Quote:
Originally Posted by Via Cortober
Thanks, all.
Has the company withdrawn all discounted fares for tickets bought online or are they only available on particular services, at particular times, when booked far enough in advance? Or is it just on the Sligo intercity service that no discounts are available?
Every off-peak empty seat is money lost. They should find a way to sell unused capacity at a discount, built around an integrated, real-time 100% reserved seat system (that could cope with multiple passengers using the same seat for sequential segments of an intercity route). Then the ticket offices - using real time booking - could even sell a limited number of standing-room only tickets at an ultra-low price. Maybe this is Iarnród Utopia rather than Iarnród Éireann!
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The system has been a little buggy for the last while, with discounted fares disappearing completely at times.
Selling unused capacity at a discount doesn't always work. If you are selling 50 tickets at €20 or 60 tickets at €10, it is better value for the railway company to carry fewer people.
Train is much more popular than bus from Sligo, Mayo and Roscommon because of distance and other quality of service issues - the railway has a somewhat captive market. Contrast that with the bus market from Galway and Cork, where speed, frequency and low fares make them competitive for some market sectors.