On Mon, 28 May 2007 10:35:26 +0100, Paul Corfield wrote:

Seeing as this wasn't a bendy-bus, why didn't the driver point out
traveller's error right away? That's what the drivers here do when the
farebox gives a boop instead of a beep.

There is an awful lot of inconsistent behaviour from drivers coupled
with equipment that even now performs in a rather variable fashion.
Although total reader failures seem to be lower than before they still
happen and drivers simply have to wave people on. Other readers misread
some cards but not all - this again can result in "wave on" syndrome or
else passengers trying their cards 3-4 times. The height at which
readers recognise cards also varies which I find most odd - this should
be consistently set. I saw someone have to press their card almost
inside the reader before it read the card. Goodness knows what was going
on there.

Failing card?

The other remaining issue is the small minority of passengers
who have no intention of paying and board with an empty PAYG card and
then allege card failure, reader failure, a sob story of having no money
to pay etc and then hoping the driver is in "wave on" mode.

The trick I see most often is to wave the card just briefly in the
vicinity of the reader, causing it to give the error beeps and display
something like "card communication error", and then walk on. Often,
the driver doesn't bother calling the passenger back for another try,
and even if they do, they just pay the normal PAYG fare - no risk of
being kicked off and having to wait for the next bus.

While I
sympathise with the drivers when the kit completely fails I think there
is a little too much discretion shown by some drivers in the more
marginal "failure" modes.

Agreed.

The lack of clarity from TfL was to what is or is not to be done with
failed equipment or failed cards does not help. In Hong Kong it is
clear - a failed reader (rare these days) means you pay cash on the bus
or wait for the next one.

Do TfL bus ticket machines even have the ability to issue £1 singles
to Oyster card holders (for when the reader fails)?