nothing to do with them.

My main gripe is that I can't obtain an annual parking pass that I could purchase with my annual Taxsaver commuter ticket.

fh041205

mandz wrote: »

A thought just struck me...do NCPS actually come in and check all the cars or is it a case that IR staff go round the car park and then ring to say there's a car without a ticket?

That doesn't happen unless a car is causing a serious obstruction.

Caraway stick, IR have contracted the payparking out to NCPS to yes they have introduced it, they just don't operate it themselves.

positron

Slightly deviating from the original topic (why pay parking, no improvements anyway..), what exactly is the definition of 'pay and display'.

Look at this unfortunate person's case. She had paid, and the ticket was visible, although not at the dash. It was visible and I assume readable too.

http://www.drogheda-independent.ie/news/commuter-clamped-despite-having-valid-parking-ticket-1857657.html

Praying for an angle-grinder man in my neighborhood..!

MOH

cymro wrote: »

Hueston & connolly are the only stations that charge more than €2 per day

No they are not.

Why should there be any info on the Irish rail web site on a car park that isnt theirs?

Because the car park is theirs? The paid parking is operated by NCPS

mandz

fh041205 wrote: »

That doesn't happen unless a car is causing a serious obstruction.

The point I was trying to say is that when I had parked the car that morning (spot where I always parked prior to pay and display) there was nothing there for me to be causing an obstruction to. It had only appeared at some stage during the day after I parked there.

One improvement in Mullingar was they resurfaced the car park which was badly needed.