Launch of Dublin Short Hop Zone Smartcard

[Mark Gleeson]

The long awaited pay as you go rail smartcard went public last night.

You can buy a smartcard from any TVM in the Dublin Short Hop Zone or online at http://www.irishrail.ie/smartcard

The card costs 5 euro. Provided you have at least 1 cent credit the system will allow you to travel, so 4 euro of that 5 is actually usable credit

Fares are charged at half the normal return fare for the journey undertaken

You can top up online and review your history http://www.irishrail.ie/smartcard

Smartcards for children, scholar fares as well as season tickets are coming and these will be personalised with a photo. Fancy features such as fare capping may come in due course, ensuring you get the cheapest fare for the journeys you have undertaken.

Rail Users Ireland was involved in the user testing, so we have a full knowledge of how it all works. We have worked through several problems with Irish Rail so the user experience should be extremely good and the functionality is significantly more advanced than the luas smartcard.

Over coming weeks watch out at city centre stations, can't say more.