[article] Rail Users in Ireland paying more for a weaker service

[Mark Gleeson]

Sunday Tribune today bottom page 9

Text shortly, tribune website currently available

[MOH]

Link (http://www.tribune.ie/article.tvt?_scope=TribuneFTF&id=110351&SUBCAT=&SUBCATNAME=&DT=27/01/2008 00:00:00&keywords=irish rail&FC=)


RAIL travel in Ireland is the second most expensive in Europe, despite frequent customer complaints that the service is below European standards with too few trains, not enough late night services and a skewed pricing system.

Figures provided by the Thomas Cook European Rail Timetable show that Irish rates are the second most expensive behind the UK and alongside Germany, with an average cost of 22 per 100km.

This compares with 17 in Austria, 12 in Belgium, 7 in Poland and 4 in Slovakia.

"The key thing here is that if we were getting a European level of service, then we wouldn't mind paying an expensive fair, " said Mark Gleeson of Rail Users Ireland. "As it is, the service is ridiculously slow, the service frequencies aren't great and the fare system is ridiculously complicated. The whole system needs to be overhauled, yet we are still paying over-inflated prices. It doesn't make any sense."

Research undertaken by Rail Users Ireland has discovered anomalies in the rail system whereby passengers travelling from Dublin to other parts of the country end up paying significantly more than people travelling from the country to the capital city.

"The cheapest return fare from Dublin to Cork is 64.50 but if you're travelling return from Cork to Dublin then you pay 46.50, " Gleeson said. "The whole thing is geared towards travelling to Dublin while passengers in Dublin have to pay more. A lot of people have been complaining about those fares."

According to Rail Users Ireland, train schedules are "still serving a Victorian community", with many last trains leaving as early as 7pm every evening. "You can get trains to Dublin at 5am but not after 7pm at night, when people are still coming out of the office, " said Gleeson. Overcrowded lines such as Maynooth to Dublin (dubbed the 'Calcutta Express' by locals) and Portlaoise to Dublin are also becoming "unbearable", he added. "There are people standing on trains that aren't designed for standing passengers. They're only short of sitting on the roof."

The spokesman for Iarnrod Eireann, Barry Kenny, said that figures the company has show that Ireland is 40% below the European average when it comes to rail fares. "Our single fares are certainly higher, but when return fares are taken into account, this is not the case at all, " he said.

[Garrett]

said Mark Gleeson of Rail Users Ireland. "... and the fare system is ridiculously complicated"
Great to hear you say it out loud Mark. This is my one (and only?) area of "expertise" when it comes to public transport.

Barry Kenny ... "Our single fares are certainly higher, but when return fares are taken into account, this is not the case at all... "
This one particularly pisses me off. Whereas the European trend is to move towards one-way ticket systems, IE thinks that they know best. I hate paying more simply because I may decide to get a train on the inward journey and then a Bus Eireann coach on the return trip. :mad:

[Mark Gleeson]

I have spent several hours over the last two weeks trying to develop a fares calculator for our website, we have a draft system for part of the network complete. It was painfully complicated to write as Irish Rail use a totally logical structure and then bolt on an obscene number of variants. We have people checking fares all over the place so we can validate our system

In fact we have discovered Irish Rail can't even calculate the fares themselves in some cases :eek:

End of the day no one has a problem paying a euro standard fare for a euro standard service. This certainly ain't Belgium, the Netherlands, Switzerland etc

An efficient, reliable, clean, punctual service running at times to meet public expectation is what we want, efficient, reliable, clean, punctual are not terms anyone will associate with IE

Dublin Sligo return is the same as a single, there are heaps of discounts from Munster to Dublin but none from Dublin to Munster, no one can explain that

[dermo88]

Thats easily explained Mark

Dubliners generally have higher levels of disposable income than those in the regions. Therefore those going from the regions to the capital get the discounts. Those going from Dublin to the regions don't, and they are likely to be less price sensitive.

I could be wrong, but thats how I interpret it.

[Mark Gleeson]

I don't buy that

[Garrett]

Dubliners generally have higher levels of disposable income than those in the regions. Therefore those going from the regions to the capital get the discounts. Those going from Dublin to the regions don't, and they are likely to be less price sensitive.

I could be wrong, but thats how I interpret it.

I hope what you mean is that this is how you interpret IE's behaviour on the matter. If IE, or anybody else, actually believes that such behaviour would be acceptable then they require some serious headbanging against a wall. That's just my humble opinion.

