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It looks as if Oyster readers are not working on any London bus today.
Why not? |
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"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 |
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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 |
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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! |
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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! |
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"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. |
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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! |
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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) |
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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 |
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"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. |
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Paul Corfield wrote in
: 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. I thought for a minute it was the new mayor of London attempting to make himself popular... Richard |
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On Sun, 13 Jul 2008 11:02:42 GMT, Richard Dixon
wrote: Paul Corfield wrote in : 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. I thought for a minute it was the new mayor of London attempting to make himself popular... It will be interesting to see what the reaction from Team Boris is. -- Paul C Admits to working for London Underground! |
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On 13 Jul, 02:30, chunky munky wrote:
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) Please explain how public sector ownership would have prevented this; you may use any data you have available on the relative customer service, IT and project management competence of public sector and private sector management. -- John Band john at johnband dot org www.johnband.org |
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Steve Dulieu wrote:
"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. In what sense are they "permanently" disabled? Does it just mean that the Oyster people can't be bothered to do the necessary reprogramming over the weekend to undo the 'disabled' setting? Was anything written to the cards themselves, or have they just been entered on a central list? -- Richard J. (to email me, swap 'uk' and 'yon' in address) |
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In message , at 10:36:33
on Sun, 13 Jul 2008, Steve Dulieu remarked: 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 Interesting. The media is mainly covering the aspect (which sounds from your information like a hoax) that people only-touching-out, later in the day, will pay penalty fares. If no-one is touching out at all (and indeed 100k people couldn't touch out anyway) this sounds improbable. TFL is compounding the situation by saying that these penalty fares will be cancelled automatically in a special operation. -- Roland Perry |
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"Roland Perry" wrote in message ... TFL is compounding the situation by saying that these penalty fares will be cancelled automatically in a special operation. Er.. 'maximum cash fares' to be accurate... Paul S |
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In message , at 13:42:39 on
Sun, 13 Jul 2008, Paul Scott remarked: TFL is compounding the situation by saying that these penalty fares will be cancelled automatically in a special operation. Er.. 'maximum cash fares' to be accurate... Normally I might agree with you, but this time it's a penalty for TFL's cockup :) -- Roland Perry |
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"Roland Perry" wrote in message ... In message , at 10:36:33 on Sun, 13 Jul 2008, Steve Dulieu remarked: 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 Interesting. The media is mainly covering the aspect (which sounds from your information like a hoax) that people only-touching-out, later in the day, will pay penalty fares. If no-one is touching out at all (and indeed 100k people couldn't touch out anyway) this sounds improbable. TFL is compounding the situation by saying that these penalty fares will be cancelled automatically in a special operation. A further bulletin has set out the procedure for cards that have been disabled... "Customers who present disabled cards should be referred to the ticket office. If the ticket office is closed or the queue very long then customers with disabled cards should be permitted to travel and invited to visit the ticket office at their destination if possible. Presented cards should be checked via the TOM to see if it can be read, if it can then follow normal procedure. If a card cannot be read, then the normal failed card procedure should be used. Where a customer advises that the disabled card held either less than £10 of PAYG value or any weekly travelcard then a replacement can be issued immediately with no further checks necessary. The amount or remaining days of the weekly indicated by the customer should be loaded on the card. If the customer advises that the card held a higher PAYG value than £10 or a longer period travel card, you should call the CSC on auto XXXX to validate their details prior to issue. If you cannot get through, advise the customer that they can travel using their oyster card for visual inspection only and should return to the ticket office later. If the card is of a type that cannot be replaced at a ticket office - eg a freedom pass - then the customer should be advised to follow the usual replacement procedure. Freedom pass holders should be advised to contact the council of issue. Child photocard holders should apply for a replacement by using the number on the back of the card." Apparently extra supplies of oyster blanks and gateline passes are being distributed to busy stations, as well as RCIs being deployed at key locations to provide support. The same bulletin also says that customers who were within the system before 09:30 "may" have been charged a maximum fare on exit. It says that this will be addressed automatically via gatelines on Tuesday morning. Hope this goes some way towards helping people understand what's going on. -- Cheers, Steve. Change jealous to sad to reply. |
