Commuters stuck as MRT goes back to paper age

[webfact]

Commuters stuck as MRT goes back to paper age

By  Asaree Thaitrakulpanich, Staff Reporter

 

  

At left, Long queues at 7:25am on Thursday at MRT Bang Sue. At right, paper tickets were issued while the electronic system was down. Photos: @Praerieternal and @Aeffycnp / Twitter

 

BANGKOK— Subway commuters were met with an unwelcome surprise early Thursday morning when the electronic entry systems crashed system-wide and they were unable to enter the platform.

 

Starting from 6:28am, commuters could not use their cards or tokens to enter the MRT subway system. Instead, they had to wait in long queues to purchase paper tickets with cash, then wait to hand those tickets to someone to descend to the platform.

 

Full story: http://www.khaosodenglish.com/news/transpo/2017/01/12/commuters-stuck-mrt-goes-back-paper-age/

 

-- © Copyright Khaosod English 2017-01-12

[Sphere]

10 minutes ago, webfact said:

Instead, they had to wait in long queues to purchase paper tickets with cash, then wait to hand those tickets to someone to descend to the platform.

 

Not that Thailand 4.0 software upgrade again.....

[trogers]

Welcome to the age of the computer. 

 

I remember those mechanical ticket dispensers of old...??

[Enoon]

 

Contingency plan for next time:

 

1. Anyone with an electronic card walks through the manually operated gate next to the electronic ones.

 

2. Anyone without a card show and throw the minimum fare in a bucket located at the same gate.

 

 

[Crossy]

The failure was human error. Someone will be getting his bottom smacked.

 

Can't say any more until there's an official release from BEM (if that ever happens).

[new2here]

 

Contingency plan for next time:

 

1. Anyone with an electronic card walks through the manually operated gate next to the electronic ones.

 

2. Anyone without a card show and throw the minimum fare in a bucket located at the same gate.

 

 

On the whole, I don't think that's a bad idea.. I think it for what one might expect to be a short time frame, it fairly balanced the public need for what is a high-demand, critical public transport service and the ability to still move along at a decent pace, together with some reasonable revenue-loss preventative steps to protect BEMs finances..

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[fruitman]

They should just make it 20 baht, pay cash and walk through immediatly, no ticket needed.

 

Or just make it free, of charge for a day. Most commuters have a membership and pay anyway.

 

Ridiculous to let them be in such long qeueu's, if i was them i would go by car tomorrow...it might happen again.

[blackcab]

2 hours ago, Crossy said:

The failure was human error. Someone will be getting his bottom smacked.

 

Can't say any more until there's an official release from BEM (if that ever happens).

 

The cleaner needed to plug in their buffing machine and unfortunately unplugged the server to do so.

[Crossy]

Just now, blackcab said:

The cleaner needed to plug in their buffing machine and unfortunately unplugged the server to do so.

 

You know what they say about "many a true word" ...

 

Not the cause in this case, but I have seen a server going a bit "odd" 'coz station staff  plugged their fridge into the same (UPS supplied) outlet (no not Thailand, Seoul Korea).

[blackcab]

Just now, Crossy said:

 

You know what they say about "many a true word" ...

 

Not the cause in this case, but I have seen a server going a bit "odd" 'coz station staff  plugged their fridge into the same (UPS supplied) outlet (no not Thailand, Seoul Korea).

 

While we are on the subject of fares, I have a question. How does the barrier instantly know my credit when I start my journey?

 

Is it a very fast network where each barrier queries a single central server, or is the information synchronised and held at each station?

[Crossy]

Just now, blackcab said:

While we are on the subject of fares, I have a question. How does the barrier instantly know my credit when I start my journey?

 

Is it a very fast network where each barrier queries a single central server, or is the information synchronised and held at each station?

 

No, it's an off-line system, your credit is actually carried securely on the card. So yes, the barrier knows what your credit is and won't let you in if you have less than a minimum amount.

 

[speckio]

21 minutes ago, fruitman said:

They should just make it 20 baht, pay cash and walk through immediatly, no ticket needed.

