Irish Rail web site

[Mark Gleeson]

Since the 4 track went live the system has been much better behaved. The problem is it doesn't understand the causal relationship of a delay

If a fast train is trapped behind a slow train, the fast train is still projected based on the fast timing when in fact it should inherit the journey time of the train ahead until such point that train is no longer in the way. So if a train to Cork gets stuck behind a Limerick stopping train once it catches up it will be projected to arrive Limerick Junction about 7 minutes after the Limerick train and will inherit its normal point to point times from there. Thats simple now throw in passing loops, single track, four track and turnbacks and its not simple

Put it this way to get a system that can do that properly costs a fortune and in many cases major vendors have tried and failed to get it to work. You need to get into artificial intelligence.

I could put a R&D team together for this sort of thing but its going to cost to be done correctly

[zag]

Arragh listen, it can't be that hard to program this. We're not talking a network of hundred or thousands of routes with different approaches possible. There are only so many combinations. The whole fast train/slow train thing is only notional. If you are on a 'fast' train and you are on a track behind a 'slow' train then you are de facto on a slow train. Unlike, say, the approach to a busy airport where planes can be peeled off and circled for a while to let another plane land.

Let's say for the sake of craziness that we have 10 trains queued behind each other. We have an estimated time for the front one to get to the station - that's easy as it's a fuction of distance, dwell time, remaining stations, etc . . .

In the absense of teleporters and passing loops the arrival of train #2 cannot be any sooner than the arrival time of train #1. That's the first thing to program in. The arrival of train #3 cannot be any earlier than train #2 or train #1. And so it goes until you get to train #10. That bit's not hard.

If IE are providing real time information they should build it on some element of reality.

z

[Mark Gleeson]

And the website is down again

[Trampas]

why does the site not show which trains you can get for €10

[Mark Gleeson]

The discounted fares are there, you just have to look for them as far as I know the 10 euro fare is available on all bookable routes on at least 1 train per day each way 7 days per week. Beyond that there are other discounts set at 15 and 20 euro

We have been told due to the complexity of the discounts available dates and trains vary any list provided would be out of date as soon as it was published. Basically travel off peak Mon-Thurs and you will get a reduced price. Trains leaving Dublin after 7pm also tend to offer heavy discounts

A revised website with a more up front listing of prices is coming soon I'm told as are a wider range of destinations

[MOH]

Originally Posted by Mark Gleeson

Basically travel off peak Mon-Thurs and you will get a reduced price.

Unfortunately, that's not true. The "book online for €10 fare" is something of a scam. Well, scam might be a bit strong, but it's very misleading.

I tried to book such a fare in December, but since only one carriage on the train was allocated for online booking, and the stupid system doesn't allow you to book the fare unless there's a seat available to reserve, I couldn't do so. Of course, to add insult to injury, when I went in the next day and paid the full fare, the train turned out to be an old commuter, on which no effort had been made to even indicate which carriage was the reserved one, let alone reserve individual seats.

The only logic I can see behind only allowing you book web fares when you 'reserve' a seat, is that it allows Irish Rail to ensure that 75% of the available seats on a given train are charged at the full rate.

[Colm Moore]

While I'm sure they have detailed statistics on use, there is not guarantee that someone will show up to pay that fare.

To be fair though, if a service is known to be busy, it makes little sense to offer discount fares (a) it would mean them losing money (b) it would mean the service would be over full of people with the low fare and the people who can only use that service. This serves neither the operator nor the passenger.

[Kilocharlie]

This mornings realtime display included two non-existent trains!

1. 0515 Westport even though this service 'joined' the 6:05 from Galway. This is a daily non-train

2. 0720 Portlaoise. This was canceled but still appears on the Realtime display.

I guess if a train is not detected by CTC, the Realtime display simply displays the timetable!

Having said that, the Realtime display is actually quite useful as it does give etas for the real trains. However it cannot predict that a train may be held at Cherryville.

PS: The 0610 ex Waterford took on the 0720's schedule leading to a very crowded train. At Hazelhatch it called at the fast platform while all the passengers were waiting on the slow platform - result mad scramble. Passengers at Adamstown were better informed.

[Thomas J Stamp]

Originally Posted by Kilocharlie

This mornings realtime display included two non-existent trains!

1. 0515 Westport even though this service 'joined' the 6:05 from Galway. This is a daily non-train

2. 0720 Portlaoise. This was canceled but still appears on the Realtime display.