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In message , at
16:04:04 on Sun, 13 Jul 2008, Steve Dulieu remarked: If the card is of a type that cannot be replaced at a ticket office - eg a freedom pass - then the customer should be advised to follow the usual replacement procedure. Freedom pass holders should be advised to contact the council of issue. Child photocard holders should apply for a replacement by using the number on the back of the card." And people with a Barclaycard/Oyster?? -- Roland Perry |
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"Roland Perry" wrote in message ... In message , at 16:04:04 on Sun, 13 Jul 2008, Steve Dulieu remarked: If the card is of a type that cannot be replaced at a ticket office - eg a freedom pass - then the customer should be advised to follow the usual replacement procedure. Freedom pass holders should be advised to contact the council of issue. Child photocard holders should apply for a replacement by using the number on the back of the card." And people with a Barclaycard/Oyster?? Doesn't mention them at all. At a guess, and having never seen a Barclay card oyster, I suspect they have to contact the card issuer. -- Cheers, Steve. Change jealous to sad to reply. |
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In message , at
16:41:57 on Sun, 13 Jul 2008, Steve Dulieu remarked: And people with a Barclaycard/Oyster?? Doesn't mention them at all. At a guess, and having never seen a Barclay card oyster, I suspect they have to contact the card issuer. I wonder if TFL have warned the Barclaycard helpdesk, and also instructed their barrier-folk to let those cards through for the next week or two on the nod as well? -- Roland Perry |
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"Roland Perry" wrote in message ... In message , at 16:41:57 on Sun, 13 Jul 2008, Steve Dulieu remarked: And people with a Barclaycard/Oyster?? Doesn't mention them at all. At a guess, and having never seen a Barclay card oyster, I suspect they have to contact the card issuer. I wonder if TFL have warned the Barclaycard helpdesk, and also instructed their barrier-folk to let those cards through for the next week or two on the nod as well? One would hope so... -- Cheers, Steve. Change jealous to sad to reply. |
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Steve Dulieu wrote:
A further bulletin has set out the procedure for cards that have been disabled... "Customers who present disabled cards should be referred to the ticket office. If the ticket office is closed or the queue very long then customers with disabled cards should be permitted to travel and invited to visit the ticket office at their destination if possible. Presented cards should be checked via the TOM to see if it can be read, if it can then follow normal procedure. If a card cannot be read, then the normal failed card procedure should be used. Where a customer advises that the disabled card held either less than £10 of PAYG value or any weekly travelcard then a replacement can be issued immediately with no further checks necessary. The amount or remaining days of the weekly indicated by the customer should be loaded on the card. If the customer advises that the card held a higher PAYG value than £10 or a longer period travel card, you should call the CSC on auto XXXX to validate their details prior to issue. If you cannot get through, advise the customer that they can travel using their oyster card for visual inspection only and should return to the ticket office later. If the card is of a type that cannot be replaced at a ticket office - eg a freedom pass - then the customer should be advised to follow the usual replacement procedure. Freedom pass holders should be advised to contact the council of issue. Child photocard holders should apply for a replacement by using the number on the back of the card." Apparently extra supplies of oyster blanks and gateline passes are being distributed to busy stations, as well as RCIs being deployed at key locations to provide support. The same bulletin also says that customers who were within the system before 09:30 "may" have been charged a maximum fare on exit. It says that this will be addressed automatically via gatelines on Tuesday morning. Hope this goes some way towards helping people understand what's going on. It does indeed, Steve. Thanks very much. Pity that TfL don't seem to feel the need to give any information at all on their website. -- Richard J. (to email me, swap 'uk' and 'yon' in address) |
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It does indeed, Steve. Thanks very much. Pity that TfL don't seem to feel the need to give any information at all on their website. Linked to from the home page: http://www.tfl.gov.uk/tfl/news/oyster.aspx |
