Cork city bus setback: Leap Card machines won’t be rolled out ‘until early next year’

Upgrades to Cork city’s bus system have been delayed until next year, as the National Transport Authority (NTA) has confirmed its new machines do not function as expected.

The NTA previously told The Echo that the rollout of a new Leap Card validator system across the urban bus fleet in Cork would be complete in Q3 of 2025, the end of September.

An NTA spokesperson confirmed on Tuesday: “Currently, all bus passengers on Cork city services have to go to the ticket machine by the bus driver to pay for the bus journey. The requirement to interact with the driver adds considerably to boarding time on buses and lengthens overall bus journey times.

“To address this, the NTA has initiated a project to provide Leap Card validators on a pole at the front door of each bus. This will allow passengers to tap their Leap Card to pay the 90-minute fare at the validator, speeding up boarding times.

“Recent testing of the new validators provided by the supplier has identified that the speed of the hardware in processing Leap Card transactions, and the overall software resilience of the system, is less than expected.”

“The supplier has been directed by the NTA to resolve these issues prior to the deployment of the new equipment.

“This need to enhance the performance of the equipment does mean that the intended rollout of this ticketing upgrade, which was originally planned to be completed by the end of this year, will now be deferred until early next year.

“While the NTA is disappointed that the supplier has encountered these problems, we do not want to prematurely introduce a solution that does not perform at the intended level.

“We expect the supplier to remedy these issues expeditiously, which, assuming they are successful, will then allow the system to be re-tested and permit release into operation early next year.”

This will have a knock-on effect on the planned 90-minute Leap Card flat fare, which would have meant passengers could travel as much as they wanted within an hour and a half for a fare similar to one bus journey.

“The introduction of the 90-minute fare is linked to the provision of the new validators,” said the NTA spokesperson. “Accordingly, the initiation of that new fare arrangement will also now take place early next year.”

The 90-minute fare was set to be operational from August, and previous updates had said it would be rolled out separately to the ticketing upgrade.

The 90-minute fare has been in effect in Dublin for four years, while Leap Card validator poles have been on Dublin buses for over a decade.

Sinn Féin TD for Cork North Central Thomas Gould, to whom the information was provided on foot of a parliamentary question, told The Echo: “Once again, we have vital improvements to Cork’s bus service delayed. Every single improvement has met delay after delay after delay.

“Where is the accountability and transparency?”