LUAS operators criticised over peak-time fare increase
 

My understanding of this is that Smart Card users will not be charged the peak time fare, and that users with weekly / monthly tickets can use either peak / off-peak services with no price variations. How is this targetting the most loyal customers? Headline grabbing again, it must be an awful job to be an opposition spokesperson on something. It looks like the peak fare is to dissuade non-regular users from taking journeys during rush hour that they could take half an hour later, and the intention is to cut down on over-crowding at peak times. Seems pretty straightforward in theorey, but in practice I doubt that it will make much difference. I tend to avoid using the Luas at peak times unless I absolutely need to, and I imagine the majority of non-regular users would do the same!

Exactly the same as UK rail operators did last week. Cue Irish Rail adding a few cent to morning rush hours.

When I lived in Manchester, the Metrolink fare was £1.70, but £3.00 before 9:30AM. The mainline railway also wouldn't let you use the Young Persons Card for journeys before 9:30AM. Annoying policy, even though I could see the reasons for it.

This simply exposes the RPA money making machine, bear in mind I could travel on a near empty tram Green Dundrum at 8am and pay a congestion charge with an empty tram.

Samrt card fares are the same as 2005 (yes 2005) levels but still lack the automatic discount as in London

They have problems in London with tube capacity don't see them charging excess now do you ?

You will be hard pushed to find this on the Luas site since the link is wrong

As a regular on the red line (sometimes 4 times a day!) there are lots of people on it at peak times that could get it other times but they don't. Especially between 5 - 6 there's lots of elderly people with shopping that end up squashed and complaining about the crush.

And everyone else complains about all the people going to Heuston, and breathe a sigh when we call get off, it really needs a dedicated up and down service.

The mornings just seem like commuters trying to get to work though, they don't have a lot of choice.

Worst thing is (and this is the best way of putting it) all the day trippers on the trains, coming out of Heuston for a nice shopping trip in City. They walk by empty 90s to get on "the experience" that is the Luas.

A few cent doesn't seem discourage people nowadays, it's just some extra revenue. I do hope it acts as an incentive for regular users to buy Smarts and multi-journey tickets.

slightly off topic but i remember people saying before that the smart card is awkward to use at peak time because people are slow using it and a queue forms at each scanner - has this improved any?

But Donal we are not all wizz kids like you, 99% will hold the card over the machine until it pings when as you know flashing it over the panel is sufficient

Not necesserily, I have flashed the card over the panel on many occasions, only to receive the buzz indicating "card not read". Now, to save time, I always hold the card on front of the panel until it pings.

Donal does a great demo, its all in the way you wave the card

Granted I have quite embarrassingly cursed the machine for not reading my card after flashing it and holding it on front of the scanner for ages, before realising (in reality, having the better half point out) that I was using my Leinster season ticket instead of the smart card. Maybe I'm not the best person to be talking about re usage of the smart card.

I also tried to get into a rugby game using a Luas card once.

The best is women rubbing every side of their handbags off the scanner cos they know the wallet/card is buried under stuff. :D

ten euro cents huh?

A single journey on the tube in London costs £4Sterling if paid in cash
or 6Euros in real money. I would call that an excess.

Minimum bus fare is £2sterling if paid in cash. or 3Euros in real money.

Ten cent is not enough to discourage people into going either by other means or at other times; it cannot be the reason given by the RPA for the price rise.

The LUAS from Heuston to Connolly is dearer than the number 90 bus, and it gets you to the city centre a lot slower (Batchelors Walk/Wynnes Hotel), putting it up by 10 cent can only be for revenue generating purposes.

As for the Heuston Shuttle we were told last June it'll be coming this year, there is one tram which should be still on in the mornings, which is rubbish, it ought to be dedicated 6am to 7 pm but they havent got the rolling stock, because they havent got the capacity because the trams are too short even though we told them so years and years ago.

But what do we know, eh?

