Leap Card agents charging transaction fees

AlekSmart

antoinolachtnai wrote: »

The only benefit is that it might bring consumers into the shop and they might buy something else at a higher margin.

It isn't too bad with top-ups but product sales will take considerably longer to process.

You are quite right that this causes problems for the reputation and understanding of the system. But this must always have been anticipated.

I agree that the BrianD scenario is a good one, but it seems that DB is benefitting massively from this new activity (it gets 95 percent of the revenue and has absolutely no extra costs) whilst the retailer is getting a small percentage of the revenue but has to absorb significant costs.

The obvious solution to my mind would be for DB to use the benefits of the system to cut its costs and return the benefit to the retailers at the front line.

I'm not sure,Antoin,that the ITS people anticipated anything in relation to Leapcard's roll-out.

From what I can deduce,from both an Operator and Users perspective,the roll-out of Leapcard has been undertaken on a somewhat frighteningly hit-n-miss basis.

I would have focused initially on having at least two high profile LeapCard specific locations in Dublin City Centre and a number of mobile Leapcard outlets on Tour to the various Shopping Centres.

There are plans for such Leapcard "Outlets",but I feel not having them operational from Day 1 served only to detract from the big-message of what Leapcard is about.

I am also quite taken by the low uptake of Leapcard,which appears to have flatlined after the initial bump.

Also,I'm interested in the 95% revenue figure,as this is the first mention of an actual hard-number I've come across.

antoinolachtnai

I think I know what the numbers are for commissions but I am not certain and if I were I would not be in a position to repeat them. I think the retailer commission has been reported elsewhere but I am not certain.

Certainly, the commissions that reach the retailersare not big. They are certainly a great deal less than the lotto commission (which I think is 5.7 percent and that is a matter of public record).

If you work it out from the time that it takes to take money from a passenger on a bus, you will see that the retailer is at these rates collecting money for a lot less than what a Dublin Bus driver can collect it for. You can also work out that there is a very real cost to retailers in terms of employment costs and rent costs. A transaction that takes 30 seconds costs at least 10c in employee time, and that's without taking into account all the time the employee is standing around waiting for a sale to happen. A 10 euro sale entails a 5c cash handling charge. Then there are all the other overheads. But it's still cheaper than accepting money on a bus.

You will get that flatline effect because there is no promotional campaign and not even a media partner. Exactly the same thing happened with the Luas smartcard. The offer was basically good and the system was well designed and convenient but the uptake was very low and the growth certainly flatlined.

The shop idea is not a cheap thing to do, though I agree it would be a good idea. To give you an idea, Vodafone is reported to spend 50 or 60 euro per contract on its shops, to keep them looking good and well staffed.

There are problems with the product too. The DB boarding problem is the biggest one. There will also be issues with fare capping and so on.

I would not be all negative though. Leap has gotten through a lot of bureaucratic hurdles and it is a big advance. What BrianD says really is true, it does make public transport in Dublin much more convenient, for all it's faults.

What is really needed now is to start planning toward Leap Card 2.0, with clarified objectives and with the passenger, rather than the operators at the heart of the system. There is a good team at the heart of the system and they need encouragement and support as well as criticism. Ultimately the system also needs more investment.

Victor

antoinolachtnai wrote: »

You will get that flatline effect because there is no promotional campaign and not even a media partner. Exactly the same thing happened with the Luas smartcard. The offer was basically good and the system was well designed and convenient but the uptake was very low and the growth certainly flatlined.

I think there were 70,000 Leap cards and about 30,000 Irish Rail ones. I imagien it will always take a step change in functionality to get a step change in the number of users.

The shop idea is not a cheap thing to do, though I agree it would be a good idea. To give you an idea, Vodafone is reported to spend 50 or 60 euro per contract on its shops, to keep them looking good and well staffed.

I think any such idea should be NTA coordinated, operator funded, but (participating) operator neutral. It would be good to have maybe a dozen travel desks (it need not be a particularly big set-up) located across Dublin - e.g. Swords, Airport, Blanchardstown, Liffey Valley, Tallaght, Dundrum, Dún Laoghaire, Bray, the main train stations and a few other city locations.

antoinolachtnai

Actually I think a change in Pricing policy is more important. The functionality is mostly fine. It's the lack of joined up tariffs that are stupid.

However the marketing and promotion is also critical. Getting a million cards into use is going to cost 5 or 10 million whatever way you do it.

