Alan Kelly (Tipperary North, Labour)

The responsibility to develop, procure, implement, operate and maintain the integrated ticketing system in the greater Dublin area became the function of the National Transport Authority with effect from 30 September 2010, in accordance with section 58 of the Dublin Transport Authority Act 2008.

I am informed by the NTA that the Leapcard scheme has got off to a strong start and is proving popular with increasing numbers of passengers. There are 57,000 cards in circulation and cardholders are regularly topping up their cards in payzone locations and online. More than €2 million has been received to date and, a first announcement, in excess of 900,000 journeys have been taken using Leapcards since the launch on 12 December 2011. The current average is 35,000 trips per day.

The Leapcard call centre had received complaints from fewer than 0.4% of cardholders, or approximately 200 formal complaints, by the end of January. All of these have been followed up by the scheme's operator with the complainants. The NTA has not conducted surveys of customer reactions as yet but the authority has advised me that over the coming months it will carry out research in conjunction with transport operators to assess customer reactions.

The overwhelming response from customers has been positive and although there are some teething issues which are being addressed the volume of sales and usage has exceeded expectations for this stage in the launch period. Over the course of 2012 there will be a progressive increase in functionality and expansion to additional operators.

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