What needs to happen to facilitate Kildare-Grand Canal Dock services?

[berneyarms]

Originally Posted by James Shields

If I get the 16:50 from Bray to Drogheda, how would I tag off at Pearse? Is the system not smart enough to recognise when I tag off at Drogheda and charge me only for the part my P2P ticket doesn't cover?

James

Well you'll be charged the maximum short hop fare and your P2P ticket will cover the rest I would imagine.

It can't know where you got off using the epurse - it needs to tag off.

[Inniskeen]

Originally Posted by berneyarms

Well you'll be charged the maximum short hop fare and your P2P ticket will cover the rest I would imagine.

It can't know where you got off using the epurse - it needs to tag off.

It could use the onboard info to make a logical deduction !

[James Shields]

Originally Posted by berneyarms

It can't know where you got off using the epurse - it needs to tag off.

It knows I tagged off in Drogheda. It knows I tagged on in Bray. It should also know that the only way I could get to Drogheda is on the Pearse-Drogheda route covered by my P2P card, and only charge for the part that's not covered (Bray-Lansdowne Road in my case).

If there are direct trains, and a single ticket covers the journey, I should not be expected to tag out and in mid way.

This effectively means I can't use direct trains from south of Lansdowne, since I would need to get off in Pearse to tag off and on. I suppose if you picked your seat carefully and didn't mind standing from Pearse on, you might be able to hop off, tag out and in, and hop on again.

What happens in the other direction, if I tag on in Drogheda and tag off in Bray?

[berneyarms]

Originally Posted by James Shields

It knows I tagged off in Drogheda. It knows I tagged on in Bray. It should also know that the only way I could get to Drogheda is on the Pearse-Drogheda route covered by my P2P card, and only charge for the part that's not covered (Bray-Lansdowne Road in my case).

If there are direct trains, and a single ticket covers the journey, I should not be expected to tag out and in mid way.

This effectively means I can't use direct trains from south of Lansdowne, since I would need to get off in Pearse to tag off and on. I suppose if you picked your seat carefully and didn't mind standing from Pearse on, you might be able to hop off, tag out and in, and hop on again.

What happens in the other direction, if I tag on in Drogheda and tag off in Bray?

The problem is that the purse and the ticket are two separate products - the card is not that smart - you either use one or the other but not both at the same time.

The fundamental issue is that the epurse is only valid within the Short Hop zone - until that changes you have to tag on/off within the short hop zone for the appropriate fare to be deducted. Whether that will change is down to the NTA.

If you didn't want to tag off the epurse and tag on the ticket, you would either have to grin and bear it and pay the higher LEAP fare from the epurse or buy a Bray-Pearse ticket in Bray from a ticket machine.

[James Shields]

For an experiment (and because I needed to go there), I took a DART from Grand Canal Dock to Howth.

I tagged on as normal, but when I tagged off in Howth if didn't consider I'd tagged on, so charged me the maximum fare of €4.90. That's not very smart!

I called Leap Card helpline and explained what had happened and they checked the correct fare for the part my P2P doesn't cover, Howth Junction to Howth (€1.73), and issued a refund for the difference, so it all worked out fine, but why can't the system be smart enough to do this automatically?

Is there a way to tell it I'm tagging on the PAYG rather than the P2P?

James

[Mark Gleeson]

Sadly not, the system unlike London is not closed and not zonal. Every single Oyster station in London has a validator, so every journey starts and ends in a specific zone so the fare calc is really easy.

Leap could be programmed such that it calculate the fare and then deducts the fare where a valid pass was held. This gets messy imagine

Grand Canal Dock - Maynooth where a Pearse - Dundalk ticket was held

You would have to charge GCD Maynooth and deduct Pearse Connolly or do you charge GCD- Pearse and Connolly-Maynooth?

Advent of Kildare GCD will really confuse matters as all kinds of permutations will arise, technically Heuston and Connolly are the same place for the ticketing system, but if you get off at Drumcondra...

[Jamie2k9]

Problem with Irish Rail and technology is the long period of "planning" to do x and launching x. When they do get around to launching it, technology has moved on and the cycle just keeps happening over and over again.

It's like E Tickets for barriers, should of been launched 18 months ago yet it will probably be another 18 months before they are.

While London is been discussed, the ticket barriers over there are much less sensitive to paper ticketing and they actually open and close with the flow of people yet over here tickets are constantly rejected a dozen times before you can actually remove and try again, any bend they will not work and so.

