The Luas Leap Card scheme

Leap Card

The leap card is a form of integrated ticketing introduced in Dublin on 12 December 2011. It is a prepaid card which can be used on DART, Dublin bus, Iarnród Éireann and Luas; minimum top up for the card is currently €5.00.

The Leap card is the result of many years work by the Railway Procurement Agency to get an integrated ticketing-scheme for the public transport in Dublin city. 

Initially it only offers a pre-paid electronic wallet system to buy single trip journeys on Luas, DART / Commuter and Dublin Bus but there are plans to also offer week, month and year subscriptions on the card which could follow the in the shoes of the 80day cards used in Vancouver.

History

Public transport in the larger Dublin area is offered by several companies. Apart from several private companies and the country-wide Bus Éireann transport is offered by:

• LUAS - operating two tram-lines in the city operated by Veolia Transport
• Dublin Bus - the state owned bus service operating lines in the greater Dublin transport area
• Iarnród Éireann - the national railway company offering intercity services, Commuter and DART services.

Even though the state is owner or important stake-holder for each of these services, they all have their own ticketing scheme. Until the introduction of the Leap card you could have three non-compatible cards for travel within the limits of greater Dublin: a LUAS card to pay for individual journeys, a Dublin Bus smart-card for day, week or year tickets and an Ianrod Eireann card for DART or Commuter tickets.

Railway Procurement Agency

The Railway Procurement Agency started developing an integrated smartcard system. First plans were made at the end of the last century and initially it was planned to introduce an integrated card when the LUAS system would start to operate in 2005. The development of the new system had many delays and set-backs and the costs for the new system were far higher than budgeted.

Even though the state has a lot of influence in the different transport companies, it took the RPA until 2012 to actually introduce the new smart-card system for the general public.

The Leap card

The Leap card is usable on the bus, tram and local railway lines, it can only be used for single journeys within one of the systems. Any form of subscription/multi-day offerings are not possible with the Leap card: each company has their own system for that. One journey using two or more of above systems will require the user to buy separate 'single journeys' for each leg of the journey.

Even though tickets bought with the Leap card are cheaper then single journeys bought with cash money, using the Leap card for frequent travellers is more expensive than using the different weekly or monthly cards. There are plans however to extend the functionalities of the card, like the ability to "upload" a week, month or year-card to a Leap card.

For frequent travellers using only one system one can use the day, weekly, monthly or year-cards for the required route or system. For people who need to use two or more different systems there are several options: the LUAS offers 'combi' subscriptions to be used on LUAS and Dublin Bus.

Cost of fares

According to the operator fares bought with the Leap card are cheaper then single journeys paid with cash. For Dublin bus this is indeed true as they increased their cash paid tickets by 15-20% when the card was introduced. Until 2 January 2012 a 4-7 stage fare using Dublin Bus would have cost €1.60, with the Leap card the price is now €1.70 or €1.90 otherwise. For LUAS a single zone journey with Leap costs €1.45 while the same cash price is €1.60 or €1.70.