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Sunday, December 5, 2010

Clipper Card Reader Meltdowns - Still Not Resolved


I would believe by now, Clipper should have resolved the card reader meltdowns on buses and trains (especially Muni), but it seems it hasn't been resolved. If you don't know what I'm talking about, click here for my first story posted on October 13, 2010.

Fortunately, a Clipper representative wrote a comment on my blog explaining why the readers are beeping like hell (more than one RFID card was read at once) and said it should be resolved in November with a software update.

Um... OK, it's now December and where's this software update? On Sunday, I boarded a M-Ocean View train going inbound and had to get off at the next stop because the beeping was was totally annoying. Luckily for me, a K-Ingleside train was right behind.

Want to see the annoyance in action? Here's one of many clips available on YouTube:


There are also a few people who are complaining on Twitter about it too: Tweet #1 and tweet #2.

Come on Clipper, you can get this annoying problem resolved. Look what the ORCA card organization did, they fixed their readers to say "one card at a time please" which means that the user who used the card reader had more than one RFID card present during the scan. See photo below from Flickr user: Atomic Taco:
ORCA: One card at a time, please

A broken card reader means lost revenue for Muni, puts passengers at risk of receiving a "fare evasion" citation from fare inspectors, and also means a free ride too.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

The reader on my inbound N melted down this morning, after someone held their wallet up to the reader. I called the driver 3x w/the red button, asking for help, to no avail. It was awful.