Transport information desks would be very different from leap card booths. That is a much more general function. I think it would be much more realistic and practical to do this via telephone and Internet.

Even a 'simple setup' would cost 250k per location between rent, training and all the rest of it. There are a lot of hours to cover. For the same cost you could lay on an extra local service in that area.

The point is well made that there should be high quality transport information available in some form at ports and stations.

There is no such thing as 'operator funded' in public transport. Either the passengers pay for something, or else the taxpayer pays. There is really nobody else.

bk

On top of everything else, a lot of mistakes have been made on the means of topping up Leap Cards, from day one we should have had:

1) The ability to top up via Irish Rail Ticket Machines.
2) via Irish Rail ticket offices, specially including really obvious ones like Heuston, Connolly, Tara and Pearse.
3) Automated top-ups should have been enabled from day one.
4) The Dublin Bus office on O'Connell St should have floor to ceiling posters in the window promoting it as a Leap Retailer. Despite being the number one Leap retailer, you would barely know it, it has a tiny Leap on Sale here sign.
5) Leap should be available from the tourist offices around Dublin and the CIE info desks at the Airport, etc.
6) There should really be a few automated top-up machines like the LUAS machines at a few busy bus locations, like O'Connell Street, Grafton St, etc.

Had they done all of the above from the start, then this would be far less of a problem.

From what I've seen, Irish Rail and Dublin Bus seem to really dislike Leap and seem to be doing absolutely the minimum to promote it and make it successful.

Bajingo

BlueCam wrote: »

Is anyone aware of Leap Card agents charging fees for topping up and whether they're actually allowed to do this by Leap/Payzone?

I was catching a Dart at Pearse Station today and hadn't realised my card was out of credit. Was advised by the ticket office at Pearse to go down the road to Centra on Westland Row because, of course, it's impossible to top up a Leap Card at a Dart station... Asked for a €10 top up at Centra only to be told that there was a 25c transaction fee on Leap top-ups, regardless of the amount you top up by. Of course, given that I had to take the Dart, I had no option but to pay it.

It really sickens me that they're taking advantage like this - obviously Pearse Station sends anyone with a Leap Card down their way and there's no way of avoiding the fee unless you want to run over to somewhere on Nassau Street.

(On a side note.. why couldn't they install some of the small Leap Card top-up machines that they have in shops in ticket offices at IE stations until they sort out the automatic ticket machines? Surely this would be a very simple stop-gap measure?)

I topped up in that Centra the other day, didn't get any extra charge.

lucernarian

Would just like to add, I remember from some months ago that Centra on Westland Row had a €5 minimum transaction amount for laser card use and there was a 25 cent surcharge on use below that amount. Earlier on in the thread, a minimum of €10 is mentioned but I doubt that's the case.

Victor

It seems that NTA insists that cash payments for Leap are not surcharged, but they have less control on credit card payments being surcharged.

Story today http://www.independent.ie/national-news/commuter-anger-as-shop-slaps-25c-levy-on-leap-cards-3054770.html - I wonder if it was inspired by this thread?

cson

The elephant in the room for this is the fact that the ****ing thing can't be topped up online which is madness.

At a stroke you'd remove a huge amount of the ambiguity surrounding surcharges etc.

foggy_lad

A couple of machines in each railway station that allow passengers top up using their credit cards would be the way to go! Maybe the stored E-Voting machines could be adapted to meet the need?

ixoy

foggy_lad wrote: »

A couple of machines in each railway station that allow passengers top up using their credit cards would be the way to go! Maybe the stored E-Voting machines could be adapted to meet the need?

Here's a crazier idea: Using the existing Irish Rail vending machines to allow top-up of Leap cards. Far less sensible clearly than making them go to the shop next door.

thomasj

cson wrote: »

The elephant in the room for this is the fact that the ****ing thing can't be topped up online which is madness.

At a stroke you'd remove a huge amount of the ambiguity surrounding surcharges etc.

Got it in one! furthermore someone who needs credit on their card and there isnt a payshop within reach is stuck. Anyone who is not within reach of a luas station has to pay these charges and with regards to the online banking it requires the bank to be open to get the transfer processed so if you transferred on friday it wouldnt be there until today.

Debit credit card payments online is needed if this is to be a success.

coolperson05

It's seems CRAZY that you can't top them up on the Irish Rail machines...They offer smartcards but no leap cards (which were supposed to be replaced by the Leap card...What is the point having two?).

