Opal Readers not working or badly located.

[TheOpalUser]

Sometimes the barrier mounted indicators fail to show the appropriate status when tapping off. No sound heard either from this reader.

I believe it has been mentioned that the station manager has the ability to enable/disable the tone at the readers, correct me if I'm wrong.

[matthewg]

Sometimes the barrier mounted indicators fail to show the appropriate status when tapping off. No sound heard either from this reader.

I've also come across a reader (I think it was Redfern) where the display had lost comms while displaying the expiry date of some one's periodical. I watched it for a short while, the display stayed the same for Opal and other magnetic tickets. Then I went through the gate with my Opal, it still displaying some 'random' periodical ticket date.

I seem to recall a SA some where saying 'rebooting' the gate generally fixed it when I told them a screen was buggered.

[mubd]

I came across a gate at Martin Place which didn't show the status of the ticket.

Do Opal readers work similar to Myki readers in that if you hold your card up to the reader the display continues to show your balance?

[boxythingy]

Well when I tap off from a Standalone reader, it shows me my what has been deducted+my balance. Other times when I have used barrier mounted ones, this seems to the normal behaviour.

[CityRail]

I have seen a number of occasions where Opal readers are not working even they are not active.

My blitz today has resulted at least 1 V Bus do have red error screen on all readers

Also one PBC Buses I took last weekend has 2 Opal readers constantly reset itself.

[moa999]

Happy to report only one Opal failure over 12+W/R buses this week so far, which I take it at least is a sign that they are getting fixed (I have reported 10+ failures to the 131500 email), and that these things seemingly fail early or just work.

30/6 2293 W 2/4 Driver rear & back front closed

[moa999]

A bit worse later in the week. Again reported to 131500.

3/7 2293 W 2/4 Driver rear & back front closed,
3/7 1349 w 1/4 back rear closed
4/7 1902 W 1/4 back front closed

On the plus side no failures on R buses.

--
Spoke too soon
6/7 1921 R 4/4 All readers displaying Please Wait throughout trip. Required driver input to let me tag on/off and gave me a Reversal at Arden St for a 373 inbound

[boxythingy]

Had my first chance to use Opal on a bus today. Here are some observations. Would be nice if some experts could try and clarify on a few points:
-This is obviously a glitch yes? The red light indicating the status "Please Wait" on the display screen does not change to an Orange light indicating "Tap on/off here", even though it stopped at a bus stop to pick up a passenger.

In the following video, we can see that the Opal readers respond to the GPS locking into a nearby stop. Are the readers always supposed to be ready if they come near a bus stop, or does it only lock into certain bus stops based on the route the bus is currently serving? By this I mean, will the 891's (UNSW/Central Express) readers' lights turn orange indicating "Tap on/off here" even though it has passed through a bus stop which it does not pick up/let off passengers at?

[moa999]

Top vid certainly seems to be an error.

While not certain, given it appears that the driver logs a route at turn on, I suspect that intermediate stops shouldn't activate, but again not aware of any express services active

[jpp42]

It is correct that readers only activate at stops relevant to their route. This has been the case right from the start on route 333.

[TheOpalUser]

It is correct that readers only activate at stops relevant to their route. This has been the case right from the start on route 333.

Or 594

[boxythingy]

Observed that a 370 bus' readers failed to change from red to orange when nearing this stop: http://goo.gl/maps/N5jEp
But not for: http://goo.gl/maps/PxIap

[CityRail]

I want to say the second front Opal reader installed on STA CB80s are in a very bad location.

When you tap on, because you will never be right in front of that reader, you will struggle to see your balance.

Also it is impossible to tap off through that reader.

So if you are tapping off to the front, you need to use the one next to the driver which will obstruct people getting onto the bus.

Anyone get similar experience?

[boxythingy]

Are there reported cases where Next Stop Bus Buttons have stopped working or have problems with the installation of Opal readers on buses?

[moa999]

Haven't noticed it.

I have however recently had a couple of buses that weren't showing on TripView app but were correctly working with GPS on Opal.

[mubd]

I had a bad reader failure today - it meant that the system either reset or did not sync the tap ons throughout the multiple readers on the bus and I was thus charged a default fare because my tap off was treated as a tap on (I saw "transfer" on the screen as I tapped off).

[TheOpalUser]

I had a bad reader failure today - it meant that the system either reset or did not sync the tap ons throughout the multiple readers on the bus and I was thus charged a default fare because my tap off was treated as a tap on (I saw "transfer" on the screen as I tapped off).

Remember that the truth is on the card - rather than not 'syncing' it probably didn't write data to the card in the first place. I assume that it became a default fare because there had been several hours since commencing your last journey and so it had timed out?

[moa999]

Without more information from mudb difficult to know what caused this.
Potentially a driver change midroute with someone entering the wrong thing - Opal generally handles changes OK (so long as the power stays on)

[mubd]

I only travelled two stops down the road. The front reader was faulty.

[matthewg]

Without more information from mudb difficult to know what caused this.
Potentially a driver change midroute with someone entering the wrong thing - Opal generally handles changes OK (so long as the power stays on)

I've had a similar thing happen 'transfer when I was intending to tap off'.

What I'd done is placed my card next to the reader when it was saying 'please wait'. I'd done this several times previously with no issue - when the reader activates, my card scans and I pocket my card and wait for the bus to actually stop.

What I think happened, is the controller sent the signal to enable the readers, which start to turn on, THEN it sends the new location information. All I can think of is I tripped a race condition, the reader was enabled it found my card and started it's transaction. Then the location update arrived, so it aborted the transaction. No sound or indication on the screen, but it had already updated by card.

Nothing happens so I remove my card and re-present it to the reader to be told 'transfer'.. I try to reverse it but get 'already tapped on'.

My Opal transactions show I had 'tapped off' at the previous bus stop and tapped on at the stop I was getting off at. I was not where near the reader and sitting down when the bus was at the previous stop.

[rhyst]

two of the last 3 301-303 buses I've been on had faulty readers
1 of them one of the back readers was closed
The other with both back readers , one was closed the other kept reseting like about every 1-2 minutes it was constantly beeping everytime it reset

[ryanmuzza]

ALL Hillsbus i saw today were not Opal working. They were saying Closed.
All the Wayfarer consoles were not working also, as paper ticket users got a free ride (Free ride for all!)
The people in the ticket queues at Wynyard were still marking off paper tickets.

[moa999]

While waiting for my time tabled R service (with Opal) noted 1 of about 6 K services that had readers with stickers.

On getting off this R service driver stopped short of stop and readers displayed Please wait. Walked to front and asked him to press button, but noted screen wasn't blank but instead displaying Arriving at XXX. Anyhow, the button worked.

[CityRail]

Almost every Hillsbus don't have Opal reader active today. Massive fail or some industrial action going on?

[ryanmuzza]

Almost every Hillsbus don't have Opal reader active today. Massive fail or some industrial action going on?

I believe the whole system on Hillsbus failed today, as both readers and the wayfarer consoles were down, so free ride for everyone!!!
Also all real time tracking was not working so some sort of big problem.