Actually if you read the rpa's annual report for 2005 supplement,

"http://www.rpa.ie/upload/documents/RPA%202005%20Annual%20Report%20Supplement.pdf"

page 4 states

"Responding to high passenger demand, additional peak period services were introduced between Heuston and Connolly on the red line"


This is repeated again on page 5 of the same document.
Yet a quick perusal of the Luas.ie websites, timetables inparticular show no mention of this shuttle.

This is strange. I mean why wouldn't they advertise thee extra services they are running? It's bizarre. you'ld almost think they aren't running and the rpa are sublty mistaken or mayhaps the rubbish company are breaking their service agreement with the rpa.

You are right Thomas,
What do we know?

From my experience there's 1 shuttle in the mornings (Heuston - Connolly), usually around 8.45 or later, not necessarily every day but more frequent in last few months. This is a very crowded time, as the late 5.30 from Cork bundles in with a another service and two huge trainloads of people for the 92 and Luas come flooding out.

I've only ever been on one "Connolly - Heuston" and it was a disaster with people hopping on and off all confused and complaining, even though the PA repeatedly announced "This tram terminates at Heuston Station"

i was wondering what time it was at. I'll be on the 5.30 Cork trian in the morning and I'll hang around Heuston to see what goes down.

Rush hour surcharges are quite common throughout Europe, except that they normally say that the rush hour fare is "normal" and at all other times there is a "reduced" fare.

And sure aren't the taxi drivers doing it as well (except in reverse)...

They should be hung from their handbag straps for doing that :D

A long time ago I heard a radio interview with someone from the RPA in which he was asked about a regular dedicated Heuston - Connolly service in addition to the normal Tallaght - Connolly trams. He responded by saying there were two basic problem with implementing a regular Heuston - Connolly shuttle.

1. Dublin City Council refuse to give anymore priority to trams at junctions in the city centre, therefore putting on additional trams would lead to congestion on the tram lines. What we regularly see around Jervis would become even worse with 4 and 5 trams backed up waiting on traffic lights.

2. The power supply. Currently the power supply can handle x amount of trams between Heuston and Connolly at any one time. According to the RPA guy x is almost reached as it is during peak times so putting in more trams between Heuston - Connolly would necessitate the power supply being upgraded.

Arrived in Heuston at 8:45 this morning off the 06:05 Waterford-Heuston.

As I got out to the luas they were sending off the (almost empty) shuttle from the centre platform and we were left to squeeze onto the next one from tallaght with was already 60-70% full.

Of course we left people behind :-(

kevin

I was the tram that left you behind, myself and Thomas Stamp where out on a mission and we could see a wall of people coming through Heuston for the tram

There where seats available, but we would have to pay 10% more from Monday

The one morning I was late and missed everyone!

What about the Luas add on for the train tickets, they can't get the peak-time surcharge in there, has it gone up anyway?

The 5:30 arrived 8:39 into P7, I was standing there at the ticket desk up there

The wall moved quickly and boarded a tram, I arrived to see the tram leave and then the shuttle opened and we all piled in, there where seats available

I stood at the very back door and could see the crowds surging off the Waterford train through Heuston the quick ones made it, then we left

The tram behind us was half way down the hill, matter of 2 minutes behind us

Luas add on is now 1:20 and it is impossible to enforce a congestion charge on it

CJH may well be maturing nicely in the manner of a Grand Crù but this little nonsense piece confirms that his ghostly ethos still wanders abroad in the Corridors of Power.

In an era where Corporate Spin is required on every facet of what should be simple management stuff what we have here is merely a Fare Increase.

Now some bright young thing in the RPA reckons that Fare Increases on top of an already high fare structure are Bad Karma to announce,so hey !! lets disguise it so that NOBODY knows what it really is.

Smoke and Mirrors,Snake Oil ....same principle applies.

The RPA,coming as they do from the Civil Service stable are creatures of habit and it can safely be assumed that some dry-oul-shyte in the Dept of Transport ran a beady eye over the figures before giving the nod to publish them.

If this outfit had any bit of committment to their own "Smart(ish) Card system or to the principle of improving operational efficiency then its announcement would have been as follows.

