Tuesday, February 3, 2015

The GO Transit website limps along on life support

Yesterday, it was thought that the storm and thousands of people looking for information about train and bus cancellations brought down the GO Transit website.

Not so - read on.

This morning, it was still limping along on life support - service updates were AWOL.


Despite a full system restore, service updates didn't come back online. This caused people on Twitter to berate Metrolinx's PR.

The problem, apparently, was "deep in the backend".

Sounds dirty.

There's no word on when the site will be fully restored.

8 comments:

  1. AnonymousFebruary 3, 2015 at 10:42 AM

    We were all told to check twitter for updates...what happens if i don't have twitter and don't use it?

    ReplyDelete
  2. AnonymousFebruary 3, 2015 at 10:43 AM

    Betya a switch was frozen

    ReplyDelete
  3. FREDFebruary 3, 2015 at 12:47 PM

    The world is a-changing. Twitter is faster than the news, faster than a static website when it comes to sharing information.
    Twitter is my go-to source. I couldn't imagine NOT using it.

    ReplyDelete
  4. AnonymousFebruary 3, 2015 at 1:27 PM

    The problem with using twitter, even if you have an account is that you have to go through all of their posts to find your specific train. I don't care about the delays on the RH line or the Milton line. I want to know how late my train will be so when I call my boss I can give him an estimated arrival time. It's a pain in the ass to go through all their tweets especially on a day like yesterday where everything was messed up. Also, the email updates aren't reliable or on time either. I got an email about my train being delayed AFTER I was off of it and pretty much at work already...thanks GO...

    ReplyDelete
  5. Michael SuddardFebruary 3, 2015 at 1:33 PM

    Within the last hour I subbmitted to Anne Marie Aikens (who doesn't want to answer why PrestoCard's can't be automatically refunded if GO Trains are late even though they know you were on the train cause you tapped!) that perhaps GO Transit create a status twitter account.

    This would be so easy to code into the existing page so that these updates would scroll. Those on Twitter, like our pal Fred, could follow the account online and those that don't could easily still get there info by visiting the GO Transit page for the feed.

    But, sigh, it sounds like GO Transit has decided to go with PrestoCard coded technology for their website and will be asking us to "stand by" for hours on end.

    ReplyDelete
  6. BickyFebruary 3, 2015 at 7:13 PM

    Hooray, it's working!

    ReplyDelete
  7. AnonymousFebruary 3, 2015 at 9:05 PM

    "Deep in backend"? Ann must still have had the recent GOTransit fare hikes on her mind when she wrote that tweet...

    ReplyDelete
  8. Warren DowneFebruary 4, 2015 at 5:21 AM

    Don't you love it when senior management tries to talk tech? Here's Greg Percy's take on the website failure: "a shocking lapse caused by an overwhelmed search function." What kind of techno-babble is that Greg?

    So, take your pick. Either Anne Marie's bug "deep in backend" or, ... whatever Greg said.

    ReplyDelete

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