ParisByTrain.com

[rdf]

Wonderfully helpful site. Wish I had found it a year or so ago. Now for the question: I am having a problem swiping my new Navigo. Sometimes it works fine. Other times it just gives me a bright red "X" at the turn-style and refuses entry. When the helpful Info booth clerks check it at the booth, the card checks out just fine. Then I have to use the gate. I'm sure it is probably my bungling, all thumbs approach to swiping, but it is becoming maddening. The irony is that my wife is carrying hers inside the outer pocket of her purse and she just blithely zips through by swiping the whole bag. Help!!! Thanks, RDF P.S., I won't be so French as to blame the RATP; it's me ... as I recall I had the same problem in London with the Oyster card a couple of years ago until I got the hang of it. Is this thing directional, does it have a good side and a bad sad, does the placement of the photo identity card on one side or the other affect it?

[ben]

Hi RDF,

My guess as to why your Pass Navigo is not working properly: it's not you, it's the card itself.

I've had other contactless Radio Frequency Identification cards/keys fail on me, and they've done so with age. In particular, my apartment key in Vancouver was a RFID key-fob. Hold it up to a reader which emits a magnetic field to drive the chip which emits a radio signal through the antenna, which is captured by the reader.

Eventually they key started to occassional fail when being read. I'd have to give it 3 or so tries before getting a green light. The straw that broke the camel's back was being stuck in the garage for 20 minutes with a RFID fob that let me into the garage, but not up into the apartment itself.

My solution was to simply get a new fob, which worked pretty flawlessly afterwards.

If you're comfortable writing in French, why not shoot the RATP an email through this contact form on their site, explaining how your Navigo card is basically failing more than it's working and how you can go about replacing it. With any luck they'll ask you to send it in and they'll mail a new one back to you.

Thanks for the kind words about Paris By Train.

Best of luck,

Ben

[rdf]

Merci. Working fine again today, but I'll shoot them an e-mail. RDF

[rdf]

Ben, I hope this update helps someone in the future.

I think I discovered the problem and it was neither me nor the card. It is a very few turnstyles. My wife noticed it first. Some of the gates do not give either the ordinary audible note or the usual light to indicate that the card has indeed been read and it is OK to proceed through. Not hearing or seeing that, I was re-swiping. but the system locks you out for a minute or two so that Navigos can't be used by different people in succession. When I reswiped, I then got the dreaded red "X" and was blocked. We're all creatures of habit and I was using the same turnstyles at a couple of Metro stops on most days and that was where it was happening. When I simply swiped the card and tried to walk through .... Voila!... right through the turn bars even though no sound or light had been emitted. My wife followed suit. I later confirmed that this sometimes happens with a very, very helpful RATP employee who summed up our mutual empathy with a sympathetic Gallic shrug, "What is one to do. Life is like that. The machine makes it difficult for both of us."

[ben]

You know, I should have thought of that as well: turnstiles needing repair.

I've noted on an article or two that some turnstiles are very slow to open and I've made the mistake of thinking I didn't swipe properly as well. I simply needed to wait patiently near the gates (I'm speaking of Gare de Lyon Metro/RER) rather than step out and try again, which is sure to lock you out.

Thanks for the updates, RDF.

Ben