Is the new account creation for TfL some sort of Kafkaesque experiment?

1

I’ve tried to create an account on TfL for the Unified API. For some reason my app_id and app_key for that I use for the TIMS datafeed doesn’t work, OK I can accept there may be good reasons.

So I try to logon to create an app_id for the Unified API. I can’t work out if my current account works or not, so I create a new one.

I have to work out the characters for a capcha, wow, that was hard, 10-12 attempts and never got it right, so I thought I’d use the audio instead. Not a clue what they were saying, listened to 3-4 attempts and gave up. I couldn’t work out what was said, neither could my partner not my children.

Eventually I managed to get a new account but could not logon, so had to do a password reset. Well that went as well as the previous work, I entered a new password and got a server error.

I have now given up for the night. So far:

  1. TIMS Datafeed doesn’t work.
  2. The visual capcha’s don’t seem to work, 12 attempts to get it right.
  3. The audio capcha doesn’t work.
  4. I can’t reset my password to try and get access to the Unified API as I get a server error.

As a source of frustration, this ranks pretty high.

We run the Jambuster Twitter feed as a free service to try and help Londoners drive a little faster across London. If this carries on, we’re going to tell 6,000 users that we’re closing it down, it’s simply not worth the hassle and frustration. We have better things than waste our time trying to get this to work.

Utterly frustrated and pissed off,

Rob

2

The “app_key” was depreciated some years ago.

Also that “visual capcha” is awful, but I’m wondering if you are using a blocker like “Adblock Ultimate” with your browser.

It probably worth disabling any script/site blockers that you may use whilst performing these tasks. The worst offender on the TfL sites is you can’t get back from the card payment system!

3

@briantist

Thanks for the reply. yesterday was one of the most frustrating hours I have spent. I had the whole family looking at the screen trying to guess the keys, listening to audio that was unintelligable. Then I get one to work and the server gives an error.

I will try again today.