The same with Oyaster Cards can read them quickly and not having to tap lots times like over here. Free Travel Cards are another disastor, 10 times worse than using Leap cards at readers along Luas lines. Over here you need to put ticket/card onto machine and wait a couple of seconds after ticket comes out for gates to open.

As the saying goes, buy cheap get cheap and that's exactly what IE and our whole transport system is about.

I ream we can't even get accurate train data but of course IE are testing a new GPS system which won't work because Wi-Fi coverage is rubbish.

[Inniskeen]

Jamie,

You are perhaps exaggerating a little but the essential points are correct. We need to advance a decade or two towards making the system more flexible (easy to buy a ticket online from Limerick to Belfast or Sligo to Wexford or Bray to Galway).

Likewise it should be easy to buy an online ticket from Skerries to Blackrock or Shankill to Portmarnock which would have to be tagged on in some fashion either online or at the barriers. Each ticket might need a rather large pseudo random code and a time limit to avoid misuse.

[James Howard]

Originally Posted by Jamie2k9

As the saying goes, buy cheap get cheap and that's exactly what IE and our whole transport system is about.

The problem is that Leap wasn't cheap. It ended up costing tens of millions of euro. As an engineer, I'd suggest the fundamental issue with Leap is that the underlying requirements are too complex. It is completely bonkers that you need to run up to 6 simultaneous tickets on the card. They should have taken the opportunity to simplify the fare structure.

With all the delays during its development phase, Leap was basically obsolete by the time it came out. Oyster is on the way out now to be replaced by virtual cards on debit cards. In 2016, mobile phone ticketing should be high up on the agenda yet it doesn't even enter into the discussion. Given that it is possible to top up your Leap card with an Android phone, surely making you android phone be your leap card or Intercity ticket isn't outside the laws of physics.

I'm guessing that because our ticketing is so complex, that pretty much everything about Leap was developed from scratch rather than bought in as a solution so to change anything costs an absolute fortune. So we'll probably still be unable to open a barrier with our smart-watches / wrist implants / brainwave amplifiers or whatever in the 2040s.

[James Shields]

So, getting back to the original topic...

Grand Canal Dock is now using platform 1. Platform 2 has a buffer and only connects in a northerly direction. This is all that's needed to facilitate terminating trains from Kildare/Maynooth/Drogheda. Is that the final planned state for the platform?

Is the resignalling work finished? I noticed yesterday the 16:44 to Drogheda was almost on time despite the 16:37 to Maynooth being several minutes late ahead of it, and seemed to arrive much closer behind the Maynooth train than it has in the past. Is that the result of improved signalling?

Will GCD only be used to terminate Kildare trains, or will Maynooth and Drogheda trains also use it?

Will there be adequate notice of new timetables? As mentioned already, it could have a significant impact on people renewing annual tickets.

James

[Jamie2k9]

You are perhaps exaggerating a little but the essential points are correct.

Ok maybe a little but a useful immediate change would be TMV tickets are the same paper as ticker office ones which are paper, the TMV ones have a shiny plastic type coating over them and bits sticking out at the end and cause more issues than standard paper.

We need to advance a decade or two towards making the system more flexible (easy to buy a ticket online from Limerick to Belfast or Sligo to Wexford or Bray to Galway).

Reasonable ticket office prices would be sufficient stop gap in the meantime.

With all the delays during its development phase, Leap was basically obsolete by the time it came out.

Like most things in Ireland.

I'm guessing that because our ticketing is so complex, that pretty much everything about Leap was developed from scratch rather than bought in as a solution so to change anything costs an absolute fortune. So we'll probably still be unable to open a barrier with our smart-watches / wrist implants / brainwave amplifiers or whatever in the 2040s.

It's complex because IE or the NTA are not willing/prepared to sort it out in a reasonable time frame.

We need a new system that is simple, efficient and encourages more usage of services. Just take the Leap Card it should be possible to use it out to Kildare/Drogheda however IE don't want the fare loss (fair enough) and the NTA are not prepared to (possibly not able to) to mitigate the impact to IE and offer the service. Most people would be quiet happy to save a few euro per week and been able to tag on off instead of having to go pay for tickets and it would also help with people not paying fares to an extent.

I know it's not as clear cut as doing it but you can be sure there is not the will from all sides to do much about it either.

