The Leap Card Thread

[Mark Gleeson]

There was a recent change to the charging file for Dublin.

Irish Rail states Monday-Friday only and will not work from July 1st through to end of 3 week of August, though this has never been communicated

What are the conditions of travel?
Schoolchild fares on DART and Commuter services apply during school term only, until 19:00hrs, Monday to Friday.

http://www.irishrail.ie/fares-and-ti...e-singlereturn

[Eddie]

Dublin Bus continues to charge 77c schoolchild fare on Saturdays, as long as you use the validator on the right of the entrance door, and not the drivers machine, which will charge 90c / €1.10, depending on the destination.

So in fact there's an anomaly here:
If an adult uses the automatic validator they will be charged a maximum fare for the journey so must go to driver for a lower fare for a shorter distance.

If a child uses the automatic validator Mon to Fri before 7pm / Sat before 1.30pm they will be charged the lowest fare by using the validator, and be charged more for using the driver's machine.

I bet not many people know that!

The discount of 75c for a child for each subsequent bus journey made within 90 minutes of the previous validation also means that after the first journey, subsequent fares can be 77c-75c=2c, a bus fare probably not seen for about 50 years!

[Colm Moore]

Originally Posted by OisinDunne

From earlier: Effectively the rules are if in school term Mon-Fri (up until sometime after 16:30) and before 13:30 Saturday the card charges schoolchild fares

I just asked why my childs fare wasn't reduced for last weekend and I was told that IR have done away with the Saturday time....when did this happen does anyone know??

To my knowledge it hasn't been done away. Feel free to make a complaint to Irish Rail and info@nationaltransport.ie

https://www.nationaltransport.ie/pub...eterminations/

Originally Posted by Determination No. 4 2014 – Determination of Child Fares on Public Transport in the Dublin Area and Regional Cities, June 2014

7. Determination by the Authority
The Authority having considered the four options as outlined above in some detail has determined that option C Dispense with Scholar fares, increase Child age to 18 and retain Schoolchild variant is to be the fares determination. The Authority has further determined that the Schoolchild fare will be available during school terms on Monday to Friday up to 19:00 and on Saturday up to 13:30.

[Eddie]

Last week I found a leap card, so I checked to see if it had a value on it at a Dart station to see if it was worth reporting as lost. It had a credit of €12.31 on it, so I sent an email to Leap Card and after a couple of days I got an email back thanking me, but that it had already been reported as lost and had been replaced.

Just for interest, I checked its value this morning and I expected it to have been cancelled with no value, with the credit being transferred to the owner's new card. Instead, it still had credit balance of €12.31.

What's going on?

[Mark Gleeson]

The credit on the card cannot be changed, but the card is most likely marked as hot so cannot be used for travel

[Eddie]

Discounted / free second journeys within a set period of the first journey have now spread to London... Not sure if Dublin was the first with the idea or it it copied the idea from elsewhere too...

https://tfl.gov.uk/campaign/hopper-fare?cid=hopper

[James Howard]

These second journeys should be entirely free unless they are in the opposite direction on the same route. For the customer, it isn't a second journey - it is the second part of the one journey.

Making people pay to complete their journey only provides a disincentive for the operator to make journeys more convenient for customers by providing direct routes. Effectively the customer getting better service is paying less.

[berneyarms]

Originally Posted by James Howard

These second journeys should be entirely free unless they are in the opposite direction on the same route. For the customer, it isn't a second journey - it is the second part of the one journey.

Making people pay to complete their journey only provides a disincentive for the operator to make journeys more convenient for customers by providing direct routes. Effectively the customer getting better service is paying less.

Like everything else it boils down to funding from government - we get what we pay for.

Making the second journey free would reduce farebox revenues and squeeze the operating companies' finances even tighter.

I totally agree with your view by the way but until the politicians and ergo the population at large decides that they are prepared to pay proper levels of funding for public transport in this country you are only going to see very slow and gradual change.

[James Howard]

Obviously it would need to be paid for but in the long term, it would probably increase farebox revenue by making public transport more attractive. The fare system cannot continue to muddle on as it is now and somebody in power needs to grasp this nettle.

There is an obvious opportunity to see how this works with the forthcoming opening of Luas BXD. With the appropriate fare structure this represents a fantastic opportunity to open up the south city centre to Maynooth commuters. But I suspect that this will be business as usual and a huge part of the potential of this piece of infrastructure will be lost.

[James Shields]

I agree. Broombridge currently has very low usage at present. If the new station works, the majority of users are likely to be transferring between Luas and Commuter Train (and hopefully eventually DART).

