New Irish Rail ticketing system

[island]

Irish Rail has unveiled a new set of walk-up fares which are moving towards distance-based pricing. Makes for interesting reading. However, they abolished off-peak tickets.

 

[Ivo]

It most certainly does make for interesting reading. But one thing caught my eye:

The purpose of the review was to identify a simplified fare structure for standard fares which meets the following objectives:

• Is consistent;
• Avoids anomalies;
• Meets market requirements; and
• Can be applied to be broadly neutral in terms of revenue, at this point in time of severe financial constraint, but forms a coherent platform for changes up or down in fares.

Iarnród Éireann was requested by the Authority to ensure that its request to increase fares in 2012 would be consistent with the principles set out in the consultants’ report, which were accepted by the Authority.

Imagine this kind of care occurring on this side of the Irish Sea. The FR&T section of this forum would probably cease to exist!

Seriously, if that kind of attention was given to pricing over here, it might just be reasonable to call it "Simplification". Or, to the likes of us, what the DfT failed to do a few years ago when attempting the same thing.

The off-peak idea is a bit disappointing, but I guess the market is different over there...

 

[radamfi]

They may be making the fares more distance based, but there is still going to be a significant premium for walk on single fares, as in GB, and unlike most of Europe. Are Leap Cards are going to be introduced on trains outside the Short Hop area? There is no mention in the briefing.

In the Short Hop area, they have retained returns for paper tickets, but Leap Card singles are less than half the price of a paper return. So maybe they will do the same if Leap Cards become available elsewhere in the country.

Bus Éireann and private bus companies will be accepting the Leap Card and also have return tickets so they will also have to make singles half the paper return to make using the Leap Card worthwhile.

 

[island]

There are no plans to make Leap cards usable outside the short hop area.

 

[GM078]

Bus Éireann and private bus companies will be accepting the Leap Card and also have return tickets so they will also have to make singles half the paper return to make using the Leap Card worthwhile.

I believe Bus Éireann will only be accepting the Leap Card on certain (Greater Dublin Area) routes, at least in the short term.

 

[radamfi]

On matthews.ie it says they already accept the Leap Card on the Bettystown route and will be accepting the Leap Card on all other routes in due course, so the Leap Card will be valid as far as Dundalk.