paper tickets fail
 

every morning, literally every single morning, I get stuck behind someone who can't get through the turnstiles at Pearse because their paper/magnetic ticket won't scan. Does Irish Rail plan to phase these tickets out?

On a related note, the new turnstiles are still rubbish - walk too fast & they don't open, and I see people "tailgating" through without scanning a ticket every day. Can't see how anyone in IR could have tested them and said "yep, these'll do".

Paper tickets will always remain, but in reduced use. Bear in mind the gates reject invalid, out of date and over traveled tickets, so not all are failures

The gates work well if everyone has a working ticket

1. Present your ticket as soon as the gate has opened for the person in front (or if it was already open as soon as they remove their ticket
2. Walk through

The gate will remain open if the above is followed, all too often the delays are down to people fumbling for tickets or for reasons unknown patiently wait for the gate to close before they insert their ticket

What is the reason for the gates rapidly ejecting and pulling back in tickets? Seems to happen all the time.

Thats normally due to a read failure it tries several times before giving up.

My annual ticket is ignored by the machines at Pearse on at least one day a week. I frequently have no option but to tailgate in order to get into the place. When the ticket is ignored it is almost always ignored by all machines. No indication is given as to why it is being ignored - in fact the machines just don't seem to see the ticket at all.

Same getting out on the opposite side, machines don't react to the ticket at all on at least one day a week. Rarely happens at other locations, although one batch of machines consistently flash up employee access.

In my view, a very sub-standard system !

my impression is the majority are failures, is a (more) disposable smartcard a possibility?

even with a smartcard the gates are far from seamless - if you need instructions to use turnstile then the system is a failure IMO.

In Singapore you rent a smartcard when you buy the ticket for even single journey and get refunded the deposit from a machine after use.

In my experience, the IE Smart card is very reliable and rarely fails to open gates. The only time I see people with issues are when they swipe the card over the sensor instead of holding it steady or have a paper ticket.

My mother does this. She's afraid the gate will close before she walks through if it hasn't opened specifically for her.

There always was something slightly odd about the timings for paper tickets. I switched to a smart card this year and the gates work so much better with the smart card.

With paper, there is a slight pause and if you continue at a normal walking pace, the gate starts to open and then slams shut because you are too close. There is no reliable option but to stop and wait for it to process the ticket or to tailgate somebody with a smartcard.

I am not quite sure what the tailgate mechanism is because I have managed to get five people through on a family ticket but maybe they are coded specially.