Irish Rail and RPA should see that paying two fares, even if they're on one integrated ticket, is a major disincentive to transferring, and it doesn't take a very big disincentive to make people decide they'll just take their car into town.

So by IE and RPA being unwilling to accept a small loss of revenue from a combined fare, both lose out on many journeys.

Of course, it's difficult to prove that overall revenue will be increased by combined fares, and I agree it's something that a higher power needs to impose upon them.

James

[berneyarms]

Originally Posted by James Shields

I agree. Broombridge currently has very low usage at present. If the new station works, the majority of users are likely to be transferring between Luas and Commuter Train (and hopefully eventually DART).

Irish Rail and RPA should see that paying two fares, even if they're on one integrated ticket, is a major disincentive to transferring, and it doesn't take a very big disincentive to make people decide they'll just take their car into town.

So by IE and RPA being unwilling to accept a small loss of revenue from a combined fare, both lose out on many journeys.

Of course, it's difficult to prove that overall revenue will be increased by combined fares, and I agree it's something that a higher power needs to impose upon them.

James

It's not a case of IE having to accept a small drop in revenue - they've repeatedly had to do this in terms of the introduction of LEAP (which had extra back office costs) and subsidy reductions.

I'm sure they would both be prepared to do it if they were compensated by an increase in their subsidy.

The directors of IE have a responsibility to ensure it is run in a financially sound manner. Shocks to the system aren't affordable any more.

Ultimately we need the politicians to realise that proper public transport in Dublin needs a major increase in funding.

We have got to the point where any changes in fare structures have to be paid by increased subsidy levels.

The NTA set the fares now and it is incumbent upon them to look for funding. However their CEO recently commented that her hands are tied to a degree because of the lack of additional public funds, which is clearly a function of the mess our country's finances are in.

[James Howard]

Yesterday I had to go to Clontarf Road which isn't covered by the point-to-point on my Leapcard. Since I can't tag on in Edgeworthstown I went to barrier in Connolly and asked the guy there what I should do. He first suggested that the simplest thing to do would be to buy a ticket but when I explained that I had an epurse balance on it, he said to go through the barrier without tagging off and just tag on on the other side.

So I did this, and as far as the system was concerned my journey originated in Connolly. During this faff I missed a DART so this all delayed me 15 minutes but no worries as I wasn't in a hurry.

Anyway, when I tagged off in Clontarf road, I got charged the maximum fare so it would basically appear that the system is not set up to allow the use of the ePurse from one of the stations on your point-to-point. I rang leap this morning to sort it out and she refunded the money and suggested that I just not bother tagging on and explain my situation to any ticket checkers I met which seems to be setting me up for a hundred euro fine. Of course when I got to Clontarf road the barrier was open and I could have saved myself 15 minutes and a 10 minute 1890 phone call if I'd just dodged my fare.

Anyway, it would appear that the epurse on my leap card is basically useless for local rail travel in Dublin.

[haddockman]

Why would you be encountering a ticket barrier at Connolly if you are transferring from a Sligo train to a DART?

Don't Sligo trains arrive into platform 4? It should be a simple walk to 5-6-7 without the need to go through a barrier.

[berneyarms]

Originally Posted by James Howard

Yesterday I had to go to Clontarf Road which isn't covered by the point-to-point on my Leapcard. Since I can't tag on in Edgeworthstown I went to barrier in Connolly and asked the guy there what I should do. He first suggested that the simplest thing to do would be to buy a ticket but when I explained that I had an epurse balance on it, he said to go through the barrier without tagging off and just tag on on the other side.

So I did this, and as far as the system was concerned my journey originated in Connolly. During this faff I missed a DART so this all delayed me 15 minutes but no worries as I wasn't in a hurry.

Anyway, when I tagged off in Clontarf road, I got charged the maximum fare so it would basically appear that the system is not set up to allow the use of the ePurse from one of the stations on your point-to-point. I rang leap this morning to sort it out and she refunded the money and suggested that I just not bother tagging on and explain my situation to any ticket checkers I met which seems to be setting me up for a hundred euro fine. Of course when I got to Clontarf road the barrier was open and I could have saved myself 15 minutes and a 10 minute 1890 phone call if I'd just dodged my fare.

Anyway, it would appear that the epurse on my leap card is basically useless for local rail travel in Dublin.

LEAP can't cope with a point to point ticket and the epurse together.

It will automatically default to a loaded ticket if one is on the card.

There is no way for the card to know which you want to use at the barrier at a station where both are valid.

This issue can be coped with on the buses as there is the option of human intervention using the driver's ticket machine but that option isn't there for rail.

