the SysAdmin has taken the day off!

I walked this morning.

I think I prefer the way some other cities work: That is there are no barriers as most people aren't thieves. Then tickets are checked on a semi-random basis just to remind people to be honest.

After all this is a public service and not there to line someone's pockets!

With the current hysteria about green issues, anyone who's on the tube isn't driving a car, so why not make it a nicer place to be?

OK, so it's quite evident that the Oyster system can do automatic refunds. Why do they leave it to us then to go on-line and claim refunds when trains run late? Couldn't the system detect late-running trains and then refund us automatically?

Oh, wait, no, it would bankrupt them.

This (and previous crashes) had been the National Identity Card.

"Errmm, We don't seem to have any data on who you are. Off to Gitmo!"

> After all this is a public service and not there to line someone's pockets!

Yeah, right.

"After all this is a public service and not there to line someone's pockets!"

Which trains have you been riding?

Train operators stopped auto refunds to season ticket holders years ago, actually about the time of privatisation. At one time they would extend tickets based on past performance. Now they increase the price based on past performance.

Bad year = Above Inflation Rise

Good Year = Mega Above Inflation Rise.

I am sure I wont be the only one to say what planet are you living on?

"After all this is a public service and not there to line someone's pockets!"

Please read that again and choose the correct (joke) icon next time you post something like that please

<<touch in and out at the beginning and end of their journeys>>

I'd love to be able to do that! Ain't that a bit like "Muffin the Mule"

Paris, obviously.

Try Brussels. It's so cheap it's scarcely worth dodging the fare. The price of LU makes me think of Denis Healy's "Squeeze the pips till they squeak".

"... incorrect data tables being sent out by our contractor, Transys."

Transys = EDS + CTS

With EDS' major cockups and Cubic Transportation Systems worldwide failing ticketing systems that explains.

The update to patch recently cracked Oyster more and more likely to cause some more free travel ... and lack of revenue ... and future fare hikes.

Oyster's £ 1.2 bn initial cost was some well spent money.

Correct. Sadly a significant minority are. The introduction of Oystergates at our local station increased ticket sales by 16%. This would suggest you would pay 10/20% more to not have barriers ... and subsidise the freetards.

Sounds like a nationalisation/privatisation debate...

I agree though!

'imagine if This (and previous crashes) had been the National Identity Card.'

More like

'And tonight Matthew I will be Gordon Brown.'

Or might you think that this run of 'issues' with Oyster is no coincidence?

"OK, so it's quite evident that the Oyster system can do automatic refunds. Why do they leave it to us then to go on-line and claim refunds when trains run late? Couldn't the system detect late-running trains and then refund us automatically?

Oh, wait, no, it would bankrupt them."

If I go from A>B>C, and the B>C train is delayed, how does the system know I'm even at B? I might have gone A>D>C...

Also, what's to stop me going 20 mins early when I know the trains are delayed, reading a paper on the platform and getting a free ride? Absolutely useless suggestion, AC.

I'd love to own one. Pay myself + shareholders lots of money , not spend any on development/maintainance - and then moan to govt that I cannot afford to run it and will have to shut down. Govt gives me a few billion pounds for free. Pull same stunt again next year.

These days its far far cheaper to fly. Says it all really.

""After all this is a public service and not there to line someone's pockets!""

Which trains have you been riding?

He's been on the Coke Line... you can see it on any tube map. It's the white line running around the financial district.

... and Westminster.

ANYONE WHO USES THE UNDERGROUND IS A BIT RETARDED REALLY AS THERE IS A PERFECTLY GOOD OVERGROUND AND BUS SYSTEM.

The vast majority of people are thieves (see software music piracy).

If people really were so honest you would see most shops unmanned including the tills.

People could buy their goods open the till and take the correct change :)

..I use cash. Trains still don't run on time but but at least I preserve a bit of privacy.

...the guys who say they are going to publish information on how to clone oyster cards.

It seems to much of a coincidence to have had the recent court case and these difficulties.

Are they capable of reading MoC CDs? That'll learn 'em.

Value for money from public transport at this rate we won't need our cars!!!

Just wondering if your station has reduced the ticketprices accordingly now that you sell 16% more tickets? (obviously a train costs roughly the same to run if it has 1 passenger, 200 passengers (of which 150 have paid) or 200 passengers (of which 198 have paid, and 2 have cloned oyster cards).

Something to think about?

"ANYONE WHO USES THE UNDERGROUND IS A BIT RETARDED REALLY AS THERE IS A PERFECTLY GOOD OVERGROUND AND BUS SYSTEM."

