There's a rhythm to it. You can put the next ticket in as soon as the last ticket has been taken out at the top, and if you do so within a second or so of that, the gate will remain open and you can carry on. It will take longer to catch on at Heuston, I imagine, since passengers at Heuston are likely to be less frequent travellers than those at, say, Pearse.

On the Gorey trains when arriving into the city stations the following automatic announcement is made:

Please mind the gap and have your ticket ready for validation

I am a bit confused as to why this can't be introduced for trains arriving into Heuston? Surely it should be the same across the board?

By the letter of the law there is no need for that announcement, trust me when you hear it 10 times in less than 10 minutes you will get rather frustrated. There has been as long as I can remember a staffed barrier and Pearse, Tara, Connolly and Bray. No where does the pa say retain your ticket for inspection when leaving the station

• There have been clear notices in Heuston concerning the exit gates for months
• Passenger groups in Kildare have known for over 2 years that the gates where coming
• There are notices at stations served by Heuston
• There is a notice on the Irish Rail website
• Large scale manual ticket checks in Heuston have been fairly common in the last 2 years

The problem in Heuston is the software glitches which end up refusing a large range of valid tickets combined with poorly trained staff who don't understand which tickets are valid

I was told yesterday evening on my way through Heuston that several of the machines have been replaced. All will be replaced by June Bank holiday weekend. My ticket now works on the machines that have been replaced but not on the ones that still are waiting to be replaced. As far as I know the ones to the left of the control computer as you walk towards platform 1-5 have been replaced.

These two points aren't true. There may be signs in some stations but I know for certain that there are no signs in Newbridge and is the RUG even in existence down there any more?

Also, in 18 months using Heuston, I was never asked for my ticket once when leaving the station, other than when RPU were doing a blitz, and even then I have a vague recollection that the drivers announced on some trains to keep your ticket.

There are posters out there, I've seen photos of them, strange green colour background at the top. There was no shortage of posters in Heuston

There have been ticket checks in Heuston and they have certainly been far more common down to the point of complaints arriving in at being checked several days in a row

Iarnrod Eireann intention to gate was certainly mentioned at a public meeting in recent years

With all due respect, I think you're *still* missing the point. No-one is claiming they should play the announcement at every station forever more. This is a major change to the way customers are expected to behave so the announcement need only be played for the first few weeks following introduction of the automatic checks and only at that station.

This has nothing to do with the letter of the law, it's to do with treating customers with respect. I use Heuston periodically for IC trips and have never been asked for my ticket upon exit - maybe it's more common for suburban trains. Had I discarded my ticket on the train or platform and then been fined, I would be extremely annoyed.

As you said, they put posters up in the stations - they recognise people need to be told of the change but then fall short of doing it properly. On a disability level, people with restricted vision might not see or be able to read the posters but they could certainly hear the recorded announcement.

Auto announcements ARE being made on some 22K services into Heuston stating that there is automatic checking and to have your ticket to hand as you alight from the train. However the volume on the English version is quite low.

I can understand IE's need to protect their revenue, but the implementation of exit validation has been badly managed from the start, with a lot of people getting treated like criminals for doing what has been normal practice for decades.

The exit validators have a very annoying 2-second delay when validating tickets. Aren't they the latest technology? I've been using the gates on the London Underground for years and you can walk through them inserting and collecting an old card ticket without breaking your stride (and even easier with an Oyster card).

Second, there is also a delay before the gates close, allowing hard core fare evaders to follow a genuine passenger. I think this is largely because of the sliding door design. The London gates open by swinging in the direction the passenger is travelling, and swinging back to shut very quickly after. This means that someone trying to follow through finds themselves pushed back by the closing doors, and unable to get through.

Perhaps the IE gates can be fine tuned, but in their current mode they are not catching the real cause of the problem.

Hear hear. I haven't yet gone through Heuston with my usual cross-city ticket (Sandymount to Cork), but I know that I will have trouble with it when I get back to Heuston because it will say "no journeys left".

The gate generally doesn't open until you take your ticket, to prevent people leaving it behind. It also doesn't open if there is someone right up next to the gate, because it thinks you're trying to get two people through.

This is a safety thing, so that someone doesn't get crushed. The principal problem is that the gates are bi-directional (and have to be because there isn't enough space in most stations for more than three or four on each side). Therefore, the London-style gates won't work. There is an alarm that sounds (a "choo-choo" sound) when multiple people go through on a single ticket, but IÉ staff seem to studiously ignore it.

For myself, I block people from coming through behind without putting in a ticket. Most of the people I have stopped have been on an annual ticket that they say is malfunctioning :/

Like most other similar inventions (scrambling of cable TV, having to activate MS Office, and making people go to an interview to get a passport in the UK), the gates reduce casual violations without really addressing the core of the problem, and due to the deficiencies in their programming, they are just getting on people's nerves now.

The gates have problems but they have had a massive impact on fare evasion in the last few years

When the person in front of you has removed their ticket insert yours and the gate will stay open. The problem with that is finding a line of commuters whose tickets will all work in the gates

Smartcard tickets are getting ever closer which will solve the validation problems, far side of this summer

The real problem is the focus on evasion detection instead of a focus on making it easy to get a ticket before you board

There are other side benefits, a smartcard ticket reported lost/stolen will be refused by the gates thus putting an end to the replacement charges on annual tickets

In addition to what Mark Gleeson said about the benefits of Smart Cards, the amount of travel pattern info that can be taken from Smart Card use is incredible. The RPA have stated that they intend on full smart card use in the coming years as it is cheaper than producing dosposible tickets. Less mechanical wear and tear on the TVMs, quicker boarding, quicker inspection etc. So much more info can be stored on them.

Lets not forget though, Smart Card tickets doesnt mean integrated ticketing.

Veolia has got in quite a lot of hot water with the Data Protection Commissioner over processing smartcard data.

In one of the nordic countries I remember reading that the transport provider/authority has been banned from using smart card data for tracking peoples journey patterns. Privacy and all that.

why IS Heuston actually getting ticket barriers? I can understand if it were for the suburban services or possibly the regional trains to Carlow, Portlaoise and Athlone but dont all intercity trains have ticket inspectors on them?

On the continent for example it is quite normal to have access to the intercity platforms to welcome and see off friends and family or even to board departing trains with the intention of buying a ticket on board.

Should IE be treating Intercity customers like commuters?

For anyone of my age (50) these ticket validation measures are just the latest in a long line of expensive, poorly thought out ways of trying to replace staff at stations. I have lost count of the enormous numbers of different ticket barriers tried out in the Dublin area over the last four decades. Possibly the worst aspect of this latest attempt is the way that the most ignorant, badly motivated staff seem to have been placed at the barriers to 'help' passengers who experience difficulties. :mad:

Every time I've been on the 06:35 Limerick to Dublin in the last couple of weeks, some fecking ticket inspector has deliberately woke me up (it's way too early to be awake like), and asked to see my ticket, but only once we had passed Newbridge - the final stop before Heuston, where I'd have to be showing my ticket at the barriers anyway. Why not ask earlier in the journey for people who might be getting out in places like Portlaoise or Kildare, where there are no validation gates? Or failing that, just let me sleep!

Where's the logic?

Has anybody else noticed that trains no longer get a platform number on the display board in Heuston until they are there and ready to board (usually about 2 mins before departure time) ?

Yesterday a lot of people saw the 18:35 train to Thurles coming into platform 2 and went to board it (at 18:30)...and were promptly chased down platform 2 by IR staff and removed from the Train (as it was not ready for boarding apparently!)....only to be allowed back on the train 2 mins later.

One question I would ask is why the train did not arrive at the platform ready for boarding? It wasnt an incoming train full of passengers!

Yep, was waiting on that train too. They called the platform number at 18:36, there was a mad scramble by everyone and it departed at 18:39.

Much the same thing happened with today's 18:05 to Portlaoise. Except it was more like 18:10 when the empty train even arrived in the platform with the majority of people still on the concourse. Once again, mad scramble, departure 3-4 mins later.

If the train is coming in empty - i.e. is not a scheduled service that needs to be turned around first and therefore may be prone to delays on the way to Dublin - why can't they actually have the train sitting on the platform and ready to board before the advertised departure time? Instead they leave everybody guessing what's going on.

yeah saw that yesterday too..they announced the 18.05 would be late..didnt name a platform...everybody already knew it would be platform 2 and most were waiting for it when the train pulled in....cue announcements asking people to stand well back on platform 2 (because everybody stands in the way of incoming trains!! :confused: )

Platforms are no longer announced until the train is ready to board, it avoids the huge snaking queues across the concourse.

This practice is fairly common elsewhere it is practiced in France

With the new gates the boarding process is much faster, avoiding the manual checking of tickets

Late boarding of trains in Heuston is nothing new, the 18:35 service has long suffered from it

But if you read your ticket info for your online seat reservation it says please take your seat 20 min before the train departs. I have no problem with not boarding the train until it is ready but change the info on the on-line ticketing system to match up.

Has something changed with the software? Up to yesterday my monthly ticket was working fine, but today the gates didn't want to know - going in or out of Heuston. Ticket does not have City Centre option on it. Instead of letting me through, the machine took in the ticket and then proceeded to spit it back out and take it back in rapidly again several times in succession. Sort of like it was blowing a raspberry really.

Seriously, it's time to just deactivate the gates and leave them open until they actually work. How many thousands of euro have IE blown on this farce of a system?!

I was there the other day, mid-morning and it seemed to be running fairly smoothly. Sure they had to let all the season ticket holders through a held open gate, but everyone seemed to have a ticket and anyone who had problems at first, was able to work it the second time.

Did you use it in a bus?

Is the ticket bent or otherwise damaged?

Once most tickets move over to smart cards, most of the problems should disappear. The first time failure rate with Dublin Bus smart cards is about 1% and I've not seen many second time fails at all.

That normally happens if it can't read the magnetic stripe. Look at the message display on the gate: if it says "wrong side up" or "ticket failed", then it can't read the ticket.

The rapid in and out generally indicates a problem with the reader, Dublin Bus had a similar thing. The ticket is normally accepted by the machine though after a few seconds

The situation in Heuston is unacceptable, its a lot better than the first week but all the problems where foreseeable if there had been a robust testing phase they would never have happened

I travelled on Southern and South West Trains in the past few weeks and the amount of on board information is a lot more than on Irish Rail.

Example:
- Announcments about train dividing at some point an hour (or more) down the line, repeated audibly 5+ times after each station, may more times visually
- Announcments about onboard ticket checking about to take place
- Announcments to be aware of pickpockets
- Announcment that there is a trolley service on the train

Compared to this, Irish Rail is actually pretty good at giving short, concise information (when the systems are working).

Exit validation abandoned at Heuston?
 

The last few weeks it seems that they have given up on entrance/exit validation at heuston. When the train arrives, the whole group goes through the open gate with the old style ticket checker there, using his (sorry they are mostly "he") initiative whether or not to check tickets.

I don't know if the rest of the machines are working because my annual ticket gave up after about 3 months of use on the machines, and I now have to show it.

Pity about the waste of all that money.

Also, the on train ticket checkers are still insisting on ticket checking even before the first stop out of Heuston and after the last stop towards Heuston:eek:

Making sure everyone pays their (correct) fare is very important to the bottom line due to the past levels of evasion. The alternative of not checking is higher fares or fewer trains for the rest of us. The extra checks cost nothing as the staff are employed anyway.

But whats the point if the passengers will be checked on arrival, the reverse should be the case the train should be checked mid journey

There is also a headcount being done at the same time, which is important to the bottom line

That said in the UK, on a long distance service where the staff change, the new staff again check tickets

The other day, we were checked at Heuston (ticket barrier, but the emergency gate was open :rolleyes: ) and somewhere Heuston-Thurles. Only people boarding Thurles-Mallow were checked after that. Interestingly, the train host and the ticket checker both did the ticket checking.

Yes, we had the train host/ticket checker double-teaming on the 1100 Heuston-Cork last Saturday too. Interesting as I thought there was a demarcation issue there.

What about the cost/benefit of putting the machines in in Heuston then? If the staff were already there checking, why the extra machines? I'm sure a few less people on the dole would be most people's preferred option.

For smartcard functionality and the ticket check also is a passenger count and breakdown

This morning the guy at the gate insisted everyone try their ticket in the machine even when they all said they don't work. Massive que developed and another staff member then came over to open the gate to everyone and stop the farce.

I pay over 2k a year for my ticket and if they put in this system i expect it to work with my ticket. I don't want an excuse and i don't want to be told to go to a building beside Connolly to get another ticket ( time and effort on my part )

When you are in a hurry for a train and your ticket doesn't work it can become a real pain trying to get through these barriers.

I don't get a new ticket until April and i sick of this rubbish on a daily basis.

Have them send a replacement to your local station and return you old one when you collect it.

No guarantee how long it will last though.

I think that might be a little too hard for the staff in Portarlington, unless i write what i want out in crayon;)

Have they given up on ticket validation in Heuston already having spent all the money?
Almost every evening all passengers on my train walk through an open gate that says "turas in aisce." Sometimes there is an Irish Rail employee somewhere near, sometimes there isn't. Tickets are still checked on the train.

This is happening again and how they can keep this system in place when it is clearly not working is beyond me.