I think you're being very polite about the Dublin Bus problems. Boards.ie has been alight with poor opinion and experience with regard to operation of the Leap Card on the Bus.

From a basic UX perspective it's a disaster of a system. It takes twice as long on average to pay as the cash system so increases rather than decreases dwell times. The drivers screen switches from cash mode to luas mode which from a UX point of few disorientates so adds a few seconds for driver to click button. Then there's a awkward pause waiting for small green light to display. Beep is nearly never there and when it is it's so faint it's barely audible. The passenger screen is tiny, at a weird angle for most people (unless you're 6ft 7 perhaps) and is so dim it's near impossible to read. I've full hearing and sight BTW. How this system passed basic accessibility requirements I'll never know.

Really it should be flat fare. Given they don't seem to want that for fare protection and revenue loss purposes it should be tag-on/tag-off on the right hand side. Not all smart card systems are like this but plenty are so it is technologically possible with the right equipment.

Also the idea to support charging of multiple fares on the same card (when the other modes don't support it) qualifies under the law of unintended consequences. It provides limited benefit but leads to most of the errors. It should be done away with (if they insist on sticking with driver system).

Getting a refund is difficult as in presupposed driver knows how to perform complex operation under pressure when there's a long queue of passengers waiting to pay.

I know this is a rail users groups so I've mainly posted my gripes on boards.ie but if you've any influence over the powers that be, please feed back about the complete and utter disgust with this element of the system amongst most of the test group.

I got no survey to complete this time round and I hadn't used the bus when we did the earlier phase of testing and I completed survey.

Leap Card goes live today for Dublin commuters
 

Cities outside capital won't make Leap to cheaper travel
 

Actually, there is a point here, but the Indo doesn't make it. It would have been much more practical to do the early testing in one of the other cities where there are limited fare structures, e.g. in Cork the city has flat fares on all the bus services and there is only one operator. It would have meant fitting out 100-200 buses and putting in place flat fare and transfer fare.

As a second stage, the suburban services are more complicated, with Mallow-Cork-Cobh/Midleton rail and a variety of bus services, but I imagine most of the users would be season ticket holders.

The other cities are simpler again, with only city buses and limited commuter buses.

http://www.independent.ie/national-n...l-2961423.html

Smartcard Leaps into action - 10 years late
 

Maybe this has alread been answered... but why can't Dublin Bus have tag on/off at the bus stops?

Because they have 11,000 bus stops.

London manages automatic top-up on buses; the auto top up is a card-side setting so if a bus (or any touch-in) detects a card below £8 it automatically puts £20 on it; when the bus driver downloads his module at base it notifies the central system who has topped up, and their card is debited within a couple of days.

But surely, if I set my auto top-up to trigger at €X for a top-up of €Y, only the central system needs to know and tell buses, not buses telling the central system?

Auto top up will work on Dublin Bus and will indeed work on all LEAP operators

Internet top up will be available on all private bus operators as well. Dublin Bus and Bus Eireann will not support internet top up.

Explain this. I'm just not understanding how it can relate to the operators.
Why don't they all just point to leapcard.ie rather than duplicating system (and potentially introducing weaknesses if a system isn't patched)?

Interesting if brief article on deployment of smartcard bus tickets on multiple operators in several counties in the South West of the UK.

The figures involved indicate that their transport system must be only 1% as complex as ours. It involves two large bus companies and 11 smaller companies.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/government...rtcard-readers

Possibly a very simple system as it only covers free travel passes at the moment.

I presume it only covers local services in Somerset County council area and not Bristol / Bath / Weston-super-Mare

That would result in a fairly rural population and limited bus services.

Tagging on/off Clonsilla
 

Neither Validation poles (one on each platform) in Clonsilla recognised Leapcard but could tag off at card valditor on exit turnstiles.

After second try on one pole got a 'do not recognise card' error message.

They are initially rolling it out in Somerset but the system is to be rolled out over 4 counties in the West Country.

It is obviously a much simpler system that what is in Ireland, but they are still talking about integrating it into the systems of 13 different bus companies which is where the software development complexities would arise.

In fairness, after doing a little more looking around, the Irish system may not be that over-priced by the standards of these. The Australians seem to be spend spectacular amounts of money on smartcard ticketing. The Brisbane system cost $134 million while the Victoria system cost $494 for startup and of the order of $50 million per year to operate. (all according to Wikipedia)