Oyster in London can get around it by having zones but the current station pairing set up in Dublin doesn't lend itself to facilitating that.

The only way around it is to have a second LEAP card to use the epurse.

[James Howard]

The reason I went to the barrier was that as I had joined the train at Edgeworthstown where I couldn't tag on, my understanding was that I would have been travelling without a ticket if I boarded a northbound DART.

@berneyarms I suspected that was the case that the system wasn't able to cope.

The customer service agent for leap wasn't able to explain to me that what I was doing wasn't possible. She suggested I just boarded the DART without doing anything which to me just seems wrong.

What's particularly annoying was that I was told I no longer needed my old leap card so as it was a photo one, I cancelled it and got my credit refunded. I guess I'll have to organise myself with a second card. The leap card really is quite a mess.

[berneyarms]

Originally Posted by James Howard

The reason I went to the barrier was that as I had joined the train at Edgeworthstown where I couldn't tag on, my understanding was that I would have been travelling without a ticket if I boarded a northbound DART.

@berneyarms I suspected that was the case that the system wasn't able to cope.

The customer service agent for leap wasn't able to explain to me that what I was doing wasn't possible. She suggested I just boarded the DART without doing anything which to me just seems wrong.

What's particularly annoying was that I was told I no longer needed my old leap card so as it was a photo one, I cancelled it and got my credit refunded. I guess I'll have to organise myself with a second card. The leap card really is quite a mess.

To be honest it is the funding for public transport and consequently the fare structure that is the problem.

LEAP has to work around that.

The simple solution is just have one card for your period pass and a second for the epurse - that's the only work around I'm afraid.

In the greater scheme of things your situation, while not uncommon, is a minority of LEAP users, and unless the fare structure changes to a zonal one there's not likely to be an alternative solution.

[James Howard]

So if Leap card doesn't work for me, why the hell did they migrate my TaxSaver on it and say that I didn't need my old leap card? Surely it doesn't take even more that the 55 million euro they've already had to be able to advise customers properly.

There are thousands of people using point-to-point TaxSaver tickets who have occasional need of the epurse so this is not a particularly tiny edge-case. Whatever about such a basic requirement being missed in the original software development plan, their customer service agents should at least be aware of the issue.

There is also the matter that I've probably been ripped off several times before for this without noticing. So they are basically making extra money from this flaw in the system.

[Kilocharlie]

Originally Posted by James Howard

So if Leap card doesn't work for me, why the hell did they migrate my TaxSaver on it and say that I didn't need my old leap card? Surely it doesn't take even more that the 55 million euro they've already had to be able to advise customers properly.

There are thousands of people using point-to-point TaxSaver tickets who have occasional need of the epurse so this is not a particularly tiny edge-case. Whatever about such a basic requirement being missed in the original software development plan, their customer service agents should at least be aware of the issue.

There is also the matter that I've probably been ripped off several times before for this without noticing. So they are basically making extra money from this flaw in the system.

Exactly the same issue I raise a few weeks ago when the Kildare (County) - GCD service starts. The only solution is to have to 2 leap cards in the Integrated ticketing system. The real issue was the decision to migrate the point-to-point tickets to Leap which is causing these anomalies.
There is no issue at present with Heuston side as there is no overlap between point-to-point and DART/Commuter. This will change with the PPT service.

[Inniskeen]

I have a rail smart card which I believe has the same functionality as a LEAP card. I have not attempted to load any credit to avoid the type of messing and confusion descriped by previous posters. I simply use a separate LEAP card for trips not covered by the rail ticket. To be honest I wouldn't have sufficient confidence that the Irish Rail machines wouldn't attack my e-purse and I really couldn't be bothered with the hassle of attempting to get a refund.

[berneyarms]

Originally Posted by James Howard

So if Leap card doesn't work for me, why the hell did they migrate my TaxSaver on it and say that I didn't need my old leap card? Surely it doesn't take even more that the 55 million euro they've already had to be able to advise customers properly.

There are thousands of people using point-to-point TaxSaver tickets who have occasional need of the epurse so this is not a particularly tiny edge-case. Whatever about such a basic requirement being missed in the original software development plan, their customer service agents should at least be aware of the issue.

There is also the matter that I've probably been ripped off several times before for this without noticing. So they are basically making extra money from this flaw in the system.

Frankly - oversight I would imagine. Based on previous performance, I suspect that it wasn't thought of.

You're quite right - it should have been obvious.

But while numerous people may have point-to-point tickets I do think that you would find that the vast majority of them will just use that part. The numbers who need to use the epurse on rail I would imagine would have been quite small. The vast majority of commuters just do their standard commute on public transport.