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Miscellaneous TTC Discussion & Questions


Orion V

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Saw the website and didn’t update any individual route maps from the old site which still shows the pre-Feb/21 Bellamy map, and no updated maps for 70, 121, 938, 943, 960 and 968.

Its also missing service summaries, tenders and bids, the search bar and the Coupler magazine. How long until they fix the whole website?

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Just now, Xtrazsteve said:

I'm pretty sure accessibility doesn't mean making it neat and have everything clustered on the screen at the same time, which was the problem with the old site.

This site is designed to make it easier for people with vision loss to read and for blind people to use Text To Speech services. 

The old site was created with a structure of the early 2000s which was badly outdated. Scripting is limited. Schedules, route stops and route maps were all on separated pages. They meant they had to update thousands of pages to simply add a new route to the sidebar. This modern site simply requires an update to one place with all routes linking to it.

This site does have badly outdated info and issues that hopefully the can sort out in a month or so. The schedules are hardly to read as you can't easily distinguish each branches as they are no longer coloured. 

I'm pretty sure accessibility means making it accessible. The problem here doesn't seem to be vision issues versus non-vision issues. It seems to be making a website so it only works well for telephones - which is cost saving.

It should be easy enough to make a website that works better for those with no vision problems, that also works well when the font size is increased (which I certainly do from time to time with my increasing old-age related vision problems), and is also screen readable.

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11 hours ago, nfitz said:

That's just absurd. I'm not sure how TTC can be reducing the accessibility of their website, simply to save some $ maintaining it. I thought there was a move towards increased accessibility - not away from it.

What in the sweet hell are you talking about?

 

The advantage of a unified website design - such as the TTC's new site - is that it can be easily customized to the device being used. The information that it is displaying is the exact same regardless of what is being used to display it. (For the record, the last site also featured this.)

 

We get it....you don't like change. But to claim that it is somehow "less accessible" is nothing short of bonkers.

 

Dan

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3 hours ago, smallspy said:

We get it....you don't like change. But to claim that it is somehow "less accessible" is nothing short of bonkers.

I'm finding it far more difficult to find stuff. How is noting that it's less accessible to me, bonkers?

I just looked on my Android. Looks worse on there too ... little to see when you open, and then you have to scroll past a massive TripLinx (why??) box.

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20 hours ago, nfitz said:

I'm finding it far more difficult to find stuff. How is noting that it's less accessible to me, bonkers?

I just looked on my Android. Looks worse on there too ... little to see when you open, and then you have to scroll past a massive TripLinx (why??) box.

Finding something harder to use because it is different that what you are used to is not "less accessible".

 

Dan

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6 hours ago, smallspy said:

Finding something harder to use because it is different that what you are used to is not "less accessible".

It's not because it's different than what I'm used to. The previous upgrade was very different than what I was used to; it was much more accessible, I found it easier to use, and I applauded it.

This is different, and, by definition, is less accessible - it's not as easy to access the information I want.

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On 10/20/2021 at 11:17 PM, Tom1122 said:

I went out to try to ride the automated bus shuttle out of Rouge Hill between 2:00 and 2:30 but the bus didn't show up. Is they still running the automated bus shuttle?

Also, any chance it would be out Sunday?

It will be out on Sundays in the future, not sure about this Sunday though, but on the page it also says passenger service won't start until late October-early November

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TTC has been hit with a ransomware attack, similar to ones that have been hitting many North American transit agencies frequently in the last year. 

Image

From the article: "According to the TTC, they experienced loss of their Vision system which is used to communicate with vehicle operators, forcing them to use a backup radio system. They also lost vehicle information used to update trip planning apps and Wheel-Trans bookings were unavailable. Internal email service was also affected."

https://toronto.citynews.ca/2021/10/29/ttc-says-it-was-the-victim-of-ransomware-attack/

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15 hours ago, Orion VI said:

TTC has been hit with a ransomware attack, similar to ones that have been hitting many North American transit agencies frequently in the last year. 

Image

From the article: "According to the TTC, they experienced loss of their Vision system which is used to communicate with vehicle operators, forcing them to use a backup radio system. They also lost vehicle information used to update trip planning apps and Wheel-Trans bookings were unavailable. Internal email service was also affected."

https://toronto.citynews.ca/2021/10/29/ttc-says-it-was-the-victim-of-ransomware-attack/

First STM, then STO, now the TTC....  I'm not liking this pattern.

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3 hours ago, sdgta2008 said:

First STM, then STO, now the TTC....  I'm not liking this pattern.

The pattern seems to be alphabetical - but are they spelling it out, or just using the abbreviation. If the former, than Translink should watch out! If not, then Victoria is next.

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41 minutes ago, MK78 said:

I'm wondering what are the chances that they can have VISION/NEXTBUS working for Monday morning service... 

That would be nice - but I'd think the biggest issue is that Wheel-Trans can't book rides.

I'm surprised (no .. I'm not really) that there isn't a service alert out there for the Wheel-Trans and Nextbus issues.

I don't see how the TTC CIO doesn't get fired after this, when other agencies were already hit. Bad enough that they weren't good enough to stop something getting in. How wasn't the entire thing not resetable by going to a backup overnight?
 

 

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I'm hearing some dispatch to bus transmission on the normal "channels" like is usually the case on VISION here in the east end, but the fallback channel is still being used, so maybe it's slowly being brought back.

But yeah, the Wheel-Trans situation is not pretty if people can't book it.

 

Edit: nevermind, I just heard it's still down. and those transmissions have stopped, so maybe they are trying to cobble something together.

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5 hours ago, sdgta2008 said:

First STM, then STO, now the TTC....  I'm not liking this pattern.

 

2 hours ago, nfitz said:

The pattern seems to be alphabetical - but are they spelling it out, or just using the abbreviation. If the former, than Translink should watch out! If not, then Victoria is next.

By the same logic they could be heading westbound lol

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18 hours ago, MK78 said:

I'm hearing some dispatch to bus transmission on the normal "channels" like is usually the case on VISION here in the east end, but the fallback channel is still being used, so maybe it's slowly being brought back.

But yeah, the Wheel-Trans situation is not pretty if people can't book it.

 

Edit: nevermind, I just heard it's still down. and those transmissions have stopped, so maybe they are trying to cobble something together.

I guess they don't have a backup system?

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Well I hope heads will roll for whoever implemented and "secured" the system. I still wonder if it had anything to do with the TTC site being redone just days earlier, and a vulnerability was exploited to get deep into the core.

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19 hours ago, MK78 said:

Well I hope heads will roll for whoever implemented and "secured" the system. I still wonder if it had anything to do with the TTC site being redone just days earlier, and a vulnerability was exploited to get deep into the core.

No.

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22 hours ago, MK78 said:

Well I hope heads will roll for whoever implemented and "secured" the system. I still wonder if it had anything to do with the TTC site being redone just days earlier, and a vulnerability was exploited to get deep into the core.

From what I gather,

Not in this case, but not impossible in other scenarios. The TTC sets up their servers a bit differently from other local agencies; they keep their website servers and general comms servers separate. The website is in what's called a DMZ, ie. