Farce
 

This whole thing is a farce and I can't understand why there hasn't been more stink about it.

How can they get away with taking peoples money, giving them a ticket and then having the gall to hassle them when the ticket (which they issued) fails to work ?

I've had similar situations before when picking up a new ticket from Abbey Street (where the old office was), walking straight to a bus and having it fail. And don't give me the "sure it has problems in bus validators and this is a train company ticket" thing. I pay a lot of money for a ticket and I expect it to do what it says on the tin.

And how can a users representative body like RUI *not* be making more of a fuss ? I read here about the hassle in Pearse, Heuston & Connolly, but there's similar in Clontarf Road also just with smaller numbers. The validators there regularly fail to operate correctly (doing the hokey cokey with the ticket), they are out of synch (like an extra few seconds after the ticket has been accepted before it is spit out or before the gates open) or else they just don't work. This leads to people backing up into the station and up the stairs which is not particularly safe. It also leads to aggravation when you have people doing the hokey cokey while trying to get out on all the gates and the occasional poor person trying to get in and faced with 20-30 hassled people all trying to get out.

The poor guy in the ticket booth must have given up caring at this stage and I don't blame him. He didn't commission these flakey systems. He didn't break the gates, the validators or the tickets.

It really is a joke that this ticket mess has gone on for so long. It's not a funny joke though - it's at the expense of time and money wasted *every single day* for many, many commuters. It's like some bully boy tactic - they take your money from you, give you something and then hassle you when it doesn't work.

z

Which ticket do you have and when did it stop working and with what error message?

Details in this thread and others do feedback to those in charge who are debugging the problems and this has resulted in a change in Heuston on April 15th. This is the proactive solution, which enables people to fix the issues.

If you travel through Heuston, and the ticket states 'Connolly' and was issued before April 15th 2010 it will need to be replaced to ensure reliable operation. A booth of some kind will appear shortly in Heuston to allow for easy swapping of the tickets. That will should close out the Heuston side issues.

As far was we know the vast majority of rail only annual tickets for Dublin have now been replaced, that runs to several thousand. Several large companies received on site visits to speed this process. That was a very sensible and proactive move.

The current major issue relates to Rail/Bus tickets and I understand a solution is being worked on. The Dublin Bus issued tickets trip up the new gates as they have a smartcard but are mag stripe tickets. This is tied up with the RPA ITS project which isn't helping.

There is no legal avenue of complaint unlike most issues we are involved in, the ticket is valid. If you are refused travel then the fun starts, but IE have the right to check every ticket at every ticket barrier.

The problem is not the tickets per say but the usual staff ignorance and lack of customer service which is an issue we are dealing with. Connolly and Pearse seem to be well sorted out. If any ticket checker gives you grief stop and ask to see their RPU id card, they must carry one. Irish Rail will not comment publicly on an incident which relates to a specific member of staff.

We can complain all we want but with specific details of date, time, location we can get results. We have an assurance that if a complaint is made which can clearly identify the member of staff action will be taken.

When the smartcard project goes live we will issue a statement and it won't make comfortable reading for certain parties.

I've an IE bus & rail which works most of the time. My description of Clontarf Road above relates to the range of people who this happens to almost every time I pass throug. You could apprear at either morning or evening rush hour on any day and see the charade going on.

The only complaint I could make to IE would be that they delayed me getting out of the gates (every day) but I can't see any action being taken on that as ultimately I get through the gate as does everyone else . . . eventually.

In the Clontarf Road situation it's not a staff problem, it's a system problem. The gates just don't work reliably, they cause delays, they refuse valid tickets, etc . . .

z

All reports we have are of excellent customer service from the taxsaver people.

There hopefully will be something done on the bus/rail we will let you all know

If we can produce a repeatable scenario where a valid ticket doesn't work, IE's IT people will investigate and numerous problems have been fixed as a result. I'm meeting with someone in IE today on a similar issue.

Our goal has always been to fix problems to make life easier and IE are happy to work with our feedback as we can detail issues they don't know about.

I was in Clontarf Road recently and I did see two mag-stripe tickets fail in the gate nearest the counter, so I think avoid that one.

There was also an audio failure on the one furthest away from the counter.

I'm heading for another new ticket! My current ticket worked in pearse yesterday evening but refused to work again in connolly this morning! lets see how long this one lasts...

In Heuston after 9am, there is a scarcity of people to let you through the gates and I often have to call someone from the other side of the gate to let me through. Also, the staff are standing around chatting together at the gates in the evening and I occasionally have had to interrupt them to ask them to let me through the gate. I haven't gotten grief as such but you don't exactly get a "hello, can I help you" reply!!

That is my daily experience in Heuston anyway.. It will certainly be helpful if faulty tickets can be changed there in future because I, and I'm sure plenty others, cannot get to Connolly during the day to replace tickets that haven't worked since the day we got them.