I just hope there's a more "logical" explanation, say for example that it's easier to get people living in Dublin onto trains than the rest of the population, so IE can keep return trips which start in Dublin priced artificially high and get away with it.

[Mark Gleeson]

And of course Irish Rail don't tell anyone that these discounted fares even exist so no one in Dublin will ever know

[Thomas J Stamp]

My pet theory is that historically most people went down from Dublin on Fridays and returned on Sundays - civil servants/students and the like. These would be traditional rail users. They would not get great value from seasonal tickets, they are not commuters.

Up till 8/9 years ago commuting wouldnt really exist beyond DART, Maynooth, Balbriggan, Greystones, Nass. I'd say that the fares matrix is based on this foundation and that it is adapted bit by bit when a service is tweaked and results in the nuttiness we see now.

Zonal system sorts it out.

[KSW]

Word of advice it is cheaper to buy two seperate tickets than paying for a direct service!!
(i.e)Gorey to Dublin €15-30
Dublin to Carrick-on-Shannon €22-30(Correct me if I'm Wrong)
Rather than
Gorey to Carrick-on-Shannon €56 something, Again correct me if I'm wrong. Same day return thats a big difference!!

[Mark Gleeson]

It all depends on the ticket clerk

Fares

Gorey Dublin is 15.30/21.00
Dublin Carrick on Shannon is 23.50/33.50

You should be able to get a ticket from Gorey to Carrick on Shannon day saver return Mon-Thurs for 38.80

There are no point to point discounts in play on either route so the system should issue the correct fare. Two tickets become cheaper when there is a specific limited discount such as the Cork Dublin 46.50 which applies to Dublin Heuston only

[Laois Commuter]

To make her bad morning worse, they hit her with the Dublin-country vs country-Dublin fare difference. Ouch!

It's called market pricing. If you can get more for charging one way than the other, why not? Lower fares to encourage incereased use of spare capacity = less subvention from the taxpayer!

LC

[Mark Gleeson]

Curiously discounted fares are offered on trains which are stuffed to the gills while full fare is charged on the empty trains going the other way

There is a Athy Dublin saver fare, obviously used by commuters coming to Dublin on crush loaded trains

Trains going to Athy in the morning and coming back to Dublin that evening are empty

Seems like Irish Rail are doing it backwards

Of course you won't find any of the point to point discounted fares in the timetable or online so how is the public to know?

[packetswitch]

It's called market pricing. If you can get more for charging one way than the other, why not? Lower fares to encourage incereased use of spare capacity = less subvention from the taxpayer!

LC

I don't understand how it is market pricing on *return* tickets. The person who buys the cheap ticket from Limerick to Dublin still has to make a journey from Dublin to Limerick.

Limerick to Dublin on Train A
Dublin to Limerick on Train B

Result: one seat occupied on Train A and Train B
Fare: discounted

Dublin to Limerick on Train B
Limerick to Dublin on Train A (a week later, say)

Result: one seat occupied on Train A and Train B
Fare: full

Now if we presume that Train A and Train B have the same number of passengers from week to week, what impact does the reduction have? And, more importantly, if the discount is supposed to steer customer behaviour, where does our hypothetical customer go to find out about the discount so that they can travel at discounted rates? Surely if the railway company wants to get people to travel on certain services, incentivised with a discount, they might want to, y'know, tell people about it?

[sean]

Curiously discounted fares are offered on trains which are stuffed to the gills while full fare is charged on the empty trains going the other wayYep, like that time I took the train (one way) from Connolly to Edgeworthstown on a Saturday morning, and paid the full monthly return fare, (then €23.50) for the priviledge of being one of the 10 people on board the train. It was a 29k POS that broke down all over the place too.

Love to see Barry Kenny defend that.

[Laois Commuter]

I don't understand how it is market pricing on *return* tickets. The person who buys the cheap ticket from Limerick to Dublin still has to make a journey from Dublin to Limerick.

Limerick to Dublin on Train A
Dublin to Limerick on Train B

Result: one seat occupied on Train A and Train B
Fare: discounted

Dublin to Limerick on Train B
Limerick to Dublin on Train A (a week later, say)

Result: one seat occupied on Train A and Train B
Fare: full

Now if we presume that Train A and Train B have the same number of passengers from week to week, what impact does the reduction have? And, more importantly, if the discount is supposed to steer customer behaviour, where does our hypothetical customer go to find out about the discount so that they can travel at discounted rates? Surely if the railway company wants to get people to travel on certain services, incentivised with a discount, they might want to, y'know, tell people about it?

