12-24-2023, 03:48 AM
(12-23-2023, 09:31 PM)Bytor Wrote: So, while I understand your frustration, this has been explained many times by GRT and by people on many social media platforms, including WRC.
The buses do not have internet connections. How do you expect the loading to go from you using the website and end up at the bus?
When a bus gets back to the barn at the end of the day, the mechanic giving it the once over sets the farebox to a WiFi AP at the barn. At that point in time it uploads a record of all transactions it did, and downloads a bundle of updates, such as you adding funds to your daughter's card.
The next day when the bus is out on the road and your daughter taps on, the farebox will apply the update to her card and set a flag. The flag is for if your daughter tapos on a second bus so that farebox can see the updated has already been apply and doesn't erroneously add the stored value a second time.
From then on, your daughter can tap her card and have deductions made like normal.
Of course, this obviously only works if you go to the website and add the funds before the bus gets back to the barn.
If you added the funds in the afternoon, but the bus she tries to tap on the next day had been returned to the barn at noon, then it will not have the update for her card. It would need to go back to the barn on more time to get the updates.
That's why GRT says 24 to 48 hours.
It is a technical limitation you cannot solve without having internet connections on the buses and the fareboxes updating constantly. Plus, because of the batch nature of financial processes, even with an internet connection out on the road, the update needsto be formatted and bunded into an update and sent to the farebox. So even then it wouldn't be available right away.
Customer Service can't do bugger all about this, and it is unfair of you to be angry at them for it. YTA, full stop, for that behaviour.
They were exactly right to tell you only "that's how it works" and no manager or supervisor would have been able to do a damn thing about it for you. Did you expect them to reach out with a magic wand and enchant either your daughter's card with the stored value, or the farebox of the next bus with the update for it?
I'm going to hazard a guess that you work in some sort of engineering related profession, and not anything product or customer related, because this post sounds like how the majority of my coworkers think. Yes, we understand how it works and why it works that way (but the general public at larger never will). Yes, once you understand there is a potential 48 hour delay it's not terribly stifling and can be worked around.
But for at least the last decade people think of a "payment cards" of any kind as an instantaneous and usable anywhere. I'd wager over 80% of the population doesn't know and doesn't care to know that payment terminals in shops are internet connected, and so the thought that payment terminals on busses aren't connected but would need to be isn't a logical train of thought for them. Today it's even expected for mobile/popup shops, food trucks, etc. to accept credit and debit payments backed by mobile connections, and most cash only places obviously take a hit.
If you build a product that goes against consumer expectations for technical reasons, that's fine, but you need to be sympathetic to the position you've put your customer in. Have some humility and shame, not anger towards the confused customer (and customer service should reflect that, short of accepting abuse whether verbal or of the system).
(12-24-2023, 12:32 AM)bravado Wrote: And yet it works today for millions of people and the status quo here doesn’t…
Well, we don't have millions of people here so you aren't wrong.
But I don't agree that the status quo here (EasyGO) isn't working. It would be nice to have the up to 48 hour delay go away and gain credit card payments, but does that really mean the system isn't working? The only major problem I've experienced was the absolute garbage state that the ION fare machines launched in, but I've been using them lately and they actually seem to work quite well now.
The only complaints are ever see are on this forums, specifically about the delay. Am I missing some major problem everyone is dealing with?