Ok another new ticket... Fresh from taxsaver. 1st gate in Connolly stated wrong side up and spotted it out. Second gate I tried it worked!! So is it my ticket or the gate! Personally I suspect the gates are damaging the tickets! But as usual with Irish rail... The customer is always blamed unless you can prove otherwise

Oh the person in taxsaver said that it was new policy to make people go through the the gates from now on and they won't let you through until they see the ticket fail!

Every second 'turnstile' seems to be rejecting valid tickets at Connolly these last few days. Will anything be done about it?
:(

I got my annual ticket replaced last Friday. It worked fine on Monday and Tuesday. This morning around 8:30am in three of the machines at Sandymount I got message "Wrong Side Up". When I got to Tara St I got "ticket failed". I only tried in one machine.This evening in two machines at Tara St I got "ticket failed". I use the entrance\exit to Townsend Street at Tara.

If it does not work tomorrow morning will be off to Taxsaver office to get 3rd annual ticket. I only got mine in April of this year.

My annual ticket is an Annual Short Hop Commuter Rail, DART & Dublin Bus.

Where did it last work? The last machine you passed through is likely the one which damaged it

Tara St yesterday evening. It was the second one in from the wall beside stairs to Platform 1.

Failed again this morning at Sandymount. Error was "Wrong Side Up". It also failed in Tara with message "Ticket failed". I'll head over at lunchtime to taxsaver office to get replacement.

New notices at Tara Street
 

Some notices have gone up at Tara Street in the following terms:

All tickets must be validated. Iarnród Éireann staff cannot control the opening of ticket gates. Ticket gates are controlled by the validation of tickets.

Aside from being completely wrong, it's nothing short of insane to be going on like this when they know that there are chronic issues with certain types of annual tickets.

Grand Canal Dock Issue.
Ticket Type: Weekly Season
Dundalk – Grand Canal

27th July, at 9:28am I used the furthest right ticket gate as you exit the platform using the new ticket gates at the rear of the station. The ticket gate ate my ticket and I spent approx 15seconds examining the ticket slot for my ticket. I left to go into the station to speak to staff to open the ticket gate slot for me so that I could retrieve my ticket and when they came around to the rear of the station and opened it, there was no ticket! The staff point blankly refused to re-issue my ticket going as far to question if I had even put a ticket in! I had proof of purchase. I was told that I would have to speak to Customer Services in Connolly. So that I did and was immediately told they should not have sent me over, that it was a Grand Canal Dock issue etc. I continued to argue my case and forced them to review the CCTV which I am relieved clearly shows me entering my ticket into what they call “Unit 1” and after I leave to go into the Station to get a staff member to come out, a gent in the mean time puts a ticket into “Unit 1” which forces my ticket to eject. He also receives his own ticket and casually walks off with mine! The kind customer services in Connolly, whom I showed proof of purchase too combined with the very fact that they now had video evidence confirming that their equipment malfunctioned still refused to re-issue a ticket even going so far as to tell me that I will be lucky to get a refund. Further more, with no ticket for travel, I asked how they planned on getting me home considering that their equipment robbed me of my ticket. I was told I would have to buy another ticket. After wasting about 45 minutes, I left it be. So here is the question, what are my options and how the hell do I report IR for this utter ignorance and complete disregard? Their equipment failed and as a result, left me stranded without a means to get home.

Since these machines first appeared (to me) at Grand Canal Dock 3 or 4 years ago, they have always irritated me.

One serious problem is that even if they manage to read the ticket on the first scan, there is a short random delay in opening the gate. The gate usually slams shut just in front of you and then takes a random time to open.

They also appear only to open if you stand in a paritcular place. Too close or too far and it won't open. You see people all the time doing a little dance looking for the sweet spot.

I think I am a reasonably intelligent person yet in 4 years have never figured out the pattern in how these gates open and close. Not that I give it too much thought but it is a constant irritant.

At least I have managed to get through three months at Connolly without needing to get a new ticket so that itself is progress. The staff at the TaxSaver office must be far and away the best people at Irish Rail given the amount of pissed-off rude people they must have to deal with while remaining unfailingly pleasant and helpful.

Still waiting for Irish Rail to acknowledge my complaint on this issue! I rang again today and surprise surprise, "No Record" of my complaint even arriving. I have been told that I would be called today, so I will wait and see what has to be said if they do call me. I still cant believe that their cctv verified my story and that I had proof of purchase and that the dont want to refund me nor do they see anything wrong with not accomodating to get me home last Tueaday.....

I believe I have finally got somewhere.... after all that, I am being issued with a "Warrant" which will enable me to get a weekly ticket next week! It will be sent out to me by the end of the week. I must say, much more than I anticipated, still doesn't rectify the complete ignorance by not arranging to get me home on the day of the issue but, having been a daily customer for a number of years and been through the rough so many times with them, the result has been well beyond my expectations!

I had a similar problem in Clongriffen on the first day - it took about 45 seconds for the ticket to be returned.

One day in Clontarf I saw a bunch of tickets retained.