Let's take your example. There is high demand for day trips from Limerick to Dublin. So trains TO Dublin in the morning are full, and trains FROM Dublin in the evening are also full. So you charge high fares because the market will bear it.

On the other hand, there is less demand for day trips from Dublin to Limerick, so trains FROM Dublin in the morning and TO Dublin in the evening are quieter (note the 1735 ex Limerick is currently running with 3-4 coaches, and is not full at Portarlington). So you charge a lower fare to try and stimulate demand, on the basis that filling some seats at a lower rate is bettter than running empty.

Following my earlier post, I noted on another thread that the Cork issue is actually priced the other way to this. I suspect this is to fill the extra capacity created by the service increase. The reasons I see for the differential there are the fact that Dubliners are (generally) better off (possible, but unlikely), or more likely that because of the prime market being to Dublin, they don't want to stimulate early morning demand from Dublin as there is insufficient stock to allow an additional set to be kept overnight in Dublin.

LC

[Mark Gleeson]

Cork fare has existed for years, long before the advent of hourly trains

Discount fares apply every single station in Munster to Dublin but none the opposite way

No one has any problem with the use of discounted fares, point is they are meant to fill empty trains and encourage people not to travel at peak times

You can get a cheap return Limerick Dublin and then pack onto the 17:25 to Limerick which is stuffed

[ACustomer]

OK, I agree that you should allow price to reflect demand. However if you observe that trains up from Limerick are full, and that fares are relatively low, maybe the trains are full because the fares are low. While pricing might respond to demand, the quantity of seats demanded responds to price.

[Garrett]

With regards the fares issue, just push IE to stop issuing bloody return tickets! Go the Ryanair/Aer Lingus/Everybody Else model and issue tickets based on one-way trips. Special offers should be limited to commuters (weekly, monthly, annual tickets), groups, families and maybe those who decide to park and ride. Create peak weekend fares if you must, e.g. Fridays and Sundays from 3pm to 8pm and Saturdays and Mondays from 6am to 9am. Obviously, living in France, I'm inclined to be highly influenced by the system here, but the system here f***ing works! Perfectly!

[al2637]

Yea, but rail is a public service, it shouldn't be trying to charge 'what the market will bare'. I know there is an argument that you can use this to fill up empty trains, but at the end of the day, it just confuses people.

IE should not be out to maximise profits at the expense of the travelling public, they should be there to provide a public service at the time people need it.

[dermo88]

Disagree. The market based mechanism is better once you know how it works and its transparent once its displayed online or at the railway station, it makes things much better. This enables the passenger to choose when to travel, rewards planned travel, enables the operator to balance out peaks and troughs in demand, and maximises revenue. PROFIT is not an evil word. Public service is not an evil word. Two conflicting objectives get balanced out.

I wrote on this before in July 2005 on another website (wording as below) copied and pasted from my archives - giving an opinion that the train ticketing system in Ireland is overpriced in some respects, and underpriced in others. It needs more flexibility to create travel opportunities and maximise revenue for the railway, while offering passengers value for money where needed. There needs to be greater banding in the style and type of tickets offered.

Therefore, we seperate the rail network into several bands:

High Quality Band A routes:

Dublin - Cork, Dublin - Limerick (Direct trains only, no changing at Limerick Junction), Dublin - Belfast,
Dublin - Galway

Where the average speed, point to point is equal to or greater than 100kmh (60 mph)

Then, seperate the ticket types into Peak and Off Peak (Peak meaning travel on Intercity Expresses, where a seat is GUARANTEED on the train. No seats available, means you wait for the next train, or you don't travel. This eliminates the crap service of overcrowded trains that has given Iarnród Éireann a poor reputation over the years. For this I recommend a price of 25 cent per kilometer on peak demand services (7:00 Heuston to Cork) for a walk on fare, which would give a price of EUR64.00. Peak services cater more for business travellers. A return fare would be at a 75% premium above this, meaning a fare of EUR112.00 return (Standard Class. A First Class ticket on the CItygold would be priced at between 30 and 70% more again.

