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Oyster Gives Londoners a Free Ride (Whoops)

by Zoe Strimpel
Mon, 28 Jul 2008 at 4:02 PM

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The smug, expensive Oyster card payment system that governs London's public transport failed this week for the second time this month, causing mayhem. Glee for "customers," many of whom were shooed through open barriers around the city as blushing officials looked on. Who doesn't like a free ride? It struck me as a good exchange after the five minutes I had to wait to get to the front of a solid wall of people trying to pass through the gates at London Bridge on Thursday.

But there was another sense of glee in the air, derived from the fact that the sleek blue wallets — Mayor Ken Livingstone's brainchild but a sorry attempt to disguise the excruciating cost of riding the Tube — had failed "once again." Screamed the Evening Standard, whose bread and butter is London transport screw-ups, the weather, and bashing the former mayor: "Hundreds of thousands of Tube passengers travelled free today as the Oyster card system failed again — the second time in two weeks."

This time, the software corruption meant that pre-paid Oyster cards could not be processed. Last time, the Oyster readers wiped the value of passengers' cards and charged everyone the maximum of £4 per journey. Certainly adds to the summer sizzle, British-style.

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