"Arthur Figgis" wrote:

On 02/06/2011 23:52, Mizter T wrote:
[snip]
You should be able to sidestep things somewhat with a key fob, though
perhaps best not to expect perfection - there still seems to be some
degree of sketchiness to the system. One observation is that if the
payment terminal is sick for whatever reason, presenting the key fob to
the individual docking point generally still seems to work in terms of
getting hold of a bike.

I signed up for a fob when it was launched, and although I've only used it
a few times, I've found it can takes a few attempts to get a bike out the
rack. At least I now know it's not just me.

Though you were successful when trying a *different* rack / docking point
(rather than the same one)?

Until fairly recently, bikes which were reported as faulty (by returning
users) and which couldn't thus be hired had nothing to differentiate them
from other bikes which were available for hire - so when a user tried to
take one of these bikes, they'd be presented with a red light (fairly pronto
it seemed). A recent change has meant that docking points with faulty and
thus unavailable bikes now show a steady red light all the time, rather than
just when someone tries to take that bike.

That doesn't explain those times when after presenting the key fob you get
an extended period of flashing yellow followed by a red, rather than a
green, but then it works fine when you try it again (on a different docking
point) - I assume that's some sort of database lookup or comms failure -
next time it happens I'll endeavour to remember and try the *same* docking
point again and see if it works on a second attempt (if it's just a
database/comms glitch then it should, regardless of which particular docking
point one is trying to get a bike from).