Luas seems to do it with no trouble at all.... But Irish rail.....

LXFlyer

It's not necessarily IE that is at fault here - we don't know who is responsible for what.

The real fault lies with the politicians who insisted that the card be launched prior to Christmas so that it would be available in 2011, despite the fact that the ability to top up at IE machines and auto top up online would not be available for several months.

Victor

cson wrote: »

The elephant in the room for this is the fact that the ****ing thing can't be topped up online which is madness.

thomasj wrote: »

Debit credit card payments online is needed if this is to be a success.

They can be topped up on-line and collected at the Irish Rail gate line.* If you aren't travelling on Irish Rail, simply go in through the gate line, wait two minutes** and leave again. You won't be charged a fare.


* Or at Luas stops or via a balance check at a Payzone agent.
**Minimum about 2 minutes, maximum about 5 minutes.

ixoy wrote: »

Here's a crazier idea: Using the existing Irish Rail vending machines to allow top-up of Leap cards.

Hopefully going to test soon.

thomasj wrote: »

Got it in one! furthermore someone who needs credit on their card and there isnt a payshop within reach is stuck.

But can't they just pay with what cash or credit card they have? Not ideal, but not as bad as you make out.

Anyone who is not within reach of a luas station has to pay these charges

Not all vendors are applying such charges.

and with regards to the online banking it requires the bank to be open to get the transfer processed so if you transferred on friday it wouldnt be there until today.

I'm not sure that on-line banking is set up for it yet. But if I can top-up a phone from an ATM or on-line / by text, I imagine it will eventually be a possible with Leap.

cson

I use it primarily for Dublin Bus Victor, the fact that I have to go to a payzone outlet to activate an online top up anyway makes it pointless for me - I may as well just go there with cash.

What I want is the ability to top up by €x, leave the house and hop on the bus and its already on my card. How hard can that be? It's supposed to be an e-purse ffs.

Dravokivich

cson wrote: »

I use it primarily for Dublin Bus Victor, the fact that I have to go to a payzone outlet to activate an online top up anyway makes it pointless for me - I may as well just go there with cash.

What I want is the ability to top up by €x, leave the house and hop on the bus and its already on my card. How hard can that be? It's supposed to be an e-purse ffs.

On your card before you get on the bus or as you use it on the bus?

As it's been mentioned several times before through out many threads on this forum:

-Your card has to connect to the network somewhere to receive it.
-Dublin Bus don't have units actively on the network, so you can't collect a topup from them.
-The memory limitations of the units have also been mentioned to explain why a list of topups to be collected isn't available on Dublin Bus.

Coriolanus

Dravokivich wrote: »

cson wrote: »

I use it primarily for Dublin Bus Victor, the fact that I have to go to a payzone outlet to activate an online top up anyway makes it pointless for me - I may as well just go there with cash.

What I want is the ability to top up by €x, leave the house and hop on the bus and its already on my card. How hard can that be? It's supposed to be an e-purse ffs.

On your card before you get on the bus or as you use it on the bus?

As it's been mentioned several times before through out many threads on this forum:

-Your card has to connect to the network somewhere to receive it.
-Dublin Bus don't have units actively on the network, so you can't collect a topup from them.
-The memory limitations of the units have also been mentioned to explain why a list of topups to be collected isn't available on Dublin Bus.

So the balance is stored in the card memory, and the db machines read/write the cards?

Dravokivich

Nevore wrote: »

So the balance is stored in the card memory, and the db machines read/write the cards?

Yeap.

bk

Victor wrote: »

Hopefully going to test soon.

"Hopefully" "test" and "soon" don't give me much comfort.

I thought it was supposed to b ready by February, perhaps we should have asked February which year?!!

Red Silurian

Nevore wrote: »

So the balance is stored in the card memory, and the db machines read/write the cards?

Impossible... The Leap cards are meerely cards with RFID chips inside...

RFID chips are essentially chips containing a unique series of letters/numbers (sometimes only numbers) that do NOT change. The balance on your card is not technically on your card it is on the leap system. When a consumer tops-up (by whatever method) the credit appears on the system, in the consumers account which is connected with the unique ID of the customers leap card.

The letters/numbers on the leap card never change (they can't) therefore unless dubin bus are connected to the network they wouldn't even be able to take the leap card.

markpb

colmtheperson wrote: »

Impossible... The Leap cards are meerely cards with RFID chips inside...

