Ticket Question - Annual Bus and Rail
 

I have two questions about my new annual Bus and Rail Ticket.

Is this going to become a Smart card in the future, if so when?

When I transfer from bus to train I get message "ticket already validated" and cannot get throught the gates at the station. Does anybody know how long you need to wait before it will work in the train stations after using a bus and also whom I can contact in Irish Rail to have this corrected? It can be very frustrating waiting around fro somebody to open the gates manually.

The validated problem is known about, its been around for a long long time well before the new gates, at least 10 minutes must pass between validation and the next attempt to use the ticket, it has been raised with IE

All rail only annual tickets for Dublin will be issued as smartcards as soon as the smartcard system is fully operational. All tickets valid from Jan 1st 2010 should be smartcards. Anyone holding a old style ticket will be offered a free upgrade to a smartcard ticket when they become available. The replacement charge following theft or loss will be struck out and replaced with a simple token admin charge for the replacement card

Bus+Rail smartcards while possible will not be issued since the RPA are keeping a tight grip on the smartcard roll out

what a joke!

So it looks like i could be stuck with the old style pass (bus and rail jan 2010) getting the usual validation problems. Typical :rolleyes:

A Dublin Bus-issued bus and rail ticket will not have the "just validated" issue, as it will have been validated by the proximity card reader on the bus and the magnetic stripe reader for the train, and they don't communicate.

Gotta say what a joke these Annual bus and rail tickets are, Have had nothing but trouble with them.

Saw an article in the Metro today about somebody else complaining about them too.

Mine has stopped working in all train ticket machines now, Previously it would validate ticket but not open gate, It is very frustrating having to wait for gates to be manually opened!

Does anybody else have issues with these cards?

There are known issues with the tickets. An IÉ-issued annual ticket (that is, one with a photo printed onto it rather than a separate ID card) that no longer operates the barriers can be replaced on the spot at the annual ticket office near Connolly Station or the suburban office in Pearse Station, or alternatively you can fill in a form at any staffed booking office in the Dublin suburban area and they will send out a replacement ticket to that office within a week or two.

All rail only tickets will be replaced with smartcards in the coming months. While this doesn't change things for rail+bus it does reduce the number of mag stripe tickets, less delays with people in front of you struggling.

Key advice is if you have an Irish Rail issued ticket (the single ticket with photo) avoid the reader on the bus at all costs. Dublin Bus issued tickets are smartcard enabled

I also have an Irish-rail issued Short Hop + Dublin Bus annual ticket.

The first set of North-bound entry validators at Pearse St. station (the unmanned ones) regularly (perhaps always) refuse my ticket and modify the magstripe. Most recently yesterday around 10:30pm.

This causes the ticket to subsequently fail on most DART and bus readers.

However, some readers seem to be able to accept and repair the modified magstripe, e.g. the machines at Bayside (perhaps because they are the older turnstyle model with entry validation only).

When I've had to get a ticket replaced it's always been due to a bus reader. I have thought about buying a magstripe reader / writer to save me some trips into Abbey St...

From August 1st all bus/rail tickets for Dublin issued by Irish Rail will become smartcards, well you end up with two smartcards, one for bus and one for train. But it will mean the end of problems.

The bus validators are the real problem

This is just a moan so chose to ignore if you want to.

On Friday last, I went to the business-hours Taxsaver Office at Connolly Station. I have an Annual Bus/Rail/DART taxsaver ticket. For months now, it has been refused by both rail and bus validators. I accepted this over time and generally just flagged it past the ticket vendor / driver when necessary.

On Friday I had an opportunity to change it at last. I was treated fairly and quickly by the staff there who asked no questions and made it very easy to swap my broken ticket for a new one. It worked on the bus on the way home and then stopped working entirely: both rail and bus validators refusing it.

I know that one is supposed to keep it away from other magnetic devices (because that is really easy these days!) but it worked once. I'm sick of this. I refuse to accept that this magnetic strip is this sensitive. Please please please please please can we have smart card(s) for this type of taxsaver ticket? Please?

