"asdf" wrote in message
...
On Sun, 19 Nov 2006 16:48:22 +0000, Paul Corfield wrote:

Of course, there will be major problems when the next 7/7 type emergency
happens and a station has to be evacuated. Normally in such cases the
gates
are all opened to ease egress, but how many PAYG Oyster customers will
stop
to make sure they won't lose out on a fiver, thereby causing mass
blockage
at the gates?

No there won't as there are special facilities built into the entire
system to deal with emergency situations. These have been enhanced to
add new functionality as part of the software developments to support
this change to pre-pay arrangements.

That does solve the problem of people being charged £4 for being
evacuated, but doesn't necessarily solve the problem posed...

And the more people are trained to use their Oyster to avoid the extra fare,
the more people will automatically stop to do it no matter of the emergency.
There are a lot of 'forgetful' (I am trying to avoid usig the word stupid)
people who will stop to touch in an emergecny situation as they have been
programmed to do it. And you will still end up with people who walk up to
the gate and hten decide they need to find their Oyster card whilst blocking
the exit, (despite gate being open) in much the same way, we've all at some
time or another been ages in a supermarket queue only to have to watch as
the person in front packs all their shopping and waits for the cashier to
ask them before they then spend 2 mns trying to find their wallets despite
knowing they would need it and could have got themselves sorted beforehand.
People are stupid and it seems to be getting worse, add to this the effects
of panic and the fact that a lot of tourists probably won't have a clue
what's happening. I know I'd rather lose £5 than my life, but unfortunatly
in a case like this no matter how sensisble I and others might be, it only
needs 1 persons to screw it up for everyone else.