yeah signs all over Connolly this morning - "Exit validation starting Feb 12" and "Exit validation in operation - please have your ticket ready"

and was it actually operating?
was it f**k! - all the turnstiles were open with "Not in use" signs on them, and as an added bonus there was no-one checking tickets at the gate either...

and again this morning - no exit validation, no ticket checking.

order machines - check
install machines - check
put up loads of posters - check

right, jobs a good 'un, let's go home

lads! you need to turn the machines on!!

has it been used in connolly yet?,each time i've gone through it hasn't been in use,yet friends tell me they've used it

Tara St
 

The validators seem to be working in Tara Street, have you noticed the sound effects when you put in your ticket or when the separator moves across to let you pass though? Train sounds, coo coos and all that? Bit cute I have to say. :)

The sound triggers if you are too quick after the person in front

As soon as the ticket of the person in front is taken out insert yours and only pass through when the person in front is clear of the turnstile

Mark, It shouldn't be necessary to alter customer behavior with these gates. They should have been designed to work quicker than people could pass through.

Another mark of the efficiency of these machines is the fact there are now twice as many ticket checkers working at Tara in the mornings as when there was no machines.

Is the second exit in Tara opened yet? Cos the only exit signs visible on the platform point to the closed exits and have for a few months now.

The idea is to catch people coat tailing on other passengers to sneak through

No word on the second exit

I've seen two gates used to stop this elsewhere. or a turnstile...

Yea, the train noise is quite funny... you get it non-stop at Clontarf Road in the morning... combination of people trying to get through too quickly, and people with tickets that can't be arsed sticking them in the machine.. people just walk through...

How long do they actually stay open? About 2 weeks ago the person in front of me went through.. the machine wouldn't accept my ticket (it WAS valid), but after 3 attempts I just gave up and walked through the already open gate...

this morning in tara, put my ticket in, it came out the top, walked into a shut exit gate. wouldn't open til I stepped back to try put my ticket in again.

well, they've managed to get through the whole week in Connolly without turning them on. On Wednesday evening there were 5 (five) guys standing at the gate and none of them were checking tickets.

They were on for a few hours at lunchtime on Wednesday. There were plenty of staff (three customer service and two security guards) to help and it seems to work okay except for the constant cho-cho sound whenever a group of people went through. They were firmly off and out-of-order notices on all of them a few hours later.

On a side note, I'm glad they put loads of machines into Connolly, it's a huge improvement over the old joke of a system but I'm not sure it's the best design. Since most of the people using them will be for Dart/Suburban platforms, everyone tends to enter and exit using the 3-4 at the side. I'm not sure how well that's going to work when a big crowd of people try to leave at the same time, the trains were fairly quiet when I was there.

In tara they have 4 or 5 to exit and 4 to enter to get onto the Southbound platform. I would have thought they should hae more to exit as people exit in a burst rather than enter a station.
On the other hand the bottleneck of exiting down a winding stair may reduce the need for more exit gates.

Yesterday and today, the exit gates didn't open when I took my ticket back out of the exit gate.
Yesterday I bursted into the gate walking on, while today I decided to wait til the gate opened before proceeding but had to wait til the woman behind me put her ticket through to open the gate.

What is the story with these?
Am I stoopid for assuming you can just pass through at normal walking speed?
Is this unreasonable?
I don't remember this happening in Paris or London at exit gates.
Is this another IE snafu?

They have a booth set up in Connolly even with a queuing system where fines are doled out

Of course I boarded in Broombridge should see you sail through

None of these systems are perfect. The London Underground system is glitchy at times. It's a case of getting used to the quirks.

E.g. I was going through the barriers with an oyster card in london. The lady ahead of me had put a paper ticket in and started to walk through. Her ticket hadn't actually worked, and I touched my oyster card to the sensor just as her ticket came out. Turned out the machine had read my oyster card, and let her through!
I then couldn't get in as it wouldn't open the barriers twice for the same oyster card until a certain time period has elapsed.

I haven't found the DART barriers any worse than anywhere else really.

The choo-choo noise is a little less harsh on the ears than a piercing beep though.

I do think they need to roll them out faster though. There's no point in having a half-rolled out system. There aren't that many stations on the DART network, they should *ALL* have the same barriers. 2 to 6 months would be more than adequate time to get it up and running.

Having various combinations of automatic barriers with or without exit validation, manual validation and open stations is a bit confusing to say the least.

My favourite ticket validation picture:

My phone says it was 10:47am on 3rd March 2007.:D

Think the clock is handy in the background, 29/04/2007
Attachment 510

Considering none of the ticket machines in Dart stations acknowledge the existanceof the Kildare line what would happen if I went to one of these stations with such a sign in the hope of going to Kildare??

Would I have to buy individual Dart/Luas/Commuter to Kildare tickets at an extra cost to myself or could I say at Connolly to the inspector that there was nobody at xyz station to sell me the ticket which I wanted to purchase??

Or would I be fined in Connolly if I did this?

Hazelhatch, Cherry Orchard and Clondalkin appear on the DART TVM's but the ticket isn't valid on the Luas compared to the one from the booking office. You would have to purchase in Connolly and its not a problem