"They failed miserably and you still have to pay two fares on two buses to make one journey across Dublin."
Whilst it may well be true that two Buses are necessary in order to make certain cross-city journeys it is NOT true to say you HAVE to pay two fares.
The choice of paying two fares is entirely one of the customer themselves.
The somewhat simple expedient of purchasing a Value-Pack of Travel 90 tickets €16 for TEN equates to €1.60 each for a ticket giving an unlimited number of journeys within 90 mins of initial validation.
Mar Shampla..... 09.00. Board a 46A in Foxrock for a journey to An Lar (Cash Fare €1.80) 09.30 alight in Westmoreland St and board the 0936 67A to Maynooth using the SAME ticket (Cash Fare €1.90) thus a series of journeys costing €3.70 is available for less than HALF that combined fare.
The salient point is that this range of tickets IS readily available in BAC ticket agents.
At some point the responsibility for organizing one`s commute does shift somewhat from the service provider itself onto the shoulders of the potential commuter themselves.
For example I know several well seasoned Bus users who habitually carry one Two-Easy (2 Journey) ticket for each fare denomination in their wallets thus ensuring that they ALWAYS have a ticket for whatever journey they make.
Few people know for example that one can use a lower value 2 easy ticket for a longer journey by paying the difference in cash to the driver and getting an excess ticket to cover this amount.
Far from having a non-integrated Transport System,Dublin has a level of Ticketing Integration somewhat better than might first be assumed,including quite a variety of Bus/Luas/Dart/Arrow pre-paid tickets.
The glaring omission is the provision of a single journey time-based transfer ticket available across ALL modes and that can be easily accomodated IF only the Dept of Transport will sanction a move to Flat Fare or Zonal Tarriff structure.
Far from constantly berating each and everybody working in the CIE group companies it would be far more useful to focus the Lobbying Device on the Fat Controllers office in the Dept of Transport which continues to operate according to the long standing Civil Service medium of ANY and ALL Change being Undesirable,lest the delicate Balance of things be distuirbed...
