[article] Rail Users in Ireland paying more for a weaker service

[Mark Gleeson]

The current system is staying in place on the pure and simple grounds that its a public service and the public have the right to turn up and expect to be accommodated. There is a fundamental requirement that the booking office can always issue a ticket and that ticket is charged at a fare appropriate for the journey being undertaken

At the moment the fare layout is structured such that unless you know exactly how it works you are likely to get ripped off by up to 30 euro, which is impressive when you consider the maximum day return fare is 65.50. The journeys in question are so rarely made they go unnoticed. Regardless of any fancy yield managed system all these glitches have to be fixed.

The vast bulk of the country still hasn't got decent internet access (myself and Tom live with phone lines so poor even modem dial up is flaky) which makes using web sales as the primary sales method unacceptable. Irish Rail manage to charge more online than at the station in a long list of cases

[Colm Moore]

Actually, money aside, encouraging people to pre-book may actually appeal to people own sense of well being if they can see that all the seats on the 17:30 are constantly full, but those on the 16:30 or 18:30 aren't.

[undo]

Certainly the *option* of pre-booking is great and can take the hassle out of many journeys (as long as your reserved seat actually does get marked as such so that you can count on it being free). But *requiring* pre-booking to get a decent price is a ripoff.

[Thomas J Stamp]

and we havent even mentioned the Credit Union discounted tickets yet

[Garrett]

Originally Posted by Mark Gleeson

The current system is staying in place on the pure and simple grounds that its a public service and the public have the right to turn up and expect to be accommodated. There is a fundamental requirement that the booking office can always issue a ticket and that ticket is charged at a fare appropriate for the journey being undertaken

I think you misunderstood what I meant by "system". I wasn't suggesting moving away from the current system of issuing tickets, as indeed that would have been loosing sight of the issue. I was suggesting moving away from the current system of pricing tickets, and I was disagreeing with your suggestion of removing the inconsistencies in IE's current pricing practices. Those inconsistencies could indeed be removed, but that would be no guarantee that ticket pricing will be easy to understand (for your ordinary Joe and Jane Soap out there), nor that ticket prices will represent the best value for the customer. Also bare in mind that I am primarily discussing intercity ticketing, but some of the suggestions also relate to commuter/luas/dart.

As far as i understand the situation, simply removing the inconsistencies will still mean:

- the practice of charging an arm and a leg for a one-way ticket which gives less choice to the customer who, at the time of booking/buying the ticket may not be sure of when or how he/she will be returning, and that's only assuming they wish to return. A tourist, for example, may decide to do a Dublin - Cork - Limerick - Galway - Dublin trip.
- that one-way tickets are only valid for the date printed on the ticket, and not the more customer friendly option of a specific time frame, e.g. a month. This possibility, I believe, has been hindered due to the whole issue of ticket validation.
- that one-way tickets cannot be used in both directions, e.g. using an unused Dublin-Mullingar single ticket to go from Mullingar to Dublin.

[ccos]

Thats solved by tweaking the system. You keep the walk on fare for distances of less than 160km at a reasonable level. Beyond that, it becomes long distance, and as a result, advance booking becomes necessary.

Thats a nonsense, I frequently do far longer trips (not in Ireland) at a moments notice, why should I be penalised for not having my life rostered.
Recently I had to buy 1 ways to Cork on the day of travel and they're not cheap, I don't want to imagine what they could be if IE had airline priceing