Public transport fares to rise for many before Christmas

The cost of using public transport for some commuters is set to go up from the beginning of December although the authority which regulates prices has stressed that the increases are modest and there will actually be falls in some areas.

Under a ruling from the National Transport Authority (NTA) adult users of Dublin Bus will see fares increase of as much 15 cent, a jump which will amount to an annual increases of nearly €70 for regular users of the service.

Dublin Bus users paying in cash will have to pay an additional five cent for in the 1-3 zone area while the 4-7 stage and 8-13 stage bands for cash fares have been merged into one single band.

From the beginning of December, the fare for the merged band will be €2.70 an increase of 15 cent for the 4-7 stage but a decline of 10 cent for what was once the 8 to 13 stages.

School children using Dublin Bus will have to pay an additional 5 cent each day if they pay in cash but the regular child fares will not increase next year, under a ruling.

Some users of the Luas service will be hit with increases of €60 a year although they will be able to travel further on the network at no additional cost.

As it stands passengers with three zone annual tickets pay €850 but the three zone tickets are being scrapped in favour of an all-zone ticket which will cost €910.

Price increases on Irish Rail have been kept to a "minimum" with the NTA saying it had approved lower increases than Irish Rail had asked for.

A maximum increase of 3 per cent on monthly and annual fares has been approved while a 4 per cent increase in the cost of a three day or seven day travel ticket has also been granted in a move to encourage more people to user cheaper Leap cards.

Short Hop zone train fares are to go up by between 1.4 per cent and 4.2 per cent.

Bus Eireann has been granted an overall fare increase of 1.5 per cent. Some fares on the network will increase by up to 5 per cent while others will fall by a corresponding amount.

"The Authority inherited a highly complex, and in many cases illogical, fares structure when we took on the regulation of public transport services in Ireland at the end of 2009," chief executive Anne Graham said.

“We also want to further incentivise people to choose Leap card to pay for their travel - by maintaining a substantial price differential between Leap fares and cash fares.

“Leap card is now used to pay for some 1.5 million public transport journeys in Ireland every week - representing about €2.5million in electronic transactions, which are cheaper for the operators to manage, and mean that the passenger benefits from shorter wait-times at each stop as people pay, as well as paying less for their trip - Leap will always be at least 20pc cheaper than cash for a single journey”.