Sydney trains: Uber to refund customers charged surge pricing during rail network shutdown | Sydney | The Guardian
  Tony Galloway

The “invisible hand of the free market” goes for a grope :
>

> https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/mar/09/sydney-trains-running-uber-refunds-surge-pricing-after-nsw-train-rail-network-down https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/mar/09/sydney-trains-running-uber-refunds-surge-pricing-after-nsw-train-rail-network-down

>

> Sydney trains: Uber to refund customers charged surge pricing during rail network shutdown

> Cybersecurity incident ruled out as rail outage causes pressure on NSW government ahead of state election

>

> Natasha May <//www.theguardian.com/profile/natasha-may>

>

> Commuters waiting for light rail services after Sydney’s train network was shut down. Those who turned to Uber will have surge pricing refunded. Photograph: Dan Himbrechts/AAP

> Ridesharing platform Uber is reimbursing customers charged surge pricing in the midst of Sydney’s entire train network shutting down Wednesday afternoon https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/mar/08/sydney-train-network-trains-down-rail-delays-halt-communications-fault-update, as the transport incident heaps pressure on the NSW government less than three weeks before the state election.

>

> Transport for NSW said the network was shut down for safety reasons after the digital train radio system on the network failed at about 2.45pm on Wednesday.

>

> The system was back online within about an hour but delays ensued into the peak period. Those who turned to Uber to get home faced surge pricing in the hundreds of dollars in some cases.

>

> A spokesperson for Uber said they were not alerted by Transport for NSW about the outage, and people who were charged above the surge cap will be refunded within 48 hours.

>

> “While in the past we have been alerted by Transport for NSW when there were Sydney-wide transport issues, in this instance we had no warning that there would be such a complete outage on the NSW trains network,” the spokesperson said.

>

> Uber said that as soon as it became aware of the situation, the company “immediately” lowered the surge and communicated with driver-partners encouraging them to come online.

>

> Sign up for Guardian Australia’s free morning and afternoon email newsletters for your daily news roundup https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/oct/29/email-newsletters-guardian-australia-best-daily-news-emails-newsletter-free-sign-up-inbox-subscribe-headlines?CMP=copyembed

> Matthew Longland, the CEO of Transport NSW, on Thursday said there was nothing to suggest a cybersecurity incident and said rail services would be operating to a full timetable.

>

> Longland told ABC News Breakfast the difficulty was around the digital train radio system which controls all of the base stations and the communication between trains and the rail operations centre.

>

> “That system was designed to automatically cut over in this kind of incident. That cut-over didn’t happen. So as a result our engineers needed to manually work through fault-finding,” Longland said.

>

> “We stood up our secondary site datacentre in order to switch across if we needed to.”

>

> The Greens MP Sue Higginson encouraged those stuck in Sydney’s “train chaos” to send their rideshare or taxi receipts to the premier, Dominic Perrottet, and the NSW Liberals.

>

> Sign up to Guardian Australia's Afternoon Update

> Our Australian afternoon update email breaks down the key national and international stories of the day and why they matter

> Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Privacy Policy https://www.theguardian.com/help/privacy-policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy https://policies.google.com/privacy and Terms of Service https://policies.google.com/terms apply.

> Jo Haylen, the shadow minister for transport, accused the transport minister, David Elliott, of being absent amid the chaos.

>

> “The lights are out across the Sydney train network. And the lights are out in the transport minister’s office,” Haylen said.

>

> “No one knows who’s in charge and passengers are paying the price.

>

> “A key responsibility of state government and the premier is to run a reliable public transport system.

>

> “The premier needs to answer questions yet again about why passengers are facing chaos on their commute home,” Haylen said.

>

> Elliott said the glitch could have occurred under any government.

>

> “The comments made by the Greens and Labor MPs simply reinforce the point that both are desperately trying to score political points from a highly operational transport issue,” Elliott said.

>

> “The fact is that this operational issue (glitch in router/modem) could and would have occurred under any minister or government. Unless of course the Greens and Labor parties know something we all don’t.”