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"Roland Perry" wrote in message ... In message , at 13:42:39 on Sun, 13 Jul 2008, Paul Scott remarked: TFL is compounding the situation by saying that these penalty fares will be cancelled automatically in a special operation. Er.. 'maximum cash fares' to be accurate... Normally I might agree with you, but this time it's a penalty for TFL's cockup :) I see the latest BBC update refers to some people having been 'fined' too... Paul |
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dB wrote:
It does indeed, Steve. Thanks very much. Pity that TfL don't seem to feel the need to give any information at all on their website. Linked to from the home page: http://www.tfl.gov.uk/tfl/news/oyster.aspx I stand corrected (I must have looked at the LU home page rather than TfL's), but it's still not on the News Centre page. Perhaps that's reserved for good news. -- Richard J. (to email me, swap 'uk' and 'yon' in address) |
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Steve Dulieu wrote:
"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. We got on a W4 to Tottenham* about 06.30 on Sunday morning and my gf didn't get her Oyster disabled when she touched in. * Never again! :-) |
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Dave Newt wrote: We got on a W4 to Tottenham* about 06.30 on Sunday morning and my gf didn't get her Oyster disabled when she touched in. (Obviously I meant Saturday.) |
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Paul Corfield wrote:
On Sun, 13 Jul 2008 11:02:42 GMT, Richard Dixon wrote: Paul Corfield wrote in : 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. I thought for a minute it was the new mayor of London attempting to make himself popular... It will be interesting to see what the reaction from Team Boris is. I have to admit, I did wonder, having seen this story: http://www.thelondondailynews.com/oy...nks-p-900.html whether it was sabotage by a disgruntled employee! |
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Steve Dulieu wrote:
A further bulletin has set out the procedure for cards that have been disabled... "Customers who present disabled cards should be referred to the ticket office. If the ticket office is closed or the queue very long then customers with disabled cards should be permitted to travel and invited to visit the ticket office at their destination if possible. ..... where the queue will almost certainly be even longer. |
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In message , at
16:04:04 on Sun, 13 Jul 2008, Steve Dulieu remarked: "Customers who present disabled cards should be referred to the ticket office. A rare use in the transport industry of the word "disabled" to mean "non-functional", rather than "for wheelchair users". -- Roland Perry |
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On 13 Jul, 17:04, "Steve Dulieu"
wrote: "Roland Perry" wrote in message ... In message , at 10:36:33 on Sun, 13 Jul 2008, Steve Dulieu remarked: If the card is of a type that cannot be replaced at a ticket office - eg a freedom pass - then the customer should be advised to follow the usual replacement procedure. Freedom pass holders should be advised to contact the council of issue. Child photocard holders should apply for a replacement by using the number on the back of the card." This is iniquitous. Those who have most need for the card (Freedom pass - which includes the handicapped (not using disabled to present confusion)) have the longest to wait to get their cards replaced. I would have thought TfL should have made strenuous efforts to ensure this group were not disadvantaged compared to 'ordinary' Oyster card holders. Sid |
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On 14 Jul, 09:39, "Richard J." wrote:
wrote: On 13 Jul, 17:04, "Steve Dulieu" wrote: "Roland Perry" wrote in message ... In message , at 10:36:33 on Sun, 13 Jul 2008, Steve Dulieu remarked: If the card is of a type that cannot be replaced at a ticket office - eg a freedom pass - then the customer should be advised to follow the usual replacement procedure. Freedom pass holders should be advised to contact the council of issue. Child photocard holders should apply for a replacement by using the number on the back of the card." This is iniquitous. Those who have most need for the card (Freedom pass - which includes the handicapped (not using disabled to present confusion)) have the longest to wait to get their cards replaced. I would have thought TfL should have made strenuous efforts to ensure this group were not disadvantaged compared to 'ordinary' Oyster card holders. They are not disadvantaged. "Our staff will be instructed to allow these card holders to continue to travel whilst replacements are issued." For most boroughs (all except Barking and Dagenham, Havering, Sutton, Wandsworth), replacement of a damaged older person's Freedom Pass can be done at a Post Office, according towww.freedompass.org. I stand corrected. I was going by the quoted text in an earlier posting in this Usenet thread where that text is not present. Having read the page on TfL's website now, I see you are correct. Being of a suspicious mind, I wonder if the statement was amended at some point? Either way, the result is the same for any Freedom Pass holders disadvantaged by the TfL systems failure, which is a good thing. I'm of the mind that says that you can tell a lot about the quality of an organisation by how it handles things after a cock-up - providing good service when everything is working is taken for granted: it's how service if provided when everything goes to pot that is important and leaves long-lasting impressions. Cheers, Sid |
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On Mon, 14 Jul 2008 08:39:38 GMT, "Richard J."
