Automatic ticket checking in Heuston
 

Looks like they are putting in the ticket barriers now. No timescale given on when they'll start operating.

Do you know is this for platform 1 (commuter services) only or for all services?

Its been on the cards for sometime, again not unusual and indeed somewhat required to get the smartcard system in.

No idea, but the barriers are being installed right in the middle of the concourse just in front of platform 3/4, so I doubt it will be restricted to commuter services only.

Well the construction there looks to be more to do with a office space, possibly a customer service or ticketing thingy, looks rather square and in wood.

A ticket barrier line would be a first seen as a steel plate running across the concourse where the machines will be bolted into later.

Normally there would be a poster clearly saying 'exit validation coming soon'

I think the wood is only temporary and only there to cover the area during the installation.

There are posters up on all sides of the wood fence indicating 'exit validation coming soon'

if they are going to do automated ticket validation why or why can they start using barcodes or chip or something which does involve the ticket being possibly eaten by the machine!!

Within the next few years all weekly/monthly/annual tickets will be smartcards so no need to even remove from your wallet

The tickets rarely jam, 8 odd years only had 1 ticket jam in the machine and it was easily recovered. Dublin Bus on the other hand, their ticket validator seems to be quite hungry.

Some of the IÉ gates do have a habit of corrupting the magstripes though. That said the cards aren't exactly brilliant quality.

I can't imagine the Prepaid Single Contract tickets going through any barrier and those are quite widely used on InterCity routes. So, they'll have to change the tickets or, possibly more likely, scrap the ticket class.

Contract tickets are being withdrawn anyways

Lovely. I hope they come up with some solution that allows pre-booked tickets that are posted out or printed on a laser printer at booking offices to be magnetically encoded too.

Pre booked tickets mag stripe issue should be solved shortly.

Since the single = half the return became available online the discount offered by contract tickets has vanished more or less

What are people's experiences with the plastic covers like this?

The exit holes weren't aligned and the ticket ended up getting bent.

OT: don't even get me started on the quality of the magnetic strips on prepaid tickets!

First exit validation machines have appeared in Heuston.

I wonder how they will work with single and return cross-city tickets e.g. from a DART station to Cork...

yes was in there yesterday and a gang unloading machines from the lorry in the concourse .... looks like somebody wants to make it look like Paddington.

My uncle was talking to train host on Friday and the machines will be enabled sometime this evening for use first thing tomorrow morning. I presume there will be nobody to provide assistance to anybody who has problems. Going to be fun to watch.

I don't see why you should presume that, to be honest; all the other main stations with the gates have someone on duty to help people out, and there were a few extra people for a while after the system was activated.

I am still worried about how it will turn out with tickets that have to be validated at both Heuston and Connolly, and with multi-person tickets.

Reservation tickets collected at the booking office or sent by post won't work, the ones from the collection machines might, just might

There will be staff on duty

It will make a serious difference to catching fare evaders, Hazelhatch Heuston will be the first complete section of the Dublin commuter zone with complete entry/exit coverage

Now, if only the ticket offices in the suburban looked at the gate lines. :rolleyes:

Yup, that's another issue. Of the stations I'm familiar with, only GCD, Clontarf Road, and Lansdowne (northbound only) have any visibility from the booking office to the gate line.

All the machines have been turned on since Wednesday. However all the machines are displaying "Out of Service". I was told by a ticket inspector that they are turning them on around lunch time today.

And its entirely switched off this evening, every single gate open

Gates not working today lunchtime either

Can anybody confirm if the machines are working yet? Anybody travel through Heuston since Saturday lunch-time and the machines were working. I'm thinking I might go for the 6:35am train from Kildare instead of the 6:53 to make sure I get to work for 8am. If tomorrow is the first morning of operation if will take a few mornings and evenings before everybody gets used to system which will lead to a few delays.

Both Irish Rail and AA Roadwatch have notices saying it is in affect from Friday 17th of April.

http://www.irishrail.ie/news_centre/...ew&news_id=237

Once again all machines turned on this morning with out of service message displayed. Conductor on my train this morning reckons next week before it will be working.

They were working this evening at about 17:00. People looked confused!

Turned on again this morning. Large queues waiting to exit.

Seems that the barriers are rejecting a lot of annual tickets, zero help from the IE clowns standing around, they are simply telling people to get their tickets replaced (very much easier said than done).

Also, is anyone else sick of the Robocops (STT rail security) standing around intimidating people in Heuston?

I am not very surprised.

Yes, I am, have a look at at their website www.stt.ie (founded by an ex. Irish Army Ranger), they are all ex Warsaw Pact forces, something like that Blackwater crowd that were kicked out of Iraq. I understand the need for security, but dressed in paramilitary uniform at Irish stations is ridiculous, do you not think that we have had enough of paramilitaries in this country ?.

It is not jsut annual tickets that are getting rejected but monthly tickets as well. I have a monthly ticket which was rejected by 5 seperate machines in Heuston. However the ticket continues to work in the Dublin Bus machines.

I went up to a member of IR staff this morning who told me I needed to replace the ticket. He also told me I would have to pay full price for the ticket to be replaced. That is not going to happen with 7 working days left in the month.

He also mentioned that if you keep your ticket in your wallet next to your debit card or a swipe card for work can cause the magnetic to become damaged. This maybe true as I have heard similar stories in relation to Oyster cards in London.

Surely that is illegal, how can they expect you to pay for a new ticket when their fisher price barriers won't recognise your current one. I assume if it is monthly it has the valid date printed on it so therefore it should not be your problem if the barriers can't read the strip?

That is, as far as science is concerned, nonsense. It was on Mythbusters some time ago. IÉ tickets are magnetic stripe tickets and outside of the machines, it would take a serious magnetic force to damage the ticket. On the Mythbusters show, they demonstrated that the strength of magnet needed to damage a magnetic stripe was such that the magnet would hold itself in place if you had one in your hand and one below it.

Oyster cards are a different story. They are RFID cards (just like the Luas and Dublin Bus smart cards) and having two or more of them in close proximity can result in none being read. The cards aren't damaged, though, and presenting one card on its own to the reader still works.

If the Dublin Bus machine is reading the ticket and the IÉ one is not clearly the IÉ machine is at fault. The suggestion that you should have to pay to replace a faulty ticket is beneath contempt.

Myth busters tested credit cards which use a different grade of ferrous iron in the stripes, train tickets use a lower grade since it must be modified every time it is read

I've only had one dodgy ticket in years, but I've had a heap of trouble with simple return tickets with the new gates

Even then, smart cards and other mag stripe cards can't affect tickets. Earphones, mobiles, etc. might be a problem, I suppose.

So have I, but it's had to do with software problems. The gates read the stripe fine, they just don't process it properly.

A return ticket from, say, Drogheda to Limerick will not let you out at Heuston on the way back. It will say "no journeys left".

The machines were turned off on Platform 6,7 and 8 last night when I was going through at 6:30pm.

Alot of people in Heuston getting very frustrated with the system this morning. It was rejecting most people's tickets and causing large queues to form. IR staff are not very helpful either. The only ones that appear to be working are the annual tickets. Talking to a couple of fellow passengers in the queue this morning and like me they all have monthly tickets with the add on to the City Centre. Since the machines have gone live their tickets have been rejected.

Just wondering is the software not able to handle monthly tickets which have the add-on to the city centre? I would find that hard to believe since I know a few people with annual tickets with the add-on who are getting through no problem.