I guess if a train is not detected by CTC, the Realtime display simply displays the timetable!

you should have seen it during the unofficial strikes

[Mark Gleeson]

The online realtime page has been updated

The train id is now less prominent, plus it sorts by north and southbound for all services operating via Connolly station

We have been in regular contact with the people in IE who manage the system, most of the bugs we have submitted have been fixed, if anyone notices any problems let us know

The actual prediction of arrival time is a restriction of the signaling system not the web front end so that will have to wait for various signalling upgrades to complete

[finnyus]

Hi,

was just looking at prices to go Cork - Belfast on irishrail.ie.

I can book the following:
Cork - Dublin City Center (11.40Euro) (05:05 Cork - Heuston + Luas/Bus)
Dublin Connolly - Belfast Central (18.00Euro) (09:35 Enterprise)

However, other online prices quoted:
Cork - Belfast (88.90Euro) (05:05 Cork - Heuston + Luas/Bus + 09:35 Enterprise)
Cork - Dublin Connolly (67.40Euro) (05:05 Cork - Heuston + Luas/Bus)

Is this another glitch in the irishrail.ie website? Does the city centre add-on include travel to Connolly? Wondering why there is such a price difference for the distance between City Centre and Dublin Connolly?

Prices here are for 01.02.2010 and for the same train services.

Fin.

[Mark Gleeson]

Thats an issue we have mentioned to Irish Rail

We got the luas add on issue fixed, in the past it would have charged the non discounted fare if you wanted the luas.

Its a glitch but the fare quoted is legally the correct fare in the book

[finnyus]

Originally Posted by Mark Gleeson

Thats an issue we have mentioned to Irish Rail

We got the luas add on issue fixed, in the past it would have charged the non discounted fare if you wanted the luas.

Its a glitch but the fare quoted is legally the correct fare in the book

I remember that glitch with non-discounter fares. The fares quoted are probably the fares if you purchase the ticket from a TVM.

[Thomas Ralph]

The discounted fares are only available with certain station combinations; legally the €88.90 is the book fare so anything less than that is at IÉ's discretion.

[Mark Gleeson]

It has gotten better dealing with combinations but its still getting confused with Connolly

[Jferb]

As far as I know the 10 euro fare is available on all bookable routes on at least 1 train per day each way 7 days per week

Unfortunately that doesn't seem to apply to the Tralee line as the 11:00 service from Heuston to Cork & Tralee is now €20 every day and there are no other €10 services to Tralee from Heuston. Unless of course you count the 21:00 which involves a wait in Mallow of a mere 9 hours and 8 minutes! Why that's even listed as a service to Tralee is beyond logic..

What's really galling though is that the 11:00 service is still €10 to Limerick, despite the fact that there are plenty of other €10 and €15 services from Heuston to Limerick every day. If the 11:00 is too busy for €10 fares to Cork and Tralee (which honestly it probably is, at least sometimes), then why continue to sell €10 tickets on it to Limerick?!

[dowlingm]

I think IE should be forced to charge a minimum fare - 10c a mile. Patently when they offer "flat" specials like this the first thing people do is moan about how their line or their favourite service doesn't get the same treatment as other (and often shorter) routes.

So now so.

[Mark Gleeson]

The real time system now lets you see the trains stopping points as well if you click on the trains id number.

All credit, we asked for it a while back

[Kilocharlie]

Cool
It even shows ETA for stations down the line..

Now if we had information like that, oven just the next train or two, displayed at the stations...

[comcor]

Originally Posted by Jferb

Unfortunately that doesn't seem to apply to the Tralee line as the 11:00 service from Heuston to Cork & Tralee is now €20 every day and there are no other €10 services to Tralee from Heuston. Unless of course you count the 21:00 which involves a wait in Mallow of a mere 9 hours and 8 minutes! Why that's even listed as a service to Tralee is beyond logic..

What's really galling though is that the 11:00 service is still €10 to Limerick, despite the fact that there are plenty of other €10 and €15 services from Heuston to Limerick every day. If the 11:00 is too busy for €10 fares to Cork and Tralee (which honestly it probably is, at least sometimes), then why continue to sell €10 tickets on it to Limerick?!

There aren't even any €10 fares available from Killarney to Cork. Apart from one train a day that is the hugely reduced price of €19.50, €20 is the cheapest fare on the route. And it's all of a 90km trip.