Previous post had the answer

any chance of dublin bus following suit

Error rates on Dublin Bus tickets lower as they use smartcard on the bus and thus avoid the problems IE issued tickets are having.

We keep in touch with the TaxSaver office and they to be fair let us know when they are changing something

Yea, but the anger had to go somewhere

Its extremely annoying, the crew down the taxsaver office are be far the nicest you are likely to meet.

In theory a bus and rail smartcard is doable today but the RPA refuse to play ball

Isn't that a solution in itself for many people?

Depends on your employer as to who they deal with

No smart tickets
 

This has not happened i have now been told to get a smart(s). I will have to cancel my current ticket bought in April (replaced a good few times already not sure how many) and buy a new ticket from sept to sept. I'm not sure you are allowed do this as the tax break says you can only buy 1 a year.

So I guess I will have to go and get my ticket replaced god knows how many more tines

From August 1st all Rail/Bus short hop zone tickets issued have been smartcards

For replacements the problem is they cannot issue the bus portion for less than 1 year so you are somewhat stuck as they simply get a box of tickets from Dublin bus, they cannot reprogram them.

For rail only Dublin short hop zone tickets a smartcard can be issued regardless of the duration remaining on the existing ticket as Irish Rail can program the card on site. Nearly all of those tickets should have been replaced by now

As the bulk of tickets are issued November/December/January the problem tickets will be cleared in time

Thanks
 

Thanks for the answer

Hi there,

Are the annual point to point with 90/92 feeder tickets still going to be stuck with the magnetic strip tickets or will they be 2 smart cards as well?

Cheers,
Brian

Stuck at mag stripe I'm afraid

If you have not replaced the ticket in the last 3 months or so, do so now a major set of changes were made in Heuston which should have improved reliability but it did mean that all previously issued tickets had to be reissued

Are you recommending that anyone with a point to point ticket that is older than 3 months should look for a replacement? Or are they being re-issued anyway via employers?

How long will we be stuck with the mag-stripe?

Any ticket used to travel through Heuston station which has a destination of Connolly on it i.e. the 90/92/Luas issued before April 15th should be replaced. Changes made on April 15th effectively made all ticket invalid so a reissue was required. This resolved some serious issues with the gates in Heuston

The tax saver office had people in place in Heuston to arrange easy replacement in May I understand.

I don't have a timeline on the add on tickets. As far as I understand the next to switch will be the long distance point to point (without bus/luas) tickets.

I have an annual point to point ticket with Luas/90 addon issued last December and
1) It still works so I rpresume that it is not invalid!
2) no-one approached me to have to re-issued nor did I see any announcements about re-issuing.

There was a specific issue if the ticket stated Connolly as destination.

I can only go on the information that Irish Rail provided

Good news all point to point tickets into Dublin will be issued as smartcards starting from Jan 2011. Don't have exact details

got mine this morning (picture is :o )

rail smartcard with picture on it, hard plastic

bus smartcard paper as per last year

am i right in guessing the rail smartcard is the id, both cards have to be carried together at all times, bit of a nuisance but i carry them in my wallet so nothing major :)

The bus smartcard has a handwritten number on it which should match the Irish Rail smartcard serial number (10 digits). Both must be carried at all times

You can register the annual ticket on the Irish Rail smartcard system and watch your transactions.

You can even do crazy stuff like
1. Top the card up and it will work as a pay as a you go until the annual is valid
2. When the annual expires next year you can go to a TVM and add on a monthly rail only product on to it

Of course that only applies to Short Hop Zone. With Point-to-point, DB smartcard is a separate ticket and needs a separate identity card. Thus you need to carry 3 cards (IE smart card, DB smartcard and CIE Identity card).

Nice to see the end of the mag-stripes:)

agree with that!
 

i agree with mark gleeson..The real problem is not the tickets but the bus validators. :)

Whats the story with the Rail & Luas tickets...are they going smart card too?

Fed up having to replace my ticket every few months (due to a variety of issues)!!

Point-to-Point Rail Plus Luas is a Smart Card. Not sure about Short-Hop.