Free travel on buses today!
 

It looks as if Oyster readers are not working on any London bus today.
Why not?

Free travel on buses today!
 

"Offramp" wrote in message
...
It looks as if Oyster readers are not working on any London bus today.
Why not?

"Card fault hits London transport"

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/7503197.stm

Don't know what the Beeb are getting at here though:

"Passengers can currently use Oyster cards as a travel card to cover fares
for periods up to one year, as well as to cover single journeys for travel
to London destinations including overground stations.

It recently emerged that commuters within London travelling on First Great
Western (FGW) trains will be able to use pay-as-you-go Oyster cards from
September."

Suppose it depends what the author understands by 'overground' - but it
seems to ignore all the existing NR services where PAYG is available...

Paul S

Free travel on buses today!
 

On Jul 12, 5:13*pm, Offramp wrote:
It looks as if Oyster readers are not working on any London bus today.
Why not?

However, BBC reports at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/e...n/7503197.stm:

A fault lasting from about 0530 BST to 0930 BST on Saturday meant card
readers did not work and some passengers could be charged a maximum
fare by mistake.

Cheers,
George W Russell
Bangalore

Free travel on buses today!
 

Paul Scott wrote:
"Offramp" wrote in message
...
It looks as if Oyster readers are not working on any London bus today.
Why not?

"Card fault hits London transport"

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/7503197.stm

Don't know what the Beeb are getting at here though:

"Passengers can currently use Oyster cards as a travel card to cover fares
for periods up to one year, as well as to cover single journeys for travel
to London destinations including overground stations.

It recently emerged that commuters within London travelling on First Great
Western (FGW) trains will be able to use pay-as-you-go Oyster cards from
September."

Suppose it depends what the author understands by 'overground' - but it
seems to ignore all the existing NR services where PAYG is available...

"A fault lasting from about 0530 BST to 0930 BST on Saturday meant
card readers did not work and some passengers could be charged a
maximum fare by mistake."

It's still not working on buses at 1:30pm.
LOROL!

Free travel on buses today!
 

On Sat, 12 Jul 2008 05:13:24 -0700 (PDT), Offramp
wrote:

It looks as if Oyster readers are not working on any London bus today.
Why not?

Complete guess but I would expect a software change / download to be the
problem. All the gates are "on line" so can have revised software
downloaded quickly. Buses would get it via the garage system and hence
the comments from TfL about buses needing to go back to garages to be
"reset" later today.

All the buses I used this morning had "defective" card readers. One
driver had put a piece of paper over the reader saying "free day" and
happily telling everyone that it was a "special offer day" on the tube
and buses.
--
Paul C


Admits to working for London Underground!

Free travel on buses today!
 

"Offramp" wrote in message
...

It's still not working on buses at 1:30pm.
LOROL!

They also weren't working as at 7pm this evening.

Free travel on buses today!
 

On Sat, 12 Jul 2008 19:15:44 +0100, wrote:

"Offramp" wrote in message
...

It's still not working on buses at 1:30pm.
LOROL!

They also weren't working as at 7pm this evening.

My local route had working machines just after 1800 - the bus had been
in service all day but I assume there'd been a driver change and the new
module being put in the machine got things working again.

Every other bus (8 in all) I've been on today (barring a bendy where I
didn't check) has had non operative readers.
--
Paul C


Admits to working for London Underground!

Free travel on buses today!
 

On Jul 12, 1:49 pm, Paul Corfield wrote:
On Sat, 12 Jul 2008 05:13:24 -0700 (PDT), Offramp

wrote:
It looks as if Oyster readers are not working on any London bus today.
Why not?

Complete guess but I would expect a software change / download to be the
problem. All the gates are "on line" so can have revised software
downloaded quickly. Buses would get it via the garage system and hence
the comments from TfL about buses needing to go back to garages to be
"reset" later today.

All the buses I used this morning had "defective" card readers. One
driver had put a piece of paper over the reader saying "free day" and
happily telling everyone that it was a "special offer day" on the tube
and buses.
--
Paul C

Admits to working for London Underground!



The problem with the software was that any card touched on a bit of
Oyster kit was hotlisted and permenantly disabled. Anyone affected by
this will have to get a brand new card.

Yet another PFI cock up, albeit only one day, not long after a few
weeks ago when they were updating software on the LU Radios which they
didnt realise was causing them not to work, until alphabetically it
got to D for District! (At least the W&C would be pleased)

Free travel on buses today!
 

In message
, at
18:30:18 on Sat, 12 Jul 2008, chunky munky
remarked:

The problem with the software was that any card touched on a bit of
Oyster kit was hotlisted and permenantly disabled. Anyone affected by
this will have to get a brand new card.

Really? Have there been any press reports of this. You'd think people
would have noticed. And what about folks with combined Barclaycard/
Oyster, do you think they'll need a new one too?

If this was the case, how did people manage to "touch out" later in the
day, having attempted to "touch in" earlier?

--
Roland Perry

Free travel on buses today!
 

"Roland Perry" wrote in message
...
In message
, at
18:30:18 on Sat, 12 Jul 2008, chunky munky
remarked:

The problem with the software was that any card touched on a bit of
Oyster kit was hotlisted and permenantly disabled. Anyone affected by
this will have to get a brand new card.

Really? Have there been any press reports of this. You'd think people
would have noticed. And what about folks with combined Barclaycard/
Oyster, do you think they'll need a new one too?

If this was the case, how did people manage to "touch out" later in the
day, having attempted to "touch in" earlier?

According to a staff bulletin put out Saturday morning, a "corrupted
electronic file" uploaded overnight meant that any oyster used before 09:30
was hotlisted and permanently disabled. The figure on the bulletin that I
saw said that it could be as many as 100,000 cards that had been killed.
The, admittedly few, stations I went through yesterday all had their gates
set open, so no-one would need to touch in or out to access the system or
leave, This was still the case at 21:55 last night at Turnpike. I suspect
Monday morning is going to be a bit lively...
--
Cheers, Steve.
Change jealous to sad to reply.