De Lijn aims to resolve scanner faults by end of March
De Lijn expects ongoing problems with ticket scanners on its buses and trams to be resolved by the end of March.
The issue was raised in the Flemish Parliament on Thursday, where Flemish mobility minister Annick De Ridder (N-VA) said that a random sample conducted in January found that an average of 10 per cent of scanners on vehicles were defective, with peaks of up to 38 per cent.
De Lijn said on Friday that the faults were caused by a software issue and that it has “worked very intensively” to resolve them.
According to the transport operator, the problems affecting the payment terminals used to purchase tickets have already been addressed.
Attention has now turned to the yellow scanners, which are used to validate multi-journey tickets and season passes. An initial software update has been introduced, although this could still cause issues in “approximately 6 per cent” of devices. The rollout of this update is expected to be completed by the end of February.
“Meanwhile, work continues on a solution for the remaining problems,” De Lijn said. “All problems should be resolved by the end of March.”
Passenger figures “remain accurate”
Passenger organisation TreinTramBus has criticised the malfunctioning scanners, arguing that they could lead to inaccurate usage statistics.
De Lijn rejected that claim. “The passenger figures are based on the results of camera counts combined with the figures for validating passengers. If validators on a vehicle don't function correctly and therefore fewer validating passengers are registered, this is corrected by the algorithm. This way, the passenger figures continue to accurately reflect the actual number of passengers.”
#FlandersNewsService | © PHOTO DE LIJN
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