Er....have you taken your pills today?

Try taking a bus from, for example, Stanmore to Canary Wharf and see how many hours it takes you. It's about fifty minutes on the Tube (except when the Jubilee doesn't have one of its signalling freakouts). Even, say, Putney to Sloane Square, which is a trip down the New Kings Road on the bus, is much quicker on the tube. No traffic, see?

For all the moaning, the Tube isn't too bad, especially when you consider bits of it are nearly 150 years old. It's not too expensive if you have a travelcard, though single journeys can be shocking.

he'd waive the congestion charge just to stop people taking free rides on the tube, then claw it back by taxing the hell out of small shops and hiking c-tax......oh wait, that was his plan to fund the Olympics overspend, danm i knew i heard it somewhere. really, apart from the Athletes I havent met many Londoners who think the transport system will cope, or that the legacy is worth the cost

I'd rather subsidise the 'freetards' than EDS and their barrier system. The barriers are only saving you that 20% if you assume they're free and have no maintenance costs.

"The vast majority of people are thieves (see software music piracy)."

To start with, breach of copyright is not theft. Theft requires something to be taken, not copied. It may be a crime, although many would argue that it shouldn't be, but it is not theft.

"If people really were so honest you would see most shops unmanned including the tills.

People could buy their goods open the till and take the correct change"

Not really comparable situations. If one person sneaks on to a train while everyone else pays, the worst that happen is the train operator loses a few pence. If one person empties the till while everyone else pays honestly, the till is still empty.

I don't think for 1 sec it is the card dupers but even if it was if a shoddily duplicated card that returns invalid data crashed the system the blame lies not with the card duplicators but the input validation & verification code.

If I'd built the card system I would have made sure I'd fuzzed the nuts off it prior to deployment because one can guarantee that if I didn't then someone would be giving it a go down the ine.

'To start with, breach of copyright is not theft. Theft requires something to be taken, not copied. It may be a crime, although many would argue that it shouldn't be, but it is not theft.'

In the UK that is exactly what it is theft (no idea what it is in the US). It is as criminal matter which you can be jailed for. (The copyright holder can sue you seperately in the civil courts in addition to this).

The fact you are stealing a relatively small amount from a large corpoeration makes no legal (or in my opinion moral difference). Theft is theft is you rob a homeless man or mafia crime lord

The government pursues those who steal physical goods. Who pays for this? Everyone; it's a social contract between us all, something like a universal insurance policy.

Who's paying the price of chasing copyright violators? Where is the tit for tat? It's well known that corporations are very good at avoiding taxation, and that media companies in particular are experts in fudging the books to show losses instead of profits. Under the circumstances, It seems to me that holders of copyrights who benefit from government protection should be paying the tab; I suggest a percentage of gross revenue would be the best implementation.

Didn't used to need the underground.

There used to be perfectly good roads to drive on.

Then they clogged them up with bus lanes, nonsensical constrictions, widened pavements and so on, so that they could claim the resultant congestion was the fault of the car drivers, and could charge them extra money to be on the roads.

Mine's the one with the car keys, oh, and the one-way flight ticket out of UK in the pocket...

So presumably they're trying to patch the system to overcome some of the hacking problems, and at least two of the patches have been spectacular failures that needed to be backed out.

Or was it just a trial run of real software designed to disable cards that have been cloned, disguised as a system glitch? I know that mobile phone telcos used to (and maybe still do) disable phones that pop up in multiple places too close together in time to have been the same phone.

Just say no kids.

things like this and the price of a single ticket are the reason I just get a zone 1-6 travelcard whenever I'm in our fair capital... though to be fair I am using it more as a tourist and an everyday commute would be expensive whichever way you use.

Total Farce. Before you do anything on a production system you test the changes you're about to make! - and have a back out and recovery plans.

Looks as if TfL haven't got a smaller working development set up to use.

Good old British incompetence at work again.

Rather than having some very ineffective revenue gathering mechanism, make the underground free and fund it from some other source.

Actaully, you forgot to account for the infrastructural costs which will have to be paid for by the passengers. And all the extra maintenance said infrastructure needs. And the costs when it inevitably is cracked wide open and needs to be overhauled entirely.

I think I'll take the old ticket system where some people would travel without a ticket, because I'm pretty sure that subsidising a few freetards is a lot better than paying for an entire industry branch.

namely, Vienna, I go to a machine and deposit 14 euros (about £11) and for that I get 24 hours a day, 7 days of travel on an extensive Metro system, buses (even night services), a fabulous tram system and regional railways. It's reliable, clean and cheap.

Oyster? Shmoyster!