London Transit Card Fails Again

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 Transport for London (TfL) and its IT contractor TranSys have both issued apologies after the second failure of the Oyster card in two weeks. A technical problem meant that Oyster card readers at London underground stations failed to work on July 25, 2008. However, Oyster readers on London buses were not affected by the glitch.

TfL operates London’s public transit networks. Oyster is TfL’s prepaid contactless transit card.

Earlier this month, TfL said it would replace 60,000 Oyster cards after an IT system malfunction on July 12, 2008 which corrupted cards as they were used (the cards affected by the malfunction either stopped working or incurred a fine).

TfL blamed both the latest failure and the earlier problem on TranSys, which manages the Oyster card system. TranSys is a joint venture between IT firms EDS and Cubic.

“This new problem, like the recent issue, resulted from incorrect data tables being sent out by our contractor,” TfL said in a statement.

The apology from TranSys included an undertaking to correct the problem. “Steps are being taken to ensure that this does not happen again, and we will undertake a full root cause analysis,” TranSys said.

The BBC reported that the latest technical fault left Peter Hendy, Transport Commissioner for London, “incandescent with rage.” "We are determined that neither TfL nor Londoners lose a penny from either of these system failures,” Hendy told the BBC.

In response, both TfL and TranSys said in their statements that passengers would be refunded automatically for any excess charges paid as a result of the latest fault.

TfL dealt with the fault by leaving ticket barriers open, allowing anyone to travel free of charge.

Customers affected by the earlier fault were also promised a refund of any charges they incurred.