Error-prone eftpos troubles Sydney Trains

NSW Transport has suffered its second eftpos-related issue on its train network in recent weeks, with travellers’ unable to pay for tickets using cards at some stations this morning.

NSW Transport uses POS terminals from Quest Payment Systems

Eftpos went down at an unidentified number of stations from around 7:30am to 9am today.

The transport department declined to comment on how many stations and transactions were affected as a result.

The problem appears to have mostly affected eftpos at ticket offices. The majority of ticket vending machines with dial-up eftpos were operating as normal, the department said.

It said the issue was quickly resolved and involved less locations than a similar eftpos outage that affected a number of stations just over a week ago.

"Inquiries into the cause of the issue are continuing however initial investigations have indicated a different error from that experienced the week before last,” a spokesperson said.

“We are confident that this morning’s issue was cleared and there is no reason to expect that it will reoccur.”

Several train stations across NSW were unable to accept eftpos payments for three days during the morning commuter rush beginning Tuesday July 16. NSW Transport similarly declined to provide the cause of that outage.

Westpac provides the payment gateway for the eftpos service at Sydney train stations and said its POS systems were operating as normal during both outages.

NSW Transport uses point-of-sale hardware by POS solutions supplier Quest Payment Systems at its train stations.

The department did not comment on whether the hardware was behind the first outage but said today’s issues had not been caused by the Quest POS.