 

Or just make it free, of charge for a day. Most commuters have a membership and pay anyway.

 

Ridiculous to let them be in such long qeueu's, if i was them i would go by car tomorrow...it might happen again.

 

this so much this... makes zero sense to punish commuters... 

20 baht to get in get off wherever you want.

[fruitman]

1 hour ago, Crossy said:

 

You know what they say about "many a true word" ...

 

Not the cause in this case, but I have seen a server going a bit "odd" 'coz station staff  plugged their fridge into the same (UPS supplied) outlet (no not Thailand, Seoul Korea).

 

When i worked at a huge multinational electronics company the mailserver went down one day, worldwide 100.000 people couldn't use corporate mail. I went to look and there was the cleaninglady vacuuming the serverroom, she just needed an outlet so she pulled out a connector (which happened to be the mailserver).

[thedemon]

1 hour ago, fruitman said:

 

When i worked at a huge multinational electronics company the mailserver went down one day, worldwide 100.000 people couldn't use corporate mail. I went to look and there was the cleaninglady vacuuming the serverroom, she just needed an outlet so she pulled out a connector (which happened to be the mailserver).

 

A single server powered from a 3 pin socket for 100,000 users?

 

Hmmm...

[Carib]

This happens everywhere, large airports and airlines suffer from this kind of trouble too whatever the reason.

It is good to see that the MRT guys pulled out an alternative, it means the are more or less prepared to deal with these kind of things. Have you ever experienced an airline problem like this? It took them 3 hours to get me a paper ticket. 

 

[OttoPollmann]

Quote

Bangkok Expressway and Metro Public Co. Ltd. gave no explanation for the downtime.

 

May I help you?

 

This happens whenever you are using some knockoff Windows XP copies to run your whole system.

I'm surprised that this kind of system failure not happens more often.

[Jonmarleesco]

On 1/12/2017 at 6:30 PM, fruitman said:

 

When i worked at a huge multinational electronics company the mailserver went down one day, worldwide 100.000 people couldn't use corporate mail. I went to look and there was the cleaninglady vacuuming the serverroom, she just needed an outlet so she pulled out a connector (which happened to be the mailserver).

And it should never have been that easy.

[siam2007]

By all fairness, both BTS and MRT are extremely reliable and professionally operated (except for the fact that they operate over capacity nowadays). Compare that with Singapore or KL, let alone Manila, where there are system interruptions almost on a daily but at least weekly basis. I would say BTS is one of the most professionally operated companies in the entire kingdom. It is as well by far the most expensive to use in relation to average income.

[Crossy]

On 12/01/2017 at 11:27 PM, OttoPollmann said:

This happens whenever you are using some knockoff Windows XP copies to run your whole system.

I'm surprised that this kind of system failure not happens more often.

 

Could you point to a machine on the revenue collection system that's running hooky Windows XP?

 

Do you really think that major German and French Contractors would be supplying illegal software?

 

By the way, the failure wasn't to do with the software per-se, it was human error.

 

 

[muffy]

Free is the only answer . Until they fix it .

[new2here]

By all fairness, both BTS and MRT are extremely reliable and professionally operated (except for the fact that they operate over capacity nowadays). Compare that with Singapore or KL, let alone Manila, where there are system interruptions almost on a daily but at least weekly basis. I would say BTS is one of the most professionally operated companies in the entire kingdom. It is as well by far the most expensive to use in relation to average income.

On the whole I would very much agree. I do think, like it is for nearly all transit operators, that issues related to reliability, safety and service recovery post-service interruption should always be works in progress... that would be my only issue ..

At times it feels like when service delays do happen, that the overall service recovery isn't all that great or smooth - be that timely information in multiple language formats, or better station management.

However I do agree that both the BTS and MRT are very professional operations.



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[DLang]

On 1/14/2017 at 9:10 AM, siam2007 said:

I would say BTS is one of the most professionally operated companies in the entire kingdom

 

Yup.

 

Well done to Germans.