However, before there is an outcry at this, there should be discounts for advance booking

24 hour advance purchase, means that you get a 50% discount and travel for EUR56.00 rtn
3 Day Advance purchase, means that you get a further discount of 30% and travel for EUR39.20 rtn
7 Day Advance purchase, means you get to travel for EUR28.00 rtn
14 Day or greater advance purchase means you travel for EUR21.00 (A Bargain for Dublin to Cork)

Off peak services are discounted also, with any train leaving Heuston to Cork after 10:00, and before 16:00 are discounted, with the walk on fare becoming EUR56.00, and the other fares discounted in proportion.

For a guideline, Dublin to Limerick (128 miles or 205km), Dublin to Belfast (111 miles or 180km), Dublin to Galway (135 miles or 215km)

Slower Band B routes

Dublin to Waterford
Dublin to Tralee (Beyond Mallow at 15 cent per kilometer)
Dublin to Westport prices at the same level as Dublin - Galway on account of slower services, and competition from Dublin Airport to Knock Air services)
Dublin to Sligo

Band C routes (regional), charged at a flat rate of 12 cent per kilometer

Dublin to Rosslare
Rosslare to Limerick
Ennis to Limerick

Other special offers and discounts apply, and there are also caps on fares. Severe restrictions on free travel and concessions.

But then.....we need to get services up to a European standard to even contemplate such things. These are only rough ideas, and modifications are required. Its complicated as it is, and a good balance between getting the best deal for all parties, from operator, to user to shareholder is required. We will agree on one thing at the end. No solution is ideal, but it should be reasonably transparent, with objectives, outcomes and performance made clear.

[Colm Moore]

Special offers should be limited to commuters ....... groupsYou have to be careful. Groups should only get a discount if pre-booked or off-peak, as they mess things up for commuters and full fare passengers. They also have the habit of being high maintenance.

[Garrett]

You have to be careful. Groups should only get a discount if pre-booked or off-peak, as they mess things up for commuters and full fare passengers. They also have the habit of being high maintenance.
Well of course groups should be pre-booked, with maybe a little flexibility in case they miss the train or something. They may be high mainatenance but hey, they're still passengers! And what's this about only off-peak? If a group books well enough in advance then it's up to IE to adapt. I maybe dreaming too much, but I feel that's how it should be.


PROFIT is not an evil word. Public service is not an evil word. Two conflicting objectives get balanced out.
I don't think anybody is saying that profit is an evil word, just that at the moment the "two conflicting onjectives" are not being properly balanced out. Also, when it comes to public service, the notion of profit is entirely different. A public company (e.g. Irish Rail) making a profit may not necessarily mean that the national economy is better off. That's where subsidies come in - they allow the public company to have an operational loss, but this is then balanced by the economic benefits obtained (in theory of course!).

But then.....we need to get services up to a European standard to even contemplate such things.
Yep, we're probably way ahead of ourselves. But then again, I can't see any reason why impovements in services and improvements in value for money can't progress in parallel.

[undo]

24 hour advance purchase, means that you get a 50% discount and travel for EUR56.00 rtn
[...]
14 Day or greater advance purchase means you travel for EUR21.00 (A Bargain for Dublin to Cork)

Germany has had a similar system for a couple of years - and it's highly annoying. It always seems like rail is trying to imitate cheap airlines here. There is a difference between how people use rail vs. air travel. Flights you plan ahead and use for long distance journeys. Rail trips are often spontaneous, shorter trips. Having some discounted fares for those that book in advance is fine. But basing it all around this is a bad idea. The walk-on fares is what will affect most consumers and so those should be kept reasonable.

[dermo88]

Thats solved by tweaking the system. You keep the walk on fare for distances of less than 160km at a reasonable level. Beyond that, it becomes long distance, and as a result, advance booking becomes necessary.

Depends what you call "long distance", thats a very arbitrary concept. In my eyes its anything other than commuter distance, which is less than 110km.

There will be annoying discrepancies cropping up no matter what happens, but the objectives are the same. Some routes have a higher level of business travel, others have more recreational use.

Yes its annoying until people know how it works, and it becomes an accepted and transparent system.

High walk on fares on a Friday evening, which is the traditional peak period should be acceptable. People will get into the habit of booking early, and having their seats guaranteed. That never happened before.

[undo]

High walk on fares on a Friday evening, which is the traditional peak period should be acceptable. People will get into the habit of booking early, and having their seats guaranteed. That never happened before.

I never bought into the idea of higher on-peak fares. Public transport is supposed to serve people's daily needs - to be there when they need it.

There are rush hours in the morning and evening as people travel between home and work. What exactly is a higher on peak fare supposed to do about this? Push them onto services at different times of day? That's not when they need to get to and from work. Trying to shift the demand is nonsense as the demand is based on people's working hours and will not change. All it does is either milk those who have to travel at that time or make them upset enough to switch back to their cars. The only sane way of dealing with rush hours is adding more services. If there is more demand around 9am and 5pm, services should be more frequent around those hours. Public transport should adapt to demand, not the other way around.

Also, I think there is a second misconception in railway pricing. Discounts for those who buy their tickets way in advance make good sense for airlines. They need to have their airplanes near 100% full to make a profit and cannot adapt to short-term changes in demand as flight plans are arranged far in advance. For railways, there is no need to run at 100% capacity all the time (it's still a state run company after all, serving the public should be #1, turning a profit #2). There is a lot more flexibility as well - if a particular slot is not very popular, there is no need to lure people into filling it up using low prices. Just reduce the number of coaches to adjust the train to the given demand. Also, commuters, certainly the majority of train users, are wonderfully predictable. There is no need to have them book in advance. You *know* they will predictably be working 9 to 5, Monday to Friday. Discounts for early booking make sense if you need to know precise numbers as far ahead as you can. With railways, that's simply not the case.

[Garrett]

I never bought into the idea of higher on-peak fares. Public transport is supposed to serve people's daily needs - to be there when they need it.

There are rush hours in the morning and evening as people travel between home and work. What exactly is a higher on peak fare supposed to do about this? Push them onto services at different times of day? That's not when they need to get to and from work. Trying to shift the demand is nonsense as the demand is based on people's working hours and will not change. All it does is either milk those who have to travel at that time or make them upset enough to switch back to their cars. The only sane way of dealing with rush hours is adding more services. If there is more demand around 9am and 5pm, services should be more frequent around those hours. Public transport should adapt to demand, not the other way around.


I think most of us would agree with you, but there still is a place for peak fares. The basic principle of what I (and some others) are proposing is the introduction of higher peak fares on weekends (Fri and Sun night, Sat and Mon morning) and holiday periods (e.g. Paddy's day), but that commuters would more or less avoid these peak fares by buying weekly, monthly or annual tickets. Peak fares should only apply to Intercity trains (i.e. not based on distance but on service) as applying peak fares to a commuter system would of course be ridiculous. For example, if you took an Intercity train from Heuston to Portarlington on a Friday evening then you would pay a peak fare, but if you decided to take the commuter train you would pay the regular flat fare.
That's my view on the issue anyhows.

With regards your point on selling tickets in advance, I again think that most will agree with you, but again nobody's talking about making advanced reservations on a commuter service - only Intercity services. In theory, there are many, many advantages for a company who promotes advanced booking: less queues at the station, more efficient boarding, fuller trains, ease of mind for passengers, ability to respond to unexpected demand, less handling of cash, and so on...

[ACustomer]

undo wrote: "For railways, there is no need to run at 100% capacity all the time (it's still a state run company after all, serving the public should be #1, turning a profit #2). There is a lot more flexibility as well - if a particular slot is not very popular, there is no need to lure people into filling it up using low prices. Just reduce the number of coaches to adjust the train to the given demand."

Just because railways happen to be either state-owned and a "public service" doedn't mean that efficiency goes out the window! I accept that the peak versus offpeak fare discussion applies almost exclusively to inter-city, but the existing fare structure provides almost no incentive to avoid overcrowded trains and use relatively empty ones. This generates huge dissatisfaction and inevitable demands to invest more in increasing peak capacity (at huge expense).

There is no reason why average fare needs to increase using peak-hour pricing: increases for some trains would be offset by discounts for others. Passengers would then be able to balance their allocation of time versus their financial outlay.

As for shortening off-peak trains: this could be wildly impractical: what if (say) the 1100 to Cork is only 20% full, but its return working at 1500 is 95% full? Also adding and subtracting coaches can be a time-consuming and costly affair, which plays merry hell with turnaround times.

[Mark Gleeson]

Pre booking is not practical for the vast majority of passengers since the bulk of passengers on intercity weekdays are commuters, they already get very highly discounted fares through monthly and annual tickets

We are lossing sight of the actual issue, that someone showing up on spec should be charged a reasonable fare. There are massive inconsistencies in the fares charged particularly where the journey requires a change cross city in Dublin. There is a total lack of transparency in the fares system, no one can work it out

A peak time there shouldn't be a discount, a off peak there should be considerable discount to fill seats. If you book considerably in advance it should be possible to get a level of discount on peak fares but not much.