Sorry, you're completely wrong. The Leap cards are ISO14443 contactless smartcards. They have software and RAM on the chip. The actual card balance is recorded in a file on the card. DB/Luas/IR/Payzone contactless readers communicate with an application on the card which increases or decreases the balance, loads tickets, fetches the transaction history, etc.

All access to the card is completely offline to the backend host with data (actions, transactions, etc) batched to the system later on. Transit applications are always offline because of the reliability and time-constraints involved.

Dravokivich

colmtheperson wrote: »

Impossible... The Leap cards are meerely cards with RFID chips inside...

RFID chips are essentially chips containing a unique series of letters/numbers (sometimes only numbers) that do NOT change. The balance on your card is not technically on your card it is on the leap system. When a consumer tops-up (by whatever method) the credit appears on the system, in the consumers account which is connected with the unique ID of the customers leap card.

The letters/numbers on the leap card never change (they can't) therefore unless dubin bus are connected to the network they wouldn't even be able to take the leap card.

But they are able to handle transactions with the leap card. There is just no facility currently available to manage topups.

Red Silurian

markpb wrote: »

Sorry, you're completely wrong. The Leap cards are ISO14443 contactless smartcards. They have software and RAM on the chip. The actual card balance is recorded in a file on the card. DB/Luas/IR/Payzone contactless readers communicate with an application on the card which increases or decreases the balance, loads tickets, fetches the transaction history, etc.

Where did you find these details?

markpb

colmtheperson wrote: »

Where did you find these details?

I've developed similar systems in the past.

Carawaystick

markpb wrote: »

Sorry, you're completely wrong. The Leap cards are ISO14443 contactless smartcards. They have software and RAM on the chip. The actual card balance is recorded in a file on the card. DB/Luas/IR/Payzone contactless readers communicate with an application on the card which increases or decreases the balance, loads tickets, fetches the transaction history, etc.

All access to the card is completely offline to the backend host with data (actions, transactions, etc) batched to the system later on. Transit applications are always offline because of the reliability and time-constraints involved.

It's not RAM but flash or eeprom surely -- no power src on the cards for normal ram

How do the tram and train ticket machines validate online top ups? whats so dramatically different from bus ticket machines?

Victor

Carawaystick wrote: »

How do the tram and train ticket machines validate online top ups? whats so dramatically different from bus ticket machines?

Trams and train validators can be linked to (in theory) unlimited levels of computer memory / storage, whereas the buses are limited to 1MB (less than a floppy disk). Not only that, they can be reliably linked to the internet via a hard wire connection. The limiting factors are how quickly the validator can check the top-up list, black list, etc.

The bus ticket machines are limited in the amount of memory / storage they have and to mobile phone (when out and about) and wi-fi (when at depots) type connections.

bk

I'm pretty certain that even though the LUAS machines and Irish Rail gates have a constant internet connection, they don't use this for checking top-ups, as even a fast connection might not be fast enough to reliably check and apply a topup.

However the difference is that these all are more modern additions and therefore probably have a lot more storage space then the DB wayfarer ticket machines. Enough memory to store an entire days top-up list.

I've been looking into the ticket system that the private bus operators will be using, Avego and while there isn't much info about it, it looks pretty snazzy.

It almost perfectly matches my vision of future embedded systems that I mentioned in an earlier post. It looks like it uses a Motorola Xoom Tablet PC (think something like the iPad) running Android 4.0.

This device has 32GB of flash memory (and expandable by another 32GB via SD card) and 1GB of RAM, so vast amounts of space compared to the DB ticket machines (a measly 1MB of flash) and they could trivially store the complete list of online top-ups for a day.

With a 1GHz dual core processor, 10.1" touch screen, Wifi, 3G, bluetooth, HDMI out, USB, S-GPS, 3-axis accelerometer, gyroscope, barometer, Magnetometer-compass, this thing is a pretty amazing device and would make for an amazing bus ticketing and positioning system.

Best of all it uses Android, which uses a form of Java. Unlike with specialised embedded systems it is relatively very easy to hire experienced Java developers and due to the power of the language and the device, they can make it do almost anything and relatively easily change it to meet any future needs.

This thing is basically the iPhone/iPad of ticketing systems.

