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TranSys, which runs London’s Oyster card system is to have its contract terminated five years early it has been revealed.
The Contract which is worth £100m a year was due to run until 2015 but TfL has decided to exercise a clause in the contract to cancel it five years early in 2010.
A TfL spokesman said “the move is not related to two recent system failures that forced staff to open Tube barriers for several hours.”
He continued and said “there is no financial penalty associated with TfL’s decision to cut short the contract.”
London’s Oyster card ticket system failed again this morning at around 05:30 which is the start of the peak time, the second time in two weeks. The latest problem affected the pay as you go system resulting in all London Underground stations being forced to leave their ticket barriers open in this morning peak.
The problem has now been rectified and the ticket barriers have come back into service. TfL advises that customers who were charged the maximum £4 fare for any journey made this morning will be refunded and need take no further action.
A different TfL spokesperson gave the following statement that blamed it on someone else.
“There was a technical problem with Oyster card readers at London Underground stations this morning which affected Oyster pay as you go cards only. Oyster card readers on the bus and tram network were unaffected.
“The problem has now been resolved and card readers are progressively coming back on-line at London Underground stations.
“Cards have not been disabled and so can continue to be used as normal. We will automatically refund any passengers who may have been charged the maximum £4 fare as a result of not being able to touch in and out at the beginning and end of their journeys this morning. Oyster card holders need take no further action.
“This problem, like the recent issue, resulted from incorrect data tables being sent out by our contractor, Transys (a consortium of the firms EDS and Cubic). Transys has also issued a statement today confirming that they are taking steps to ensure that this does not happen again, that they will undertake a root cause analysis and, like us, apologising for any inconvenience caused to our customers.”
A member of staff has sent us the following internal statement regarding the “Very Rare” Oyster card technical problem on Saturday.
In accordance with this sites policies we will NOT name our sources under any circumstances, so don’t even waste your time asking us who leaked it.
Oh and TheTicketCollector is still waiting for his £12 refund, which was promised by TfL to be automatically applied.
Here is the brief.
STAFF BRIEF - No. 14/08
IMPORTANT
Oyster card System Failure – Saturday 12th July 2008
Transport for London (TfL) have advised of a technical problem with the Oyster card computer system on the morning of Saturday 12th July.
As a result Oyster card readers across the TfL network, and also gates at National Rail stations that are connected to the central Prestige system, were not accepting Oyster cards for parts of the day on Saturday.
The problem has been rectified, but as a result, some Oyster cards used Saturday before 0930 on London Underground may not now be working. Customers who topped up their cards for PAYG at newsagents and other Ticket Stop locations during the day may also have been affected.
Please note the following in respect of Oyster cards that have been corrupted and no longer work:-
Customers with standard retail Oysters cards (i.e. Oyster cards issued with NO discount or concessionary travel entitlement) should be advised to go to a London Underground station for a replacement Oyster card irrespective of where the card or any Travelcard season loaded to it was issued.
Customers using pay-as-you-go (PAYG) who incurred a maximum fare during this period will be given an automatic refund via gatelines as from Tuesday 15th July, and no further action is required on the part of the customer. For all other PAYG matters resulting from the system failure, customers should be advised to contact the Oyster card helpline on 0845 330 9876 .
Freedom Pass holders should be advised to contact their London Borough for a replacement. In the meantime any corrupted Freedom Passes will be valid for travel as normal, provided of course that the expiry date on the Pass is “31 March 2010″, and it is being used by the named holder. This temporary arrangement will apply until further advice is issued.
Holders of Barclaycard OnePulse cards should be advised to contact Barclaycard for a replacement.
Holders of ‘Child’, ‘16+’, and ‘18+’ Oyster photocards should contact the Oyster card helpline on 0845 330 9876 for a replacement.
Staff Pass holders should be advised to contact their Staff office.
Owing to having used my Oyster card on Saturday 12th July for 3 single journeys that morning I was charged the maximum cash fare on each journey.
TfL admitted the “Very Rare” fault pretty quickly and gave everyone free travel till they fixed the fault, they also promised everyone on Pay as you go who was charged the maximum cash fare a refund automatically on Tuesday 15th July.
“All passengers who incur a maximum fare on Saturday 12 July will be given an automatic refund on Tuesday. They do not need to take any action.
“We are investigating the cause of the problem, will ensure that any necessary refunds are honoured and apologise to our passengers for any inconvenience caused.”
As of the time of this posting I am still waiting for a £12 refund as promised by the various TfL spin statements. I have phoned up the Oyster card ‘helpline’ and enquired about this, but all the moron on the other end said “It is not possible, everyone has been refunded, I do not need to check your card, Goodbye”.
When I put my card on the ticket machines at any Underground station, it comes up with “Error this card not initialised for PRESTIGE”.
As someone who has a staff discounted oystercard I belive this is the reason I have not had my automated refund. I suspect all ’standard’ Oyster cards (i.e. a card which does not have a discount on it) have been refunded.
Imagine the scene on a Monday Morning. Everyone queueing up to renew their season tickets, or to top up their Pay as you go balances.
Now imagine that everyone who used their Oyster Card on Saturday morning between 0530 and 0930 cant use any self service machine and is now queueing up at a ticket office?
Well you don’t need to imagine it, as it happened this morning. While TheTicketCollector was travelling through Paddington there were very long queues of people waiting to have their Oyster cards replaced because of London Undergrounds “very rare” fault.
According to a member of staff I spoke to, the “very rare” fault messed up a lot of peoples Oyster cards and corrupted them, thus making them nothing more then a piece of expensive plastic. This member of staff advised me to queue up with the rest of the corrupted card owners and get a replacement. The member of staff then laughed and said that Oyster has been nothing “but a major f**k up ever since it came into being, even I have had to get my bl**dy staff pass replaced!”
TheTicketCollector is still waiting for his refund.
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