[markpb]

Originally Posted by James Howard

The problem is that Leap wasn't cheap. It ended up costing tens of millions of euro. As an engineer, I'd suggest the fundamental issue with Leap is that the underlying requirements are too complex. ... I'm guessing that because our ticketing is so complex, that pretty much everything about Leap was developed from scratch rather than bought in as a solution so to change anything costs an absolute fortune.

Bingo. The group running the Leapcard project had the authority to implement Leapcard but couldn't enforce any changes on the operators. I've never understood why this wasn't seen as a prerequisite. Trying to mould a smartcard around the ticketing crud that had built up over the decades was an impossible job.

Given that it is possible to top up your Leap card with an Android phone, surely making you android phone be your leap card or Intercity ticket isn't outside the laws of physics.

Topping up a leapcard using NFC is relatively simple. Putting a leapcard onto a phone and exposing it using NFC is completely different. At a minimum, it would require a secure element on the phone (which Android doesn't have and Apple won't let you use) or an active internet connection. Relying on an internet connection to validate a ticket when boarding a bus would be a really poor customer experience.

[Jamie2k9]

Bingo. The group running the Leapcard project had the authority to implement Leapcard but couldn't enforce any changes on the operators. I've never understood why this wasn't seen as a prerequisite. Trying to mould a smartcard around the ticketing crud that had built up over the decades was an impossible job.

So flawed project form day 1, not that is a big shock

Relying on an internet connection to validate a ticket when boarding a bus would be a really poor customer experience.

That's why you have products such as Apple Wallet which for example airlines apps are comparable to download boarding passes.

[Kilocharlie]

Originally Posted by Jamie2k9

So flawed project form day 1, not that is a big shock



That's why you have products such as Apple Wallet which for example airlines apps are comparable to download boarding passes.

And Apple take 30% of the transactions....

[Jamie2k9]

And Apple take 30% of the transactions....

30% for downloading a boarding pass and storing it, I don't mean purchase through the wallet.

Anyway the main point was the slow planning and how most of what they launch is obsolete.

[markpb]

Originally Posted by Jamie2k9

That's why you have products such as Apple Wallet which for example airlines apps are comparable to download boarding passes.

All Apple Wallet does is present a barcode to a device which is itself centrally connected. You haven't solved the problem, just moved it upstream. If you want a transit ticket on a mobile device that doesn't have SE, then either the phone or the validator needs an Internet connection. Secure Element is the way forward, it's just going to take some time.

FWIW, there's a massive downside to putting transit tickets on a phone. Battery life.

[James Shields]

Originally Posted by markpb

FWIW, there's a massive downside to putting transit tickets on a phone. Battery life.

Agreed. I've had too many experiences of my phone being on its last legs as I board a plane to ever risk travelling without a paper boarding card!

James

[Jamie2k9]

Oh come on.....battery life would we like the driver to hold our hands getting on the bus/train?

I mean seriously you are responsible for how you produce a ticket to travel so you and only you will make that decision. If you decide to use a phone then you ensure you can produce it or expect to pay for a new one.

[James Howard]

Lack of network is hardly a big issue in and around Dublin city. You've generally got a connection from the phone itself and a connection belonging to the bus. You could probably build a system to fall back to text messages if both failed. Lack of battery is a solvable problem - I personally keep a backup battery in my day-pack that I carry with me every day.

But it's hardly relevant to the matter under discussion which is that would appear that Dublin commuter ticketing is a complete dogs dinner especially when it involves journeys more than 20 km away from the city centre and more than one railway line. Which will become a much bigger problem once you can actually transfer between railway lines without leaving a station.

I'd suggest that while it isn't a deal breaker for starting up the new service, it will become obvious really soon that something is going to have to be done about properly integrating ticketing. This will get even worse when BXD opens. I'd suggest that the usefulness of both the PPT route and BXD will be seriously diminished by the expense and messiness of through ticketing using these routes.

[James Shields]

In the same way that computer applications expand to fill the available memory and disk space, it's also true that mobile phone applications expand to consume the phone's available power! It's very easy to find your phone running low at the end of a night out. At present that just means you can't catch up with Facebook or catch silly pokemon on the way home, but if you find you can't get on the train either, that's a real problem.

But it's a completely separate problem from the one of our insane non-zonal fare system. It really needs the DOT/TFI to impose a common zone system on the main transport operators along with sensible transfers. For example, if a passenger takes a train from Maynooth to Broombridge, then changes to a Luas to Stephen's Green, they should be charged a single fare for the whole journey, and the system should work out how much of that fare should go to each operator.

James