[Garrett]

We are lossing sight of the actual issue, that someone showing up on spec should be charged a reasonable fare. There are massive inconsistencies in the fares charged particularly where the journey requires a change cross city in Dublin. There is a total lack of transparency in the fares system, no one can work it out.
I've always disagreed with you on this issue and it appears I always will. I don't believe that we are loosing sight of the actual issue. What we are discussing is a radical overhaul of the ticketing philosophy (pretentious maybe, but so be it). The testimonies of passengers on this forum show that the ticketing system doesn't work and pisses them off. It's not just the pricing inconsistencies. The ironing out of inconsistencies, although useful in the short-term, will not allow for the development of a progressive ticketing system in the long term. The current ticketing system won't get better using plasters for its wounds, it requires major transplants in almost every area.
- in my, not so humble, opinion ;)

[Mark Gleeson]

The current system is staying in place on the pure and simple grounds that its a public service and the public have the right to turn up and expect to be accommodated. There is a fundamental requirement that the booking office can always issue a ticket and that ticket is charged at a fare appropriate for the journey being undertaken

At the moment the fare layout is structured such that unless you know exactly how it works you are likely to get ripped off by up to 30 euro, which is impressive when you consider the maximum day return fare is 65.50. The journeys in question are so rarely made they go unnoticed. Regardless of any fancy yield managed system all these glitches have to be fixed.

The vast bulk of the country still hasn't got decent internet access (myself and Tom live with phone lines so poor even modem dial up is flaky) which makes using web sales as the primary sales method unacceptable. Irish Rail manage to charge more online than at the station in a long list of cases

[Colm Moore]

Actually, money aside, encouraging people to pre-book may actually appeal to people own sense of well being if they can see that all the seats on the 17:30 are constantly full, but those on the 16:30 or 18:30 aren't.

[undo]

Certainly the *option* of pre-booking is great and can take the hassle out of many journeys (as long as your reserved seat actually does get marked as such so that you can count on it being free). But *requiring* pre-booking to get a decent price is a ripoff.

[Thomas J Stamp]

and we havent even mentioned the Credit Union discounted tickets yet :D

[Garrett]

The current system is staying in place on the pure and simple grounds that its a public service and the public have the right to turn up and expect to be accommodated. There is a fundamental requirement that the booking office can always issue a ticket and that ticket is charged at a fare appropriate for the journey being undertaken

I think you misunderstood what I meant by "system". I wasn't suggesting moving away from the current system of issuing tickets, as indeed that would have been loosing sight of the issue. I was suggesting moving away from the current system of pricing tickets, and I was disagreeing with your suggestion of removing the inconsistencies in IE's current pricing practices. Those inconsistencies could indeed be removed, but that would be no guarantee that ticket pricing will be easy to understand (for your ordinary Joe and Jane Soap out there), nor that ticket prices will represent the best value for the customer. Also bare in mind that I am primarily discussing intercity ticketing, but some of the suggestions also relate to commuter/luas/dart.

As far as i understand the situation, simply removing the inconsistencies will still mean:

- the practice of charging an arm and a leg for a one-way ticket which gives less choice to the customer who, at the time of booking/buying the ticket may not be sure of when or how he/she will be returning, and that's only assuming they wish to return. A tourist, for example, may decide to do a Dublin - Cork - Limerick - Galway - Dublin trip.
- that one-way tickets are only valid for the date printed on the ticket, and not the more customer friendly option of a specific time frame, e.g. a month. This possibility, I believe, has been hindered due to the whole issue of ticket validation.
- that one-way tickets cannot be used in both directions, e.g. using an unused Dublin-Mullingar single ticket to go from Mullingar to Dublin.

[ccos]

Thats solved by tweaking the system. You keep the walk on fare for distances of less than 160km at a reasonable level. Beyond that, it becomes long distance, and as a result, advance booking becomes necessary.


Thats a nonsense, I frequently do far longer trips (not in Ireland) at a moments notice, why should I be penalised for not having my life rostered.
Recently I had to buy 1 ways to Cork on the day of travel and they're not cheap, I don't want to imagine what they could be if IE had airline priceing:(