On Tue, 28 Jul 2009 05:13:18 -0700 (PDT), Paul Oter
wrote:

On 27 July, 21:34, Roland Perry wrote:
In message , at 20:46:01 on
Mon, 27 Jul 2009, asdf remarked:

I had a paper ticket today and one of the gates at KX tube wouldn't accept
my ticket into the slot. A commuter pointed out that it was an "Oyster
only" gate - indicated merely by the dim green LCD that you don't need to
look at, if you have a paper ticket. Are these gates common/recent?

There are usually one or two on the plat. 15-19 line at Victoria, but the
staff there make it very obvious the paper ticket slot is inactive by
wrapping it with yellow tape. I think I've seen a gate that only accepts
paper tickets there as well.

On LU the staff have rectangular blue stickers saying "Oyster Only"
that they can tape across the ticket slot. I've also seen a circular
yellow sticker that looks like an Oyster reader with a red border and
line through it, stuck on a gate's defective Oyster reader.

This one wasn't marked at all (other than the LCD display). I wondered
if it was deliberate because it was the end one in the line (in the
middle of complete row) and because the commuter scolded me very
rapidly.

I use KX LU (both tube and western ticket halls) daily, with my paper
season ticket. It's not uncommon to find my ticket not being accepted
by the slot (by which I mean I try to insert my ticket but it doesn't
get taken up by the rollers). As others have reported, these ticket
gates are remarkably unreliable. There's usually at least one gate
with the card slot taped over as a reult.

Congestion would be avoided if LU could invest in some portable high
level "Oyster Only" signs to be erected over part-failed gates -
customers would then know in advance which gates to avoid insteadof
having to rudely push their way into an adjacent gate queue.
,

--
Peter Lawrence