You seem to have a lot of time on your hands - maybe you could to a cost benefit analysis vis. ticket checkers or 'over the top ambush' ticket checks. And while your at it, check the meaning of 'significant'.

With respect - what I do with my time is my own business and certainly none of yours. It has nothing to do with this subject, and I'd rather you didn't resort to attempting to chide me.

Mark can back me up - the numbers caught in the blitzes were significant.

Apologies, you seem to have a great interest in Irish Rail and rail travel, might be a nice little project for you.:D

Every Intercity route out of Heuston and I expect the same for Connolly have ticket checkers employed and operate on selected services and RPU generally pick particular services to carry out checks to. Its good to have a mix as I think ticket checkers are to soft when it comes non fare paying passengers.

On most routes RPU only operate in 2's, have never saw any more but at commuter locations more are needed because of the passenger volume and quick exits at stops.

Jamie, on several occasions (morning and evening) I've seen 15/20 (RPU and their side kick paramilitary) at Hazelhatch Station and never catch anyone as most people have Annual or Leap tickets. A ticket collector is far more effective certainly on a commuter train.

I have not seen any ticket checkers or RPU on any trains in the last year and I am regularly travelling Ballybrophy/Thurles to Dublin. So the only controls I see are the ticket barriers in Heuston that can be easily defeated with a leap card.

When you swipe a Leap Card I always understood that it either deducted or reimbursed your card ie tag off /on, and you can't get through a barrier otherwise, and staff are there (at Heuston) to observe.

It would cost the max leap card fare to open the barriers.

Depending on the sequence of events you could be charged 2 * max fares to exit

There is a log kept of such events to catch people doing this very thing

I'd imagine that if you arrived off a train that the last stop was eg Thurles or Ballybrophy and used a Leap card (fare evasion) to pass the barriers, IR staff would not be long 'copping on' to you.

The same approach would work if you had a short hop commuter pass though which would cost a lot less than a P2P from Ballybrophy.

You might get away with it once or twice, but that would be it. Irish Rail staff are no fools. :eek: They know the regular commuters and the type of ticket they have.

Incidentally, max fare events are not considered transit events so do not count towards a cap on the leap card so it could work out to be cheaper just to buy a monthly ticket for your journey.

This is why there needs to be both on train, to catch people with no ticket and with people gaping (i.e have a valid tickets for start and end points but not valid in the middle) and at the end to catch people.

People traveling on suspect smartcards have been picked up by RPU as people normally stick to a routine so its not hard to catch them, remember if its a taxsaver ticket Irish Rail have your mug shot

What about having tickets for sale by the Catering service or at the bar, do all trains have trolley service. I know someone will claim this is an outside company but why not combine the service. Maybe you could buy bus tickets on board for ongoing journeys. I if there was more information on trains about fares, tickets, destinations etc more people would buy tickets. Certainly on the Galway and Belfast routes the Catering service always leave a flyer at each table, that could include asking 'did you remember to buy a ticket etc.''

excuses, excuses.....you don't just run onto a train without paying and say you forgot to buy a ticket. Signs at stations make it quiet clear.

Personally I would prefer to see ticket checkers with a portable ticket machine (like on Rosslare services) then RPU staff, mainly because a) they tend to be much nicer to customers than RPU staff, and b) if someone could not purchase the correct ticket from a TVM before boarding the train they can sell it to them. The problem with the TVMs is they don't sell/print SW or child tickets (for obvious reasons), and they also do not sell cross route tickets. I regularly get cross route tickets as they are more convenient and also alot cheaper (buying a separate ticket for each leg of my journey would cost me almost double!). I usually start my journey on the Rosslare line where I buy my ticket from the booking office if open and on the train if it's not, no problems. However once I was travelling the other direction (starting on the Kildare line) and needed a ticket, but the booking office was closed and the TVMs could not sell my ticket. So got on the train with full intention of buying a ticket as normal either on it, or at Heuston. I met an RPU officer on the train with my cash and student card in hand and explained my situation and inability to buy my ticket at the station. However he was very rude to me and was very much by the book: you have no ticket, you pay a fine. I even had old tickets from portable ticket machines to prove my point, but he didn't care, 120 euro fine. There was no need for the rudeness and clearly I was not fare evading if I'm asking to buy a ticket from him. And as I say this could happen to anyone looking for cross route/child/SW tickets. So I think ticket checkers are the way forward, not RPU ambushes

Firstly if the ticket machine cannot sell you the ticket you want you are entitled to travel without a ticket, subject to obtaining the ticket at the earliest opportunity. You have not evaded the fare and are not attempting to defraud the company of the fare.

SW pass holders are required to obtain a ticket when possible, this is more to do with an attempt to account for usage, once a valid pass is held there is no issue. Child tickets are available for all destinations except those within the Dublin suburban area.


If you have not appealed the fine, do so immediately.

The basic appeal here is the ticket vending machine was defective as it could not sell you the ticket you sought, the ticket you sought is not unusual and you have purchased it before.

Also state that the CIE byelaws, SI 109/1984 make no reference to use of a ticket machine. You did not have any intent to defraud the company, the company was negligent in failing to make available the ticket you sought and under the customer charter you are entitled to the most appropriate ticket for your journey.

If the appeal fails, forward the appeal + the fine reference number to us and we shall see what we can do.

You did nothing wrong and the RPU officer should be suspended/disclipined for a gross breach of proceedure

lets all be nice, this isn't boards.ie

the 7.33 ex-templemore (also calls at BB) always has a ticket checker on board. always checked from kildare/sallins inwards.

Thanks Mark, glad to know I was right (an am right if this happens in future in case this happens again). This incident was however about 2 years ago (can't even remember when and don't have any paperwork for it anymore, I just remember the vague story). At the time I didn't even know about the appeals process, and part of me was thinking that maybe he was right and I'd rather not worsen the situation. I paid the fine just to have the issue put to bed and not have to think about it anymore. Since it was so long ago I have no interest in chasing it now, I'd rather not bring up the issue again. It just goes to show from my experience that ticket checkers are far better than RPU officers