Having been to NY recently and London, I’ve been spoiled to the pleasures of pay-as-you-go transport, using the MTA MetroCard in the former and the Oyster card in the latter.
Why, why oh why oh why must Dublin be succumbed to the backward retention of an integrated payment system for buses, trains and trams?
Take New York. The metro card is a credit card sized floppy plastic re-usable, re-chargable card. You can store credit on it for pay as you go ( $2 a pop I think ) , or you can store a weekly ( and I think monthly ) unlimited use ticket ( $24 a week ). These top ups are available at every one of the hundreds of subway stations and they can be used ( as well of course as cash ) on buses and subways. It’s validated by sliding it into a little slot and it pops out, giving you either a read out of your current balance or a green light of approval for the unlimited scenario.
Then there’s London, where many will argue is the best underground transport system in the world. I’ve had discussions about this and London’s transport system is one thing, but the technology behind the Oyster card borders the divine. Oyster is another credit card style card that comes in a nice little wallet. But there’s no slot ... You just touch the card on a little yellow pad and away you go. Further, the card will stop charging you if you spend more on travel than the equivalent day unlimited travel card – it’s smart ... does the thinking for you. They’re usable on undergrounds, buses and some regional railway routes. The kicker though, is that if you use an Oyster card, discounts of up to half the equivalent cash fare are automatic.
Now we come to Dublin. Dublin, in my humble opinion is a sham. Three separate ticketing systems for the three major modes of public transport. If I buy an unlimited use bus ticket, it’s neither valid on the luas nor the dart. I can buy a crossover ticket, but only on a monthly basis. There’s no such thing as pay as you go top up style ( 2 easy, in my opinion is a joke of a ticket ), or re-usable cards, or cross-transport system tickets.
Dublin has a massive traffic problem. I don’t drive, because heading in to town I want to feel as though I’m doing my thing for the environment. I catch the dart in every day, but need to get a lift to the station because there’s no feeder bus, even though I only live ten minutes from the station ( correction: there is a feeder bus, but it comes twice a day and I’d have to pay nearly twice as much to get it ) ... then I get a bus home. I’ve not looked in to crossover dart/bus tickets I’ll admit, but surely, surely it shouldn’t be my responsibility to have to research every kind of ticket there is.
Please, Please Mr. Cullen, get some ambition. Drive some innovation. If you want to put Dublin on the map as a world leader, put Transport 21 aside for just a minute. Forget about bus routes, corridors and new carriages. It’s all important, I know, but it all rests on something even more fundamental that should be considered even before getting us from A to B: happiness.
Please give us a public transport payment system that puts the public part first, lets me use whatever means I want to get where I’m going and is sympathetic to the cost of my journey. The technology is out there. We just need to break some balls in this backward hole of a modern society to get it in place.
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