"THE RPA WISH TO ANNOUNCE THE FOLLOWING MAJOR INCREASES IN LUAS CASH FARES FROM 8th JAN 2007 :

ALL CASH FARES WILL NOW BE €4. ADULT €2 CHILD.

HOWEVER.................THOSE PASSENGERS WISHING TO AVAIL OF DISCOUNTED LUAS TRAVEL MAY PURCHASE PRE-PAID TICKETS OR REUSABLE LUAS SMART-CARD AND ENJOY TRAVEL AT 2005 FARES.

FOR EVEN GREATER SAVINGS CHECKOUT A TAXSAVER SEASON TICKET."

Cool eh ? :)

Now that would get the heaving sweating masses twittering.

Staying with the Taxsaver scheme.
This particular concept has great potential to morph into a "Universal" travel card scheme IF it were to recieve some serious input from the relevant authorities.

With almost every citizen in the State in possession of a Revenue number there is huge scope for a properly run and HEAVILY discounted National Public Transport Fare structure.

Instead we remain mired down in a mish mash of infighting as the various agencies and operators attempt to promote their own schemes in the vacuum provided by Central Government.

HOWEVER....All of the above pales into insignificance when put alongside Daves list...and item 3 in particular.

Electricity Supply Difficulties....?
I hope P11 is watching this particular Bernouli Ball........Power Supply Problems....?
Was not Luas designed from its inception as an ELECTRICALLY powered system..or am I not aware of something here?

Did William Dargan leave a hidden stash of plans for a Steam Powered Luas which was found in Heuston Stn and Modified to run on the Oul Electric ?

Was the Original Luas meant to run on the Atmospheric Principle ?

Something tells me that there`s the making of a scandal lurking here.....forget that oul missing 10 metre section...if we havent enough shillings to put in the meter we can whistle dixie !!! :eek:

Luas spec is 40m tram every 2.5 minutes, plently of power available, the DART electrics are rated to 200% load for 15 minutes, 150% for 1 hour just in case you need the juice, the Luas would have similar spec at the substation

The smartcard would be grand except, it doesn't apply all day rambler fares so you pay more if you make several journeys that you need.

The TVM's can in theory sell smartcards

What would the DTA do here?

Bear in mind I travelled on two trams between 8am and 9am each of which where not even close to full but the RPA would charge a congestion charge on a uncongested service.

As pointed out Luas fares are excessive and the Luas is running a surplus (order of 6 figures a month). The RPA was authorised a 2.75% on average increase in fares NOT a 2.75% increase in revenue

Correct me if I'm mistaken here.
The city centre connection on mainline train tickets to Heuston was a euro, is now a euro and twenty cents?
or a twenty percent increase in fare?

Alek, I presume you've read the auld guf about the non-integrated smart cards set up by the rpa on the rpa's own website. This avoids the pressing need for an rpasucks.com website to point out their own uselesness. Which is nice.

The biggest mistake in all this auld smartcard shy te is the new train barriers not having any apparent smartcard reader.


you are correct in your fare increase announcement. you left out a line to say that reductions would occur for travel outside peak time though as was pointed out earlier.

Quote : The RPA was authorised a 2.75% on average increase in fares NOT a 2.75% increase in revenue


Cutting to the chase........What body/Individual did the Authorising..?
The Chinese Walls so beloved by Civil Servants everywhere are designed with a sinle purpose in mind......Deflection :o

This ensures that responsibility can be successfully avoided and promotion can be easily achieved based upon the success of how one uses the basic formula.

Forget CIE,Veolia,RPA etc etc.....Knock on the Ministers Door....Truman was Correct......"The Buck Stops HERE" :D

Its all smoke and mirrors

We have the cover up on the capacity where the 'electrical supply' is the excuse when the system was designed to take much higher frequencies

As far as I understand under the Act the RPA have total commerical control and can set fares as they please with no requirement to justify or consult on them

So the RPA were fibbing then. In theory they could double capacity without affecting the power supply.

