For the third time in a month, software glitch crashes SEPTA’s payment system

PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — For the third time in a month, a software glitch has prevented SEPTA from collecting new fares from riders.

For two hours during the Tuesday morning rush, SEPTA riders were unable to add money to their fare cards, buy new ones, or pay Regional Rail conductors. The computer problem that crashed the payment system was resolved by 9:30 a.m.

SEPTA spokesperson Andrew Busch said this is at least the third time in the last month that the system has gone down.

“The problem is that we’ve had several instances now and we don’t have a solution yet on exactly what’s going on or how we’re going to prevent it in the future,” he said.

Riders who were unable to pay were allowed to board for free.

“We’re trying to track how much revenue we’re losing with those trips, working with the vendor … to try to remedy the situation,” Busch added.

SEPTA has been working on developing a new fare system, dubbed SEPTA Key 2.0. In the meantime, the transit agency is trying to work out more bugs from the first version.