Questions about changing from Intercity to Dart at Connolly

Unfortunately, you'd need to exit via the main barriers, turn right around, and *then* tag on before making your way to the Dart. For whatever reason, IE have been averse to installing a tag-on machine by the dart platforms for those interchanging between Intercity & Dart (and vica-versa).

In terms of the dart platforms, I'm not sure if they always use the same ones.

I had to go from Drogheda to Maynooth a couple of times last year. You can't get a ticket to Maynooth from the TVMs in Drogheda so on the first occasion I just got a Connolly day return and used my Leap card for the rest, going out of the barriers and straight back in again. On the second I went to the booking office and they were able to do it.

The most amusing experience I had was when I was in Waterford and wanted one of the four day Trekker tickets. The office was closed so I mentioned it to the ticket checker. He told me to get on anyway and they'd sort it out on the train. Came back to me about a half hour into the trip with the ticket, he said he had to call Dublin to issue it because he had never done one before.

Iarnród Eireann being stuck in the dark ages

Does it open a fare-dodging loophole maybe?

e.g., I tag on in Drogheda with €1 balance. I'm now a customer with a valid ticket as far as the system/inspectors are concerned. I tag off in Maynooth (or Tralee even!) which is all part of the Leap zone. The system lets me out but beeps me to remind me I've a negative balance. I bin my leap card.

In the Drogheda - Maynooth example, I'm not sure what the problem would be if the fare is less than six euro .... I just checked - over 12 euro for a ticket! That's steep...

Anyway, I think this could be amended in the sense that the gate wouldn't let you through if the fare brought you below -5 on the Leap and you'd have to go speak to one of the orange vest men. Iarnród Eireann could launch an information ad campaign to reduce such incidences encouraging passengers to look up the fare before before embarking on a journey. I call it, "Know before you go"....

Well hasn't that answered your original question of "I've wondered to myself why you can't just use the Leap on any train journey. What is the big technical impediment..............I don't really see the big problem"

Suddenly you are changing the system to give it a max negative balance to make sure an Inter City passenger can't go over the €5 cost of the Leap Card, and whatever re-programming of the system is required for this. And you have committed IR to an ad campaign about this. So it at least moderately problematic.

As stated above Leap card cannot realistically be used as the balance issue comes into play. Leap cards are already in use nationwide for monthly and annual tickets.

You can do what they do in the Netherlands and require a minimum balance of €20 to use the train, thats not workable or acceptable as that would be €50 in the Irish case (Tralee-Dundalk). The system has to assume the worst case journey from a fare perspective.

Contactless doesn't solve the issue either really as you can't support child/student or indeed any concession fares.

The future is account based ticketing, you buy the ticket in an app, you get a QR code. Thats how Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Czechia handle this, it's cheaper and simpler to roll out as there is no expensive at station equipment required. You are inevitably going to be hanging around at the station/stop waiting for the train/bus so use the time to buy a ticket. Monthly/annual tickets would still be smartcard based

To be honest, the €20 minimum doesn't cover the highest fares in NL anyway – I paid something like €29.80 for Amsterdam Centraal–Groningen a few months ago, and I'd bet there are higher fares possible. So the OV-chipkaart minimum is a reasonable minimum rather than a worst-case-scenario minimum.

(On that topic, I used the NS app for that, so I had a QR code on my phone for a ticket check that never happened anyway. In fact, I did an entire week-long trip from Paris to Kraków via NL, DE, and CZ using purely online tickets with QR codes and the relevant apps and no printing whatsoever. The only paper tickets I had for anything were for Paris city transport, and that's because the NFC feature of the Ile-de-France Mobilite app didn't work properly.)

I used my standard bank card to tag on and off at the turnstiles when travelling by commuter train in the Malaga region a few weeks. Can it really be THAT difficult to migrate to that system? I very very rarely use the train in Ireland so a LEAP card is of no benefit to me.

Until those upgrades are carried out, would that stop the implementation of an ATM card/touchless payment system on rail transport.

Regarding upgrading ticket machines on buses, would something like this do the job? Seems to tick the relevant boxes, from my untrained eye: https://transmach.co.uk/wayfarer6.html

The main problem is the back office systems as well as the ticket machines - they all need replacing to cope with this, but this is happening very slowly.

The NTA are only at contractor procurement stage.