Roland Perry wrote:
"Thousands of rail, bus and Tube passengers enjoyed free
transport on Saturday after London’s Oyster card network
collapsed.

Barriers are rail and tube stations were opened by staff after
Oyster card 'reader' machines used to register the start and end
of each journey failed to work throughout the network."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/road-and-rail-
transport/12077955/Londons-Oyster-card-system-crashes-giving-thousands-
free-travel.html

I wonder if this is a random fault, or a "Y2K" type of problem.

I remember when the Nottingham City Transport smartcard had one of the
latter at New Year in around 2006.

I notice that the handwritten sign says that contactless cards should be
used as normal, so the fault was specifically with the Oyster system. Apart
from the change of year, there was also the normal New Year's free travel
-- I wonder if the attempt to re-set to normal chargeable travel failed?