Contactless payments for public transport ‘years away’, NTA chief says – The Irish Times

41 comments
  1. Welcome to Ireland 2023, light years behind the rest of Europe….No vision, no nothing just typical couldnt give a fuck attitude…..

    Again, a sad state of affairs this country has become…The government need to go…

  2. We’ve got the Luas card, and you can top that thing up with a phone.

    I get just being able to use your card is a bit handier, but it’s not that much handier surely…

  3. I don’t understand how this can be so hard? Every bus has wifi, all it would take is a POS next to the driver

  4. It’s insane that a major city 1hr flight away has contactless on all of its major public transport.

    Also, don’t get me fucking started on topping up the leap card by direct debit and then having to activate it. Wtf.

  5. Why is this so difficult to implement? I run a food stall from time to time and I invested in a SumUp that has contactless payments enabled. All you need is a POS system. Hell, they already accept tapping for the Luas card, how much harder could it be to enable it for bank cards?

    All this government does is give excuses with doing zero work. It’s honestly embarrassing as an EU capital that we have terrible public transport options, additionally we make the payment process clunky.

  6. The cost of maintaining the infrastructure required to support the current or future systems from actual ticket inspectors to the commissions paid to transaction processing companies is a complete waste of money for a network as small as Ireland. For busses, the entire payments system should be abandoned and be fully funded by other means. Rail is a different platform with significantly higher cost bases so could be retained and is also cheaper to maintain given the fixed nature of the point of sale. Light rail should probably also be free.

    I know EY were tasked with conducting a study recently but I have to believe the terms of reference were “make sure you never say the LUAS is free”

  7. Does anyone have an answer as to why everything is so backwards here?Especially regarding transport? We’re not a poor country.

  8. At this point just make Dublin Bus free. Tourists having to go to an ATM and then break that money in a shop to get change just to take a bus that doesn’t show up half the time is the most backward system ever

  9. Public Transport infrastructure is a joke here. They make it impossible to commute to work and make it even more difficult to own a car.

  10. Lads this is high tech, ground breaking modern technology which is still practically in it’s infancy.

    Last thing we want to do is rush it……..

  11. I’ve been using privately owned and operated bus services for years and these have been using contactless payments for just as long. It’s just a joke.

  12. I can answer that one as a tourist who was here this weekend and genuinely couldn’t believe it. My wife and I tried to use a bus to get back to our hotel but couldn’t as we didn’t have any cash. Next step was to draw out cash but then found out that you actually need coins as they don’t take notes either, which for two adults was almost €6 (luckily the bus driver took pity and let us on anyway). So for three days of trips back to our hotel I’d need to carry €18 of coins with me…
    Instead I then tried to buy a tourist leap card at Heuston but the machine was broken, and for some reason the regular ticket machines only sell regular leap cards, not the tourist ones. It seems there’s only about 3 places in the whole of Dublin where you can get one (why can’t you just buy one at any ticket machine??)
    I’ve genuinely never been to a city that was this difficult to pay for public transport or get some kind of tourist travel ticket.

  13. Jaysus can we do a gofund or kickstart or something to get them a load of SumUp devices and duct tape. This isn’t that hard to figure out, mainly because they don’t have to do any of the figuring themselves. Throw a dart blindly at some other European country and off you go. Damn it if the Brits can have this in place and they couldn’t get Brexit sorted properly it makes us look like fools.

  14. The local town bus service in Wexford has been using contactless for years.

    Their timekeeping is atrocious, but at least when they do show up you can pay with your card.

  15. I’m on am island off the Croatian coast. There are 3 buses a day and the bus driver also delivers packages on his route.

    They have contactless payment here.

  16. Wonder if this is due to bank charges that you see on signs on shop windows asking to pay in cash instead of card.

  17. What?? Sorry am I being stupid here? Why the fuck can’t they just put a contactless card reader, such as is available in every shop, into the buses? They even have those little contactless tip jars that are set to a certain price and stay there. Don’t need a full card machine.

    Bus driver presses a button, the appropriate fare price pops up, tap card, and get ticket. This is not rocket science.

  18. Meanwhile in the real world the AI drivers of electric powered buses from China are debiting your account be facial recognition AND robocopping the upstairs for junkies chasing the dragon down the back

  19. The most exasperating for this for me is the answer is just money. Now. In 2023 these systems are proven to work and have plenty of examples. The tech is more available than ever. The expertise more available than ever.

    All that is needed is commitment.

  20. Dublin is such a laughable city compared to any other in Europe. Such a kip with embarrassing infrastructure.

  21. That’s bollocks. Equipment is too old for contact less payments? What the fuck are leap cards then? I smell bullshit.

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