[article] Rail Users in Ireland paying more for a weaker service

[Mark Gleeson]

Sunday Tribune today bottom page 9

Text shortly, tribune website currently available

[MOH]

Link

RAIL travel in Ireland is the second most expensive in Europe, despite frequent customer complaints that the service is below European standards with too few trains, not enough late night services and a skewed pricing system.

Figures provided by the Thomas Cook European Rail Timetable show that Irish rates are the second most expensive behind the UK and alongside Germany, with an average cost of 22 per 100km.

This compares with 17 in Austria, 12 in Belgium, 7 in Poland and 4 in Slovakia.

"The key thing here is that if we were getting a European level of service, then we wouldn't mind paying an expensive fair, " said Mark Gleeson of Rail Users Ireland. "As it is, the service is ridiculously slow, the service frequencies aren't great and the fare system is ridiculously complicated. The whole system needs to be overhauled, yet we are still paying over-inflated prices. It doesn't make any sense."

Research undertaken by Rail Users Ireland has discovered anomalies in the rail system whereby passengers travelling from Dublin to other parts of the country end up paying significantly more than people travelling from the country to the capital city.

"The cheapest return fare from Dublin to Cork is 64.50 but if you're travelling return from Cork to Dublin then you pay 46.50, " Gleeson said. "The whole thing is geared towards travelling to Dublin while passengers in Dublin have to pay more. A lot of people have been complaining about those fares."

According to Rail Users Ireland, train schedules are "still serving a Victorian community", with many last trains leaving as early as 7pm every evening. "You can get trains to Dublin at 5am but not after 7pm at night, when people are still coming out of the office, " said Gleeson. Overcrowded lines such as Maynooth to Dublin (dubbed the 'Calcutta Express' by locals) and Portlaoise to Dublin are also becoming "unbearable", he added. "There are people standing on trains that aren't designed for standing passengers. They're only short of sitting on the roof."

The spokesman for Iarnrod Eireann, Barry Kenny, said that figures the company has show that Ireland is 40% below the European average when it comes to rail fares. "Our single fares are certainly higher, but when return fares are taken into account, this is not the case at all, " he said.

[Garrett]

said Mark Gleeson of Rail Users Ireland. "... and the fare system is ridiculously complicated"

Great to hear you say it out loud Mark. This is my one (and only?) area of "expertise" when it comes to public transport.

Barry Kenny ... "Our single fares are certainly higher, but when return fares are taken into account, this is not the case at all... "

This one particularly pisses me off. Whereas the European trend is to move towards one-way ticket systems, IE thinks that they know best. I hate paying more simply because I may decide to get a train on the inward journey and then a Bus Eireann coach on the return trip.

[Mark Gleeson]

I have spent several hours over the last two weeks trying to develop a fares calculator for our website, we have a draft system for part of the network complete. It was painfully complicated to write as Irish Rail use a totally logical structure and then bolt on an obscene number of variants. We have people checking fares all over the place so we can validate our system

In fact we have discovered Irish Rail can't even calculate the fares themselves in some cases

End of the day no one has a problem paying a euro standard fare for a euro standard service. This certainly ain't Belgium, the Netherlands, Switzerland etc

An efficient, reliable, clean, punctual service running at times to meet public expectation is what we want, efficient, reliable, clean, punctual are not terms anyone will associate with IE

Dublin Sligo return is the same as a single, there are heaps of discounts from Munster to Dublin but none from Dublin to Munster, no one can explain that

[dermo88]

Thats easily explained Mark

Dubliners generally have higher levels of disposable income than those in the regions. Therefore those going from the regions to the capital get the discounts. Those going from Dublin to the regions don't, and they are likely to be less price sensitive.

I could be wrong, but thats how I interpret it.

[Mark Gleeson]

I don't buy that

[Garrett]

Originally Posted by dermo88

Dubliners generally have higher levels of disposable income than those in the regions. Therefore those going from the regions to the capital get the discounts. Those going from Dublin to the regions don't, and they are likely to be less price sensitive.

I could be wrong, but thats how I interpret it.

I hope what you mean is that this is how you interpret IE's behaviour on the matter. If IE, or anybody else, actually believes that such behaviour would be acceptable then they require some serious headbanging against a wall. That's just my humble opinion.

I just hope there's a more "logical" explanation, say for example that it's easier to get people living in Dublin onto trains than the rest of the population, so IE can keep return trips which start in Dublin priced artificially high and get away with it.

[Mark Gleeson]

And of course Irish Rail don't tell anyone that these discounted fares even exist so no one in Dublin will ever know

[Thomas J Stamp]

My pet theory is that historically most people went down from Dublin on Fridays and returned on Sundays - civil servants/students and the like. These would be traditional rail users. They would not get great value from seasonal tickets, they are not commuters.

Up till 8/9 years ago commuting wouldnt really exist beyond DART, Maynooth, Balbriggan, Greystones, Nass. I'd say that the fares matrix is based on this foundation and that it is adapted bit by bit when a service is tweaked and results in the nuttiness we see now.

Zonal system sorts it out.

[KSW]

Word of advice it is cheaper to buy two seperate tickets than paying for a direct service!!
(i.e)Gorey to Dublin €15-30
Dublin to Carrick-on-Shannon €22-30(Correct me if I'm Wrong)
Rather than
Gorey to Carrick-on-Shannon €56 something, Again correct me if I'm wrong. Same day return thats a big difference!!

[Mark Gleeson]

It all depends on the ticket clerk

Fares

Gorey Dublin is 15.30/21.00
Dublin Carrick on Shannon is 23.50/33.50

You should be able to get a ticket from Gorey to Carrick on Shannon day saver return Mon-Thurs for 38.80

There are no point to point discounts in play on either route so the system should issue the correct fare. Two tickets become cheaper when there is a specific limited discount such as the Cork Dublin 46.50 which applies to Dublin Heuston only

[Laois Commuter]

Originally Posted by packetswitch

To make her bad morning worse, they hit her with the Dublin-country vs country-Dublin fare difference. Ouch!

It's called market pricing. If you can get more for charging one way than the other, why not? Lower fares to encourage incereased use of spare capacity = less subvention from the taxpayer!

LC

[Mark Gleeson]

Curiously discounted fares are offered on trains which are stuffed to the gills while full fare is charged on the empty trains going the other way

There is a Athy Dublin saver fare, obviously used by commuters coming to Dublin on crush loaded trains

Trains going to Athy in the morning and coming back to Dublin that evening are empty

Seems like Irish Rail are doing it backwards

Of course you won't find any of the point to point discounted fares in the timetable or online so how is the public to know?

[packetswitch]

Originally Posted by Laois Commuter

It's called market pricing. If you can get more for charging one way than the other, why not? Lower fares to encourage incereased use of spare capacity = less subvention from the taxpayer!

LC

I don't understand how it is market pricing on *return* tickets. The person who buys the cheap ticket from Limerick to Dublin still has to make a journey from Dublin to Limerick.

Limerick to Dublin on Train A
Dublin to Limerick on Train B

Result: one seat occupied on Train A and Train B
Fare: discounted

Dublin to Limerick on Train B
Limerick to Dublin on Train A (a week later, say)

Result: one seat occupied on Train A and Train B
Fare: full

Now if we presume that Train A and Train B have the same number of passengers from week to week, what impact does the reduction have? And, more importantly, if the discount is supposed to steer customer behaviour, where does our hypothetical customer go to find out about the discount so that they can travel at discounted rates? Surely if the railway company wants to get people to travel on certain services, incentivised with a discount, they might want to, y'know, tell people about it?

[sean]

Originally Posted by Mark Gleeson

Curiously discounted fares are offered on trains which are stuffed to the gills while full fare is charged on the empty trains going the other way

Yep, like that time I took the train (one way) from Connolly to Edgeworthstown on a Saturday morning, and paid the full monthly return fare, (then €23.50) for the priviledge of being one of the 10 people on board the train. It was a 29k POS that broke down all over the place too.

Love to see Barry Kenny defend that.

[Laois Commuter]

Originally Posted by packetswitch

I don't understand how it is market pricing on *return* tickets. The person who buys the cheap ticket from Limerick to Dublin still has to make a journey from Dublin to Limerick.

Limerick to Dublin on Train A
Dublin to Limerick on Train B

Result: one seat occupied on Train A and Train B
Fare: discounted

Dublin to Limerick on Train B
Limerick to Dublin on Train A (a week later, say)

Result: one seat occupied on Train A and Train B
Fare: full

Now if we presume that Train A and Train B have the same number of passengers from week to week, what impact does the reduction have? And, more importantly, if the discount is supposed to steer customer behaviour, where does our hypothetical customer go to find out about the discount so that they can travel at discounted rates? Surely if the railway company wants to get people to travel on certain services, incentivised with a discount, they might want to, y'know, tell people about it?

Let's take your example. There is high demand for day trips from Limerick to Dublin. So trains TO Dublin in the morning are full, and trains FROM Dublin in the evening are also full. So you charge high fares because the market will bear it.

On the other hand, there is less demand for day trips from Dublin to Limerick, so trains FROM Dublin in the morning and TO Dublin in the evening are quieter (note the 1735 ex Limerick is currently running with 3-4 coaches, and is not full at Portarlington). So you charge a lower fare to try and stimulate demand, on the basis that filling some seats at a lower rate is bettter than running empty.

Following my earlier post, I noted on another thread that the Cork issue is actually priced the other way to this. I suspect this is to fill the extra capacity created by the service increase. The reasons I see for the differential there are the fact that Dubliners are (generally) better off (possible, but unlikely), or more likely that because of the prime market being to Dublin, they don't want to stimulate early morning demand from Dublin as there is insufficient stock to allow an additional set to be kept overnight in Dublin.

LC

[Mark Gleeson]

Cork fare has existed for years, long before the advent of hourly trains

Discount fares apply every single station in Munster to Dublin but none the opposite way

No one has any problem with the use of discounted fares, point is they are meant to fill empty trains and encourage people not to travel at peak times

You can get a cheap return Limerick Dublin and then pack onto the 17:25 to Limerick which is stuffed

[ACustomer]

OK, I agree that you should allow price to reflect demand. However if you observe that trains up from Limerick are full, and that fares are relatively low, maybe the trains are full because the fares are low. While pricing might respond to demand, the quantity of seats demanded responds to price.

[Garrett]

With regards the fares issue, just push IE to stop issuing bloody return tickets! Go the Ryanair/Aer Lingus/Everybody Else model and issue tickets based on one-way trips. Special offers should be limited to commuters (weekly, monthly, annual tickets), groups, families and maybe those who decide to park and ride. Create peak weekend fares if you must, e.g. Fridays and Sundays from 3pm to 8pm and Saturdays and Mondays from 6am to 9am. Obviously, living in France, I'm inclined to be highly influenced by the system here, but the system here f***ing works! Perfectly!

[al2637]

Yea, but rail is a public service, it shouldn't be trying to charge 'what the market will bare'. I know there is an argument that you can use this to fill up empty trains, but at the end of the day, it just confuses people.

IE should not be out to maximise profits at the expense of the travelling public, they should be there to provide a public service at the time people need it.