back to article Big Blue red-faced over Congestion charge crash

Things did not go entirely smoothly for IBM on its first day in control of Transport for London's Congestion Charge systems yesterday. Capita set up the system and ran it for five years before TfL handed the contract to IBM in October 2007. Some staff were moved across and new systems put in place. But sources told The …

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  1. This post has been deleted by its author

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Coat

    An advantage to being a northerner.

    You don't get fined for driving into a city, you only get screwed for parking charges!!

  3. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    I'm sorry to have to say this

    Come back Capita, all is forgiven

    At least that system worked.

  4. Dr Who

    Live testing

    Not being an insider, I'll take your mole's word that not enough testing was done. But how exactly would you live test this system? You can do stress tests, unit tests, simulate live transactions and all the rest, but you can't live test - it's a contradiction.

  5. Kevin 43
    FAIL

    First Southwark Council

    And now this... looks like a bad week for public sector project management and IBM consulting...

  6. Winkypop Silver badge
    Stop

    Ah, the English and their parking fees

    It's a small island I guess, so parking would be at a premium.

    It never ceases to amaze me how often and where you have to pay to park in Britain.

    I estimate that parking revenues must be almost 10% of British GPD.

  7. lIsRT

    @ Dr Who

    Uneducated guess?

    Run it in parallel for 2 weeks before turning the old system off, i.e. both systems receive exactly the same inputs; if they generate exactly the same outputs, it's probably good enough.

    Just remember not to actually send the banks any charges that the test system generates...

  8. Jason Scrutton
    Thumb Up

    Testing?

    It certainly is possible to test the system properly prior to go-live.

    Funnily enough we did, and were also pleasantly surprised re about how day one went overall...

    Jay.

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Coat

    scrap it anyway....

    the whole idea of the 'congestion charge' was to reduce the congestion in central london... epic fail.... its still just as congested...

    some say nearly as congested as the bank accounts filled with the extra tax from owning a car in or around central london.

    if they are going to keep this cash cow they should rename it to somthing more truthful...

    mines the one with the plane ticket outta here in the pocket

  10. Jeremy Chappell
    FAIL

    Oh God...

    Can you imagine what an unholy hash Boris is going to make of the Olympics in 2012?

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    (untitled)

    Customers ? Customers ! They're not customers. they're victims. Ought not be stealing from drivers in the first place. If the public had made a stand when parking meters were first installed to extract money for parking on the road one has already paid for, way back in the past, then the powers-that-be wouldn't believe they can abuse the public every which way they can think of, today.

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Happy

    Great job

    Worked a treat for me, good job TFL and IBM!!

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Parking Charges are Killing the Economy

    what with pubs closing and congestion charging it is no wonder the UK is in the shitter.

    Using yanky tech firms as well, brilliant. What next, a yank as head of the British Museum no doubt.

  14. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    I Blow Monkey's.

    IBM = EPIC FAIL.

    That is all.

  15. Andy Mc
    WTF?

    @AC 11:59

    If it's so shit here, why don't you just jump on your plane instead of sitting around here whining like a little girl?

  16. Andrew Culpeck

    @AC 12:18

    You may not beleve it but it's still not to late to protest against being charged to park on the street. After all Westinster Council (who started charging cars first back in the 50's) have just started charging motor bikes, but they are putting up a fight see www.NoToBikeParkingFees.com. So if you want to park a car without paying through the nose see how the bikeers are causing trouble and follow sute. By the way in over a year of demonstrations we haven't even had one person cautioned. A very British demonstration I know but one that is working.

    Now don't get me wrong I still want street marking and CEO's to enforce them but we don't need to pay to park in order to pay for either as proved by the statement that 70% of a parking ticket goes to the ticketing company and 25% to the council.

  17. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    @AC 11:59

    No reduction in congestion? How come I can cross the road on my lunch break now? I couldn't before.

  18. Volvic

    @AC

    "Come back Capita, all is forgiven

    At least that system worked."

    It really, really didn't.

  19. Anonymous Coward
    Paris Hilton

    Idiots Blowing Money

    That's what IBM call their customers. Or at least they should.

    As a wise man once said you get what you pay for and in Big Blue's case you get a lot of useless tossers hiding behing Lenovo laptops who haven't got the first clue about running their own business let alone someone else's.

    Paris because she's great at blowing things.

  20. Giles Jones Gold badge

    @An advantage to being a northerner

    Or cycle and don't get screwed for any taxes, parking charges. Plus it is good for you and you can park your bike in the town/city centre.

    Of course many car owners constantly bleat about their 'victim' status despite the actual cost of motoring and fuel being comparably cheaper compared to years ago.

  21. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    @AC 12:37

    Objecting to someone running the British Museum because they aren't British is the sort of thing that I would expect to hear from Nick Griffin.

  22. The BigYin
    FAIL

    Customers?

    TfL have Customers? There was me thinking they were tac-payers, i.e. "employers". Not "customers".

    Or "marks", "victims", "walking-wallets" etc.

  23. Cheers
    Thumb Down

    Congestion Charge Line

    Bad experience on the C/C line....they don't seem to know what they're doing and I queued on the phone for over 20 minutes before being answered. Still haven't received an e-mail receipt from yesterday and earlier today

  24. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    (untitled)

    "Objecting to someone running the British Museum because they aren't British is the sort of thing that I would expect to hear from Nick Griffin."

    Is this an attempted smear or just political correctness gone mad?

  25. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    If you think it's bad now...............

    "As a wise man once said you get what you pay for and in Big Blue's case you get a lot of useless tossers hiding behind Lenovo laptops who haven't got the first clue about running their own business let alone someone else's."

    As an IBM employee, my experience is that the great majority of my colleagues are hard-working, highly-skilled and led by imbeciles. From 1Q next year we'll have the same imbeciles leading far fewer staff (most of those over 50 on final salary pension schemes will have been forced out). It's going to be truly grim to be an IBM customer, almost as bad as being an IBM employee (good luck to those who will be left).

  26. Anonymous Coward
    Unhappy

    Overheard...

    "I remember when you could actually get a proper service... AND pay over the web..."

    TfL: "Come back Capita, all is forgiven!"

  27. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Another great IBM outsourcing success story

    This is only going to happen more and more... I told you so, when beancounters run the show, you get short term profits and great bonuses for higher execs, but destroy the company on the long term.

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