Vodafone Fiji has confirmed an unplanned intermittent outage affected its e-Transport bus card top-up system this week, causing a significant disruption to commuters who rely on the digital fare payment platform.
This has caused major disruptions, leaving many commuters stranded and frustrated during peak travel hours.
Many took their frustrations to social media, saying large crowds were forced to queue at the only operational booth in town, with the rainy weather making the situation worse for those who did not have shelter or clear communication from Vodafone.
“It was raining, people were tired and just trying to get home. We waited in line for ages, only to be told the booth was closed — without warning or explanation,” one commuter shared on Facebook.
“This whole thing was just a mess. People wasted their time, and energy, and were left stuck.
“No communication, no back-up plan, no help.”
In a public statement yesterday, Vodafone acknowledged the issue was because of a network connectivity problem that impacted the point-of-sale (POS) terminals used by top-up agents.
“Immediate actions have been taken to address the online connectivity issue on the agent network by allowing for offline top-up services from EFTPOS terminals,” the statement stated.
“This allows top-ups to be processed without online connectivity and we are currently rolling out a nationwide communication and training program for our top-up agents to ensure they are fully equipped to use this new offline capability when needed.”
The statement said to prevent such occurrences in the future, Vodafone would implement several critical infrastructure upgrades and redundancies across its POS systems.
“These measures are designed to bolster uptime, reliability and provide a continuous seamless service.”
In addition to the MPAiSA card top-up option and as part of the ongoing e-Transport enhancements, the company said it was working on introducing QR pay and payment options on buses in the next few months.
“This will allow customers to travel without the need of an e-Transport card or to top-up a card.
“Furthermore, as part of the new enhancements, Vodafone has recently introduced the E-Transport Mobile App which allows customers to top up their E-Transport cards via an NFC-enabled smartphone and also redeem balance on their cards digitally.
“We urge the travelling public to upgrade to the new e-Transport cards to start using the enhanced features of the app for their convenience.”
