I used to be on monthly tickets, and always managed to buy mine, whenever possible the weekend before I needed it.

I take your point, but I think there should be some acceptable leyway. My suggestion of 3 days was to allow for months like this one that start on Saturday, but a better solution would be as another poster suggested, a few hours into the first working day of the month. This would also spread the rush of people buying new tickets.

Here's an idea. Allow people 3 days grace on tickets from the previous month to spread the load of people buying them. When you get a new monthly, you have to present the old one, and it is valid from the start of the month (i.e. if you buy it on Day 3 of the grace period, it is only valid for another 27 days). Increase the price of one-off monthlies marginally to stop people taking advantage. Potentially decrease the price of these renewed monthlies by a corresponding amount so there are no complaints that IE benefits financially from the new system.

This could be a problem in unmanned/poorly staffed stations, but shouldn't pose any difficulty for certain specific journeys, e.g. Dundalk/Drogheda-Connolly

I think the setup in the UK lends itself to the BTP much more easily than here.

The ATOC, LUL etc. fund the BTP but I think that if CIE and the RPA were to be asked to do the same, they'd bury their head in the sands and say that there is no problem.

There would also be massive objection from the Gardai if there were to be a move to set up a separate force. They'd feel their own positions under threat. Just look at the Garda Reserve protests.

But if they attempted to have it as part of the current Gardai, there would need to be an attempt to ensure all resources are allocated to their purpose. I have seen Garda Traffic Corps cars on a regular basis doing work that does not seem traffic related to me.

So there you go. I predict objection from the transport companies and objection from the Gardai.

Why would IÉ want to pay for the training, salary, sick leave and pension of some fully trained professionals when they can outsource the lot to a bunch of thugs in bomber jackets?

Even compare that Nissan Almera saloon that the STT guys go round in with a police car from the BTP.

We will never have a comparable setup.

Why bother fiddling with the price? If a ticket were valid for, say, 34 days but remained at 100% price, it still wouldn't be possible for people to buy more than one monthly ticket per month. The advantage of a "grace period" is that sales of monthly tickets get spread over a few days; there shouldn't be any loss of revenue.

I like the suggestion of up to 10am the next day. One of my little bug-bears is that you can't buy weekly luas tickets the night before they start. Compounding this is the fact that the cheaper versions are only available from shops (and not platform ticket machines). The shop associated with the Dundrum station is neither beside the station, nor along my walk to the station. There is also no shop near Heuston.

A grace period of +/- a few days might have an impact of sales of monthly tickets in February and December, which are already marginal to many people given the reduced number of working days in the month, with people using November/January/March tickets to get a few "free" days. Depends on how the maths work out obviously.

Why do they have to be calender month anyway? Is it just to make it easy for checkers?

No real reason besides "it's always been done that way". They managed to change 7 day tickets from Sun-Sat to any arbitrary period a while back, so should be easily doable.

Fixed monthly is required for the tax saver scheme

In the UK and NI performance is measured on a monthly basis and discounts issued to those holding monthly tickets from the next month and so on

Also if you where to give a days grace and had flexible ticket dates you can guess what will happen

Monthly tickets can be bought in advance

The advent of the smart card will eliminate these problems forever and you will always get the cheapest outcome regardless of travel pattern

This thread is starting to diverge in 2 ways so looking to split it somehow

Not ever having had the displeasure of having to buy one of the monthly tickets, I wasn't aware you could only buy calendar months. If IE insists on keeping that (idiotic) system, then my idea would work without any price variations. Realistically though, people should kick up a fuss. It's not like that on LUAS

Actually, having read Mark's comment, let's just hurry up with the Smartcard then.

Luas is just as bad since you can't purchase in advance you get the ridiculous bus vs luas validation game as well.

What we need is a simple straightforward uncomplicated structure, tickets are valid between the specified dates and no more. You should be able to select the start and end dates and so on even if its 3 weeks 4 days and so on. All perfectly doable

Smartcard will implictly handle this we hope since it will charge based on actual trips not based on expected, you never know where you are going to be next week.

Given the poor Irish compliance with rules allowing grace on tickets is likely to cause more trouble than it is worth, of course it would work fine on mainland Europe

The main problem is indeed with advance purchase options. TVMs should allow tickets to be purchased for an arbitrary combination of stations and an arbitrary date range.

Should monthly tickets be available at normal price before the start of the month and with a surcharge on the first weekday of the month?

One has to balance that with evasion on the day, as people would be able to buy it cheaper on the second weekday of the month (or maybe keep the surcharge).

Of course, instead of surcharge, one would phrase it as a discount.

here in Toronto metropasses (sold at booths) go on sale a few days before but are only valid in the calendar month. I get mine in the post on the 18th of the previous month, being on the subscription scheme, so I don't have to worry about it but from time to time you hear of booths running out.

Well do what Luas does — sell calendar month tickets to tax saver scheme and rolling 30-day tickets to everyone else.

The Stasi are back
 

As from this morning, the Stasi are back. Kildare route passengers arriving at Heuston this morning were subjected to the same treatment as had been dished out to them last March.

FYI the stasi are always there, I guess they just become more visible when the RPU are in tow.

You will note they tend to do checks at the start of the month, this is a serious attempt to catch fare evasion

These are thugs, why are transport police not used to back up rail staff who are checking tickets. We have transport police at Dublin Airport and also at Dublin Port, why can we not have them at main line stations.

We have Airport Police in the three former Aer Rianta airports that also do things life fire fighting.

I understand that much of the Port Police in Dublin Port has been privatised.

And proper order too, it's the first day of the month and if people aren't going to pay their fares they deserve the consequences :(