I hope this been rolled out to private operators is just a trial and that it will eventually also be rolled out to DB and BE. It would really open them up to incredible future technological possibilities.

markpb

I can see several problems with this:

The first is the cost of the device. Anything with those specifications is going to be considerably more expensive than the Wayfarer. A €50 difference might not seem like much but over 1,100 buses, it adds up. The difference is likely to be much more than €50.

The second is the durability of the device. Touch screens work well with minimal use. Someone tapping out an email and using it to surf the web won't affect but a city bus driver might poke and prod at it tens of thousands of times a day (especially since DB do very little to discourage cash payments). With that level of use, a touch screen will deteriorate very quickly, especially in hot zones. This won't affect private coach operators as much although they'll still have hot zones.

The last is support. I don't know how the device is rolled out but I can imagine that someone selling the device and software is also going to be providing technical support. They're not likely to allow DB to install other software on the same device unless it comes from them so the fact that anyone can easily write an Android app is probably not relevant because only people working for Avego will be allowed.

I don't have much experience in this area though so I could be wrong (and I hope I am!)

Dravokivich

bk wrote: »

Enough memory to store an entire days top-up list.

Just to add, a topup on the list can be pending to be collected for upto 21 days.

bk

markpb wrote: »

The first is the cost of the device. Anything with those specifications is going to be considerably more expensive than the Wayfarer. A €50 difference might not seem like much but over 1,100 buses, it adds up. The difference is likely to be much more than €50.

Cost seems very reasonable, on a video on their site they quote $1000 per unit, which includes support and all the background management infrastructure (which includes websites that can monitor every bus location, send text messages to each bus, update ticketing information, stop information, even Goggle Transit integration, etc.).

When you consider a Xoom costs $500 on it's own, this is an extremely good price.

I don't know how much the wayfarer machines cost, but I expect they cost far more then this. Yes they are way less powerful, but they are very specialised devices, where as the Xooms are pretty much off the shelf general purposes consumer electronics. Specialised devices are almost always far more expensive, due to their limited numbers, where as with the more powerful Xoom, you are benefiting from the large numbers built targeted at a consumer pricing.

Also don't forget to add in software development costs, it is often cheaper and faster to develop in a high level programming language like Java then it is in embedded languages.

Yes, my only concern is also the robustness of the tablet device. I assume this is why it is being rolled out with private operators first, to see how it goes, before rolling out to BD/BE.

However typically speaking, a touchscreen is far more robust then a physical button. Having used touchscreen phones (iPhones) since their release and supporting similar amongst my family and friends, other then dropping the phone and breaking the screen (something that wouldn't happen on a bus mounted system) it is almost always the physical buttons that break on these the devices. The home button broke on two of my iPhones, and I've seen plenty of broken mute buttons volume buttons.

Of course trialing it and testing it will only prove this. On the other hand, given the off the shelf nature of this device, getting cheap replacements for broken units would be very easy in the future. They cost €500 today, but due to how consumer electronics work it will cost €300 next year.

Dravokivich wrote: »

Just to add, a topup on the list can be pending to be collected for upto 21 days.

Sure but with 32GB of memory, this wouldn't be an issue. Plus each night the top-ups applied get removed from the list.

Weyhey

Bajingo wrote: »

I topped up in that Centra the other day, didn't get any extra charge.

I am a new leapcard user and today spent 45e on leap and that Centra charged me 25c.

I haven't been able to use my card for a few days because my local shop were I live is a Dublin Bus Ticket Agent but don't do leap top ups.
I had looked up Dublin Bus for leapcard information and it didn't mention Payzone outlets only 'leapcard agents' which I incorrectly assumed was a Dublin Bus Ticket Agent.

Now while searching for agents charging a top up I came across this thread which mentions payzone agents so at least I learned something new.

ScouseMouse

Weyhey wrote: »

I am a new leapcard user and today spent 45e on leap and that Centra charged me 25c.

I haven't been able to use my card for a few days because my local shop were I live is a Dublin Bus Ticket Agent but don't do leap top ups.
I had looked up Dublin Bus for leapcard information and it didn't mention Payzone outlets only 'leapcard agents' which I incorrectly assumed was a Dublin Bus Ticket Agent.

Now while searching for agents charging a top up I came across this thread which mentions payzone agents so at least I learned something new.

