City bus fares going up on Wednesday

Stevolende

Thinking of bus fares, isn't it about time they came up with a way of paying for a pass from elsewhere than the bus station. Just seems a major inconvenience that if you live on the outskirts of town you have to pay for a bus fare into town to buy a pass if you've somehow let renewal date pass . Must be some means of selling monthly/weekly passes remotely from the office mustn't there?
The Centra on Forster street started selling passes a couple of xmases back, you'd think it might be possible to expand the franchise to other similar shops inoutlying areas.

I guess the way places like London go about it is to have an electronic ticket system like the Oyster card, which just needs to be tapped on the place where you pay's electronic outlet to top up. Could see electrification being an expensive way to go though.
& before the Oyster card you had the possibility of buying day travel cards from newsagents around that city.
Must be some simple way of selling a standing ticket from outlying areas though, surely? Is the problem the ease of duplication/fraud or something?

Sorry maybe this needed a different thread.

antoobrien

Stevolende wrote: »

Thinking of bus fares, isn't it about time they came up with a way of paying for a pass from elsewhere than the bus station. Just seems a major inconvenience that if you live on the outskirts of town you have to pay for a bus fare into town to buy a pass if you've somehow let renewal date pass . Must be some means of selling monthly/weekly passes remotely from the office mustn't there?
The Centra on Forster street started selling passes a couple of xmases back, you'd think it might be possible to expand the franchise to other similar shops inoutlying areas.

I guess the way places like London go about it is to have an electronic ticket system like the Oyster card, which just needs to be tapped on the place where you pay's electronic outlet to top up. Could see electrification being an expensive way to go though.
& before the Oyster card you had the possibility of buying day travel cards from newsagents around that city.
Must be some simple way of selling a standing ticket from outlying areas though, surely? Is the problem the ease of duplication/fraud or something?

Sorry maybe this needed a different thread.

They should roll out the leap cards nationwide. For most towns with bus services the cost would be negligible, between getting the terminals for shops and fitting the card readers to buses it should cost very little. And since there are three operators using it in Dublin (Luas, DB & IE) there should be no problem in places like Galway with two bus systems.

Mrs OBumble

antoobrien wrote: »

They should roll out the leap cards nationwide. For most towns with bus services the cost would be negligible, between getting the terminals for shops and fitting the card readers to buses it should cost very little. And since there are three operators using it in Dublin (Luas, DB & IE) there should be no problem in places like Galway with two bus systems.

Leap cards don't solve the problem which Stevolende mentions, though, because they cannot (currently anyway) be loaded with weekly and monthly tickets - they are simply for single journeys.

The Centra in Forster St was doing tickets for a while (though they had limitations that the station didn't have, eg only able to sell weekly tix starting from the day of purchase). But they stopped, and I think that Henchey's Daybreak at the diagonal corner of Eyre Square started doing tickets instead.

Another non-bus-station option is tax-saver tickets: this only works for monthly and annual tickets, you need to be working for a company that offers the scheme (because employers do the purchasing, not you), and you need to be seriously organised re applying early the month before. (my current payroll folks email out a few days before the cut-off date, asking if we want to other). But if it you can use them it's worth is, because you pay no PRSI or PAYE on the cost of the ticket.

Apart from that, the bus station during opening hours is the only option ... and I agree, it's not a good one.

thesandeman

Contact FHE/A. She seems to know how things are done.

antoobrien

JustMary wrote: »

Leap cards don't solve the problem which Stevolende mentions, though, because they cannot (currently anyway) be loaded with weekly and monthly tickets - they are simply for single journeys.

The Centra in Forster St was doing tickets for a while (though they had limitations that the station didn't have, eg only able to sell weekly tix starting from the day of purchase). But they stopped, and I think that Henchey's Daybreak at the diagonal corner of Eyre Square started doing tickets instead.

Another non-bus-station option is tax-saver tickets: this only works for monthly and annual tickets, you need to be working for a company that offers the scheme (because employers do the purchasing, not you), and you need to be seriously organised re applying early the month before. (my current payroll folks email out a few days before the cut-off date, asking if we want to other). But if it you can use them it's worth is, because you pay no PRSI or PAYE on the cost of the ticket.

Apart from that, the bus station during opening hours is the only option ... and I agree, it's not a good one.

The leap card readers can be used for all of the above, it'd just be a matter of making the right adjustments to the software. Put a leap card (reader gets a certain signal) reduce fair by amount x. Put up commuter/daily/weekly ticket - validate expiry vs date.

Mrs OBumble

antoobrien wrote: »

The leap card readers can could be used for all of the above, it'd just be a matter of making the right adjustments to the software. Once that is done (probably for Dublin to start with), then put a leap card (reader gets a certain signal) reduce fair by amount x. Put up commuter/daily/weekly ticket - validate expiry vs date.

fixed that for ya


I'm not holding my breath.

antoobrien

JustMary wrote: »

fixed that for ya


I'm not holding my breath.

Neither am I.

It'd be much cheaper to prove it here as well (less equipment etc).

snubbleste

BÉ are increasing their fares again from 1 December.
City services:
Adult was 1.70 now 1.80
Child was 1.05 now 1.10

Mrs OBumble

fyi, regional bus fares and train fares are also going up, by approx 6% and 3% respectively.

Merry Christmas.

BhoscaCapall

They can basically charge what they wish, since the only reason you'd ever use their joke of a service is if you absolutely needed to.