Epic Fail! Six-Hour Oyster Glitch Costs TFL A Whopping £250,000

Lucy Bloxham • 4 January, 2016

Well, it turns out that free travel has never cost so much. An Oyster card glitch that allowed Londoners a morning of free travel cost an estimated £250,000 – even though it was fixed by 10am. The problem was linked to software problems relating to a fare hike of 1.1% being applied to Oyster cards (that’ll teach them…)

_87449962_658717ee-71f0-43f2-9be9-6d131452d9c7 — [BBC]

About 100,000 free journeys were made as technicians raced to fix the fault while ticket barriers were left open across the capital. Buses were also allowing passengers to ride for free. Unsurprisingly, the fault did not prevent people using the Tube, bus and rail networks, and was instead met with joy from commuters, who expressed their happiness on social media.

Oyster reader failure across London, apparently. Travel currently free. Go see your loved ones or something.

— James Manning (@JamesManning) January 2, 2016

Thanks @TfL! I was expecting to pay the new 2nd of Jan fares in the tube but the whole oyster ticketing system is down! Free journey for me!

— Karan Dewnani (@karandewnani) January 2, 2016

It was apparently the first problem with the card readers in 10 years (yet sadly only Oyster users were affected…) We’ll be holding our breath every time we take the tube now…

Featured Image Credit: Independent

Tags: tube, underground