If the bank is charging the shop to lodge cash, at the standard rate of 50c per 100 euro, the shop would have lost money serving you on that transaction :eek:

Victor

You can find Payzone agents on this site: http://www.payzone.ie/ - select 'Leap Card' as the products.

superscouse wrote: »

If the bank is charging the shop to lodge cash, at the standard rate of 50c per 100 euro, the shop would have lost money serving you on that transaction :eek:

The agents do get a commission.

Dravokivich

Victor wrote: »

The agents do get a commission.

AFAIK, They also have to pay for transactions using credit/debit/laser cards. And that's the only time I've seen people get an additional surcharge. Even in newsagents down my way when getting topup, they always ask before hand if its with cash or a card.

AlekSmart

Dravokivich wrote: »

AFAIK, They also have to pay for transactions using credit/debit/laser cards. And that's the only time I've seen people get an additional surcharge. Even in newsagents down my way when getting topup, they always ask before hand if its with cash or a card.

With LeapCard now actively requiring some form of relaunch,it needs stuff like "Surcharges" like a hole-in-its-head.

The easy shifters have now been exhausted,and what's left now is sheer Marketing hard-slog.

I constantly recommend Leapcard to my fumbling customers,but am usually rebuffed with "Oh I don't use the Bus Much",or even worse..."Where do ye get them"....

One of the greatest problems is the fact that the Leapcard Agent's signage is perhaps the least visible of any modern consumer product.

Incredibly,the Leapcard Logo and Colouring is almost identical to that used by the ReHab Group's,Repak recycling service,which appears on many Storefronts these days.

http://www.repak.ie/

https://www.leapcard.ie/en/Home.aspx

Additionally,since not every Payzone Agent handles Leapcard,then a clear Highly Visible Agent Identifier is a bare mimimum.

For example,Dublin Bus's use of Yellow and Black came about only after significant research into colour schemes and Logo's,but it has,If I say so myself,resulted in a highly individualistic and easily recognisable set of Agent Identifiers.

Surely some of the €40 Million was allocated to Marketing over that 10 year gestation period ?

Currently,on the Bus,which represents by far the largest numerical base of users and potential users,all that exists are two small LeapCard Squares on the TIM and the Validator...nothing else to catch a potential Leaper's eye...it's as if they don't actually want it to succeed...

GUBU all over again,I'm afraid

SteM

They should have left the cost of the 10 journey T90 tickets alone duing the last hike but announced that they would only been sold on Leap cards from now on. That would have got quite a few people to move across.

etchyed

AlekSmart wrote: »

One of the greatest problems is the fact that the Leapcard Agent's signage is perhaps the least visible of any modern consumer product.

Incredibly,the Leapcard Logo and Colouring is almost identical to that used by the ReHab Group's,Repak recycling service,which appears on many Storefronts these days.

Alek, I agree with you that the Leapcard push hasn't been successful, but are you absolutely sure of your assertion that this is down to the logo being green? I think it's quite distinctive, actually.

dowlingm

Just saw some of the posts up thread.

QNX would be a much better idea than trying to retrofit an off the shelf Android tab - loads of embedded systems experience there (been around in some form since 1980 and has been used in telematics for a long time). There are companies marketing Blackberry Playbooks (running QNX) to sectors like the police who need on-the-go, reliable, secure telematics.

From a maintenance point of view, probably better to have a module behind a panel talking to cheap and easily replaceable screens/keyboards/touchscreens via Bluetooth and/or HDMI, plus with signed bootcode it would be hard if not impossible for a maintenance guy to subvert the system by uploading new firmware. With its very solid microkernel you could then combine a few different functions - Leap, standard ticketing, geofencing/NVAS, system-wide announcements and so on without worrying about one program taking the whole unit down.

It might be possible to do it simply by retrofitting a screen-less Blackberry Playbook with 4G and wifi uplinks and BB10 because then you could install the system apps on the encrypted Balance partition for additional hardening and prevention of unauthorised data offload, with the back end BES server pushing out OS/application updates off hours to minimise the need for anyone to touch the device itself. Android can do some of that, depending on how much you believe Samsung's recent enterprise announcements, but I don't know if I'd trust Android enough for must-run embedded uses.

AlekSmart

etchyed wrote: »

Alek, I agree with you that the Leapcard push hasn't been successful, but are you absolutely sure of your assertion that this is down to the logo being green? I think it's quite distinctive, actually.

I'm sure enough from my own perspective,as I regularly have to attempt to guide prospective LeapCard purchasers to a Payzone Agent which will do Leapcard transactions.

If you scan the frontage of most of the Payzone Agents,you will struggle to pick the Leapcard Logo from every other sticker on display,particularly if the RePak sticker is on display too.

I'm not saying there's anything intrinsically wrong with the Leapcard Logo,it's quite individual in reality,what makes it a Crazy Frog is it's inability to stand out in a very crowded Retail Frontage.

By this juncture we really should have some of the Leapcard Walk-In Centre's mentioned in their T's & C's where the less focused can be subject to a bit more hard-sell than is currently the case.

https://www.leapcard.ie/en/PageSetting/ContentViewer.aspx?Val=CG%2fCj953WkPB%2b7fwjkLFshsyP7wecX6fiV0VBn3Q632F20yhboVXGTVmv%2b2bImvcFvyDWv8wk%2bd4E5kAGPCvjpJvBUgOhvVEg%2fB6ZgVyLiI6nLqx13jMpsQIKgDUASmGM793kdSI9FJOtf2oYKBBrP3uRbgVAG0ZGo31awr2Vmg%3d

(c) at authorised retail outlets that can be identified by the Leap Card logo on display or at any Leap Card walk-in centre (when introduced).

The NTA are really letting this slip away from them,as for example stuff like this MetroHerald letter (On Page 10).....

http://edition.pagesuite-professional.co.uk/launch.aspx?pbid=29d1fc55-aa9f-42b7-a349-7e59ecaeb548

It really does appear that these people don't really appreciate what the Smartcard is capable of ....;)

antoinolachtnai

What did this letter say? Can't find it online now.

AlekSmart

antoinolachtnai wrote: »

What did this letter say? Can't find it online now.

Yep,I see it,s now a dead-link.

It was a letter to the Metro from a disgruntled Leapcard user,expressing their anger at Irish Rail Leapcard Readers being unreliable with maximum deductions and trouble securing refunds.

antoinolachtnai

The answer here is going to be for NTA to redesign how ticketing is managed, and put the responsibility squarely in one place. At the moment it is flying all over the place.

cdebru

foggy_lad wrote: »

Yes!

If the shops don't like the deal offered to them by Payzone Postpoint etc they don't have to use those services! most people going into a shop to pay a bill or toll or top up their phone or leap card will usually buy something else.

Imho the shops are just being greedy like they were with mobile top-ups.

True but the same also applies to the consumer if you don't like the deal on offer then don't take it.

But consumers are like retailers in this regard you may not like the deal but you may have no real option but to accept it.

Payzone are the only provider for leap card top ups, so retailers have no "choice". The margins on any of the payzone stuff farcical.

Ironic that someone here held up xtravision as an example for not charging surcharges, how long more that company will be around is debatable.

Perhaps the way to look at it is that the 25cent keeps that centra open and leapcard topups available close to pearse st dart station.

It's a service and someone has to pay for it, payzone don't, so it has to be the retailer or the consumer. And judging by the amount of shops closing retailers can't carry the cost anymore.


What is a more interesting question is why the NTA are allowed to sign exclusive deals with one provider and create a monopoly.

AlekSmart

cdebru wrote: »

What is a more interesting question is why the NTA are allowed to sign exclusive deals with one provider and create a monopoly.

Why do I get the impression that this particular question will not be appreciated...let alone answered....;)

Dravokivich

cdebru wrote: »

Payzone are the only provider for leap card top ups, so retailers have no "choice". The margins on any of the payzone stuff farcical.

No they aren't

markpb

cdebru wrote: »

Payzone are the only provider for leap card top ups, so retailers have no "choice"

Payzone are the only choice open to retailers but they're not the only choice for customers. They can also use the online channel, Luas TVMs, Irish Rail TVMs and (I believe) Wexford buses. In the (hopefully) near future they can also use direct debits.

Victor

My last few top-ups have been via Bank of Ireland. :cool:

Well, they were auto top-ups.

bk

Yup auto-topup is working well for me.

Though I do think the trigger amounts are too for most people and I don't think most people will be happy giving them their bank details.

I think DB is going to have to look at getting new ticket machines with all the issues their current ones are having with Leap.

Hopefully new machines would then allow for online top-up on dublin bus.

cdebru

Dravokivich wrote: »

No they aren't

Payzone are the only provider that a retailer can use. There are if course other options for consumers but payzone have a monopoly as regards providing the the service to retailers.

So again why is a state body allowed to create a monopoly and prevent other providers from offering this service?