The barrier system in Heuston

[Mark Gleeson]

Irish Rail is exempt from the Sales and Supply of Goods Act 1980 anyways

The ticket is valid for travel, it just doesn't work the barriers. The problem then is the ignorant staff who refuse to show any cop on, we don't have these problems in Connolly or Pearse. What exact error message are you getting?

We have been in communication with manager of the Taxsaver office and the plans to have people on site in Heuston are close to implementation. We have a number of ideas which might significantly reduce the rate of failure and are communicating these to Irish Rail.

[Colm Moore]

Originally Posted by PLUMB LOCO

I refer to my post #16 in this thread - which has had no response due to the fact that I'm either correct or a nutter - and I still maintain that properly trained, well motivated platform staff are better and more all round use to the travelling public than ticket barriers with very limited shelf lives. RUI in common with CIE/IE have an unhealthy fetish with modernity.

There are about 20 gates. Thats means that instead of a human having to check every ticket, thereby delaying passengers or having a large number of staff that are only busy part of the time, they can have a couple of better skilled staff (paid better if you want) who deal with the few people who have issues, whether no ticket / ID, can't find ticket, damaged ticket, don't understand the procedure, etc. This means the other staff can do other things, like help people, do crowd control and keep people informed.

All too often in the past, Heuston has been utter chaos when its busy, due to the inability of management and staff to pay attention to passengers needs.

[Thomas Ralph]

Originally Posted by Ron Burgundy

Ok i bought the service and i need to get through the barrier to use the service and i need my ticket to work to get through the barrier ??????

Chicken + egg

But the gate staff will (eventually) let you through the barrier.

[Ron Burgundy]

Originally Posted by Mark Gleeson

Irish Rail is exempt from the Sales and Supply of Goods Act 1980 anyways

The ticket is valid for travel, it just doesn't work the barriers. The problem then is the ignorant staff who refuse to show any cop on, we don't have these problems in Connolly or Pearse. What exact error message are you getting?

We have been in communication with manager of the Taxsaver office and the plans to have people on site in Heuston are close to implementation. We have a number of ideas which might significantly reduce the rate of failure and are communicating these to Irish Rail.

My ticket is for travel, YES.........to travle i must get through the barrier....

Invalid ticket is the message i got this morning and yesterday at the barriers at 1-5.

I have spoken to the manager and they are going to courier me a new ticket.

I good way to reduce the level of failure is 1 person and a bull doser driving towards the barriers !!!

[Ron Burgundy]

Originally Posted by Thomas Ralph

But the gate staff will (eventually) let you through the barrier.

Yes after i have missed a bus. I don't have time to fanny about.

Off train- throught barrier- bus- work...........If i don't get the 1st bus i can be 15 later into work and have to stay 15 later in the evening and that can lead to missing my planned train and getting home up to 45 mins to 1 hr late.

[al2637]

Couldn't IE just hand out a rail only smart card to people with these problems for free, then they can use the existing mag strip ticket on the "integrated" part of the journey?

What a total mess. Why have we tried to create an integrated ticketing system without first creating an integrated fare system??

[Thomas Ralph]

A rail-only smartcard would also be valid from Maynooth to Connolly and Balbriggan/Howth to Bray, which they haven't paid for.

[Ron Burgundy]

Originally Posted by Thomas Ralph

A rail-only smartcard would also be valid from Maynooth to Connolly and Balbriggan/Howth to Bray, which they haven't paid for.

But i have paid to get through the barrier ???

[Thomas Ralph]

I was responding to al2637's question on that point.

[Mark Gleeson]

The current smartcard package only works in the Dublin commuter zone, it opens every turnstile IE have in place - its still really under test to some degree. The more complex point to point rules have yet to be tried in public.

We have submitted some ideas to IE to address this issue, the simplest being to stop rewriting the mag stripe every time it passes through a machine. This could make a huge difference. Also never ever use the validator on the bus, they then to feed off annual tickets

I understand investigations are continuing to trace the exact reason for the high level of ticket failures and various things are being ruled out.

[RadarControl]

I got my annual ticket last week and tried to use it for the first time at 11pm on Thursday night in Heuston. It is valid since 1st of April. It is annual ticket for all DART, Dublin Commuter and Dublin Bus services. I put it into a machine and the message on display was "Ticket Failed". This is not acceptable. Does this ticket now need to be replaced already after one attempt?

[Mark Gleeson]

If it has never been used before anywhere including the bus it is unlikely to be broken

Did you try more than one turnstile?

[RadarControl]

Didn't get a chance to try it in another machine. Conductor came along and swiped me through another gate.

[finnyus]

Purchased an online ticket for Cork - Dublin City Centre return for last Saturday. No problem going through the barriers on the outward journey to Dublin, but I got "Ticket Failed" when heading for the 19:00 back to Cork (barrier was the 2nd from the right).

I moved to the next one and it worked fine.

Apart from that, the girl checking my ticket told me that I was not booked on the train, I was booked on the 18:20 to Cork (Ticket said 18:20 Dublin City Centre - Cork)

[Mark Gleeson]

Originally Posted by finnyus

Purchased an online ticket for Cork - Dublin City Centre return for last Saturday. No problem going through the barriers on the outward journey to Dublin, but I got "Ticket Failed" when heading for the 19:00 back to Cork (barrier was the 2nd from the right).

I moved to the next one and it worked fine.

Apart from that, the girl checking my ticket told me that I was not booked on the train, I was booked on the 18:20 to Cork (Ticket said 18:20 Dublin City Centre - Cork)

That issue has been raised with IE and might get fixed soon, but you certainly had a booking for the 19:00 ex Dublin

[finnyus]

Originally Posted by Mark Gleeson

....but you certainly had a booking for the 19:00 ex Dublin

After a bit of a tiff over the fact there is no 18:20 Heuston - Cork and the fact that the ticket says Dublin CITY CENTRE, I got an "Oh right..."

[Ron Burgundy]

I have spoken to the taxsaver manager and some staff members and they couriered me a new ticket this morning.

Overall the office staff have been so helpful compared to the complete clowns at Heuston.

I'll let you know how long this one lasts

[Mark Gleeson]

Through the smartcard project several of us have had dealings with taxsaver and in all cases the customer service, response time and the actual response was A1. And if you do ring up, you might find that the manager himself is manning the phones. They do also have the best website of any part of the CIE group as well.

If you are having a problem with a ticket, contact them ASAP and you will get sorted out. But when you do try to let them know what the ticket is doing wrong, the magic error message is key as that goes somewhat to tracking this horrible problem down.

[James Howard]

I would second that. Both times I have dealt with them to get my ticket replaced I have found the staff in the office to be exceptionally courteous and helpful.

But it still doens't excuse the bloody shambles regarding these ticket barrier machines. They are a hostile piece of equipment - they slam shut in front of you and then you have to do some bizarre standing back raindance to get the buggers to open. And they fail to achieve their purpose on two counts.

Firstly, it is elementary to tailgate through them so they don't even keep the scumbags off the system. And secondly, they are fairly useless for catching fare dodgers anyway. For example, I haven't seen a ticket checker on the 1805 to Longford in over a year so I know that I can get to Longford on a Drumcondra fare. You risk a hundred euro fine but that is the cost of four one-way tickets.

All these stupid machines do is cause hassle for honest fare-paying customers and they are basically indefensible. I remember when they first came in at Grand Canal Dock. As there are only three machines (possibly 4 - it's been a while), if you were at the wrong door on the train it could take you 10 minutes to get out of the station and they were causing dangerous levels of overcrowding on the the exit. It is only the recession that really took care of this problem.