wrote: They are not disadvantaged. "Our staff will be instructed to allow these card holders to continue to travel whilst replacements are issued." Ah, I see. Looks like they did do what was suggested. Neil -- Neil Williams Put my first name before the at to reply. |
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On Mon, 14 Jul 2008 08:39:38 GMT, Richard J. wrote:
If the card is of a type that cannot be replaced at a ticket office - eg a freedom pass - then the customer should be advised to follow the usual replacement procedure. Freedom pass holders should be advised to contact the council of issue. Child photocard holders should apply for a replacement by using the number on the back of the card." This is iniquitous. Those who have most need for the card (Freedom pass - which includes the handicapped (not using disabled to present confusion)) have the longest to wait to get their cards replaced. I would have thought TfL should have made strenuous efforts to ensure this group were not disadvantaged compared to 'ordinary' Oyster card holders. They are not disadvantaged. "Our staff will be instructed to allow these card holders to continue to travel whilst replacements are issued." Having to re-apply for a pass is a disadvantage. Why can't replacements just be sent out automatically? |
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In message , at 00:02:34 on
Tue, 15 Jul 2008, asdf remarked: Having to re-apply for a pass is a disadvantage. Why can't replacements just be sent out automatically? Maybe they don't know which passes were used on Saturday morning and are therefore disabled? -- Roland Perry |
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On Tue, 15 Jul 2008 08:41:02 +0100, Roland Perry wrote:
Having to re-apply for a pass is a disadvantage. Why can't replacements just be sent out automatically? Maybe they don't know which passes were used on Saturday morning and are therefore disabled? Surely their giant information-hoovering privacy-invading (etc) database has that data? But even if it doesn't, they could at least have a fast-track replacement procedure. Something like: phone a number, give your name, and they post out a duplicate pass to the registered address. |
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On 15 Jul, 23:48, asdf wrote:
On Tue, 15 Jul 2008 08:41:02 +0100, Roland Perry wrote: Having to re-apply for a pass is a disadvantage. Why can't replacements just be sent out automatically? Maybe they don't know which passes were used on Saturday morning and are therefore disabled? Surely their giant information-hoovering privacy-invading (etc) database has that data? But even if it doesn't, they could at least have a fast-track replacement procedure. Something like: phone a number, give your name, and they post out a duplicate pass to the registered address. This is a guess, and only a guess. The disabled cards have been put on a blacklist referenced by all Oyster validators. To keep the storage of such a blacklist small, it will have the minimum amount of info in it: in other words, only the id numbers of the blacklisted cards. The application that generates the blacklist probably generates the blacklist directly - after all, "it's only ever going to be added to isn't it?" . So there's no need to record the date on which a card entered the blacklist. Hence, TfL quite possibly have no way of knowing when a particular card was blacklisted, and so can't reverse the operational error. Oops. It would be sensible for a database somewhere (not the blacklist itself, which is downloaded to all sorts of memory restricted devices) to keep records of when a card is blacklisted, and the location it was last used in. Alternatively, TfL do have the info, but don't want the bother of running the report to identify the cards blacklisted on Saturday. Cheers, Sid |
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