Dublin City Council refusing to give trams more priority at junctions is true though which obviously has knock on effects in the amount of trams they can schedule between Heuston and Connolly.

Traffic priority is the issue. Connolly Jervis is the problem its fine elsewhere

In what country does traffic get priority over public transport??
Let's have a line of six cars with one person in each block a road so a packed tram gets held up for 10 mins. Or better at Jervis, lets let giant goods lorries hold everything up cos they can't fit around corners etc. Or around Bargaintown, let the traffic just hit the Luas as they break red lights.

(:mad: And the other public transport services are guilty too, blocking the Luas like the buses at Busaras edging two-inches that blocks the tram, and double deckers on the yellow boxes in O'Connell St.)

Rant over.

MAke the 10m sections diesel? :)
In fairness it can mean one tram holding up say 20 buses. 400 people -v- 1,500.

The LUAS that did the shuttle from Heuston to Connolly went back to the Red Cow depot on its rerurn, thus begging the question why it cant run all day.

Situation is that it comes in from Tallaght in the am, goes from Connolly vback to Heuston and waits. We saw a yellow jacket radio the driver to open up (it was parked in the middle platform) as soon as the Waterford train came in, suggesting there was someone else inside Heuston also on the radio informing them of the arrivial of the train.

Result was the few people who had gathered since the last LUAS hopped onto the shuttle, as the next LUAS was 2 min behind. As we pulled off the next was heading down the hill, just as a massive crowd appeared.

When we got off our half empty at Jervis we waited for the next LUAS, it was packed, surprise surprise.

Now, why couldnt they have operated the tannoy or simply shoutted that the shuttle would leave after the regular tram from Tallaght, and there was plenty of room on it, it could have gone straight after it, making use of resources the best way. Instead the shuttle was half empty, and reguar service packed to the gills.

You really do have to go out and see these things in action before you spot how a little tweak can make things better.

As for congestion charge: Heres a radical idea, if you want to get people to catch the LUAS off peak reduce the off peak fare, dont raise the peak fare b y such a small amount that it wouldnt detare anyone. Otherwise it just looks liek a cheap way of scamming money.

If this is really a 'congestion charge'.

There should be no extra charge on outbound services in the morning peak, since they are quiet.

Tallaght Heuston should be exempt since the bulk of the demand is in the central zone.

There was a Veoila guy on the concourse in Heuston at 8:40. Now I clearly saw that the Waterford train had rolled into P5 and the crowd was moving quickly across the concourse maybe 20 made it the other few hundred where still inside Heuston

It's utter nonsense increasing the fare at peak times.

I mean do they really think people take crammed Luas trams at 8am because they enjoy the feeling of being squashed !?

Or are they in cahoots with the oil companies and are trying to drive people back to their cars ?

It's totally contrary to what we need to be doing to reduce CO2 output anyway.

It's not an increase at peak times.
All fares have increased except single tickets bought outside the morning peak.

The rpa have decided to blind people with bull and avoiding the issue of *all* tickets going up by creating a small storm in a teacup elsewhere.

All tickets have gone up.

But on top of that there is an extra charge at peak times.

todays IT

While I realise that they have to buy trams at intervals to avoid block-obsolesence (needing to retire all the trams at the same time), but why are they making piecemeal orders of 4 trams? Surely they should order enough for C1 (2 trams) and A1 (2 trams?) now also and even add for BX.

We all know the trams will be used, even if one of these projects doesn't go ahead.

A tender was issued ages ago for more trams

The contract is based a minimum order with options for more

Not enough trams. Not long enough and basically luas can't cope or offer any more capacity during peak. Just like the DART circa 1984, it has been left alone to do its job. Operators call it a success, but the reality clearly allays to the fact that it is hopelessly inadequate without more initiatives in the public transport area. T21 is over a year after announcement, but not a single digger etc. has moved anywhere with serious intent. Believe me folks, the partial reopening of the WRC will happen while Dublin continues to implode.