Paul Corfield wrote:
On Sun, 27 May 2007 22:12:25 -0400, David of Broadway
wrote:

Neil Williams wrote:
On Sun, 27 May 2007 10:59:12 +0100, traveller
wrote:

I boarded a London Bus with an Oyster Card that had insufficient credit
for the journey. I had used it twice previously during the day and was
unaware that the credit was running low.
This is either a troll or a person who did not check for the bleep and
green light on boarding.
Probably the latter. I doubt everybody instinctively knows to wait for
a bleep and a green light.

I think almost everyone knows that the machine beeps and the lights
change. Pre-pay users tend to squint at the machine display the see
their total - I still think the displays are appalling in this respect.

People who ride the bus every day probably are as you describe.

People who ride the bus occasionally probably are not.

Tourists certainly are not.

(And we also have terrible displays in New York -- they only display a
single line at a time, so people stand and wait around to see the
balance remaining or the expiration date while the rest of the crowd is
still waiting outside in the rain.)

For those of us who are colour blind the lights are useless given that
there is only one small "pinhole" light that changes colour. The old
trial on route 212 had a clear display and obvious illuminated segments,
like a traffic light, which were lit depending on the card status. At
least then the relative position of the lights was an aid to those who
are colour blind.

Interesting point. I don't think we have colo(u)red lights -- we have
the text display and a beep or boop. We also have a display mounted on
the wall /behind/ the driver (out of view to both the driver and the
boarding passenger) indicating the type of fare paid; this is nicknamed
the beakie box and is used by supervisors to ensure that the driver is
applying the correct fares.

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. 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. 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.

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. Cards can be replaced at MTR stations if your
card has failed otherwise a defective gate (a very rare occurrence) is
taken out of service. TfL really needs to get kit reliability sorted
once and for all and also to publish some clear rules on what happens
when the system does fail. At present it is open to too much
interpretation and people taking a punt on fare evasion as a result.

IMO, the Hong Kong policy is overly strict. The policy in New York is
that if a bus farebox is broken -- either the MetroCard slot or the coin
slot -- then everybody boards for free, at least until the end of the
run, when (IINM) a determination is made whether to keep the bus in
service or to swap it with a bus with a working farebox. If the farebox
itself is working but a MetroCard isn't, then, officially, the customer
is given an envelope (to mail in the card for a replacement or refund)
and is expected to pay by some other means (cash or a different
MetroCard); in practice, however, most drivers will simply allow the
customer to board. (Not so on the subway! I've had MetroCards die
prematurely on several occasions -- on one of those occasions it had
been killed by an errant bus farebox that morning! -- and I have always
been required to use another card to enter the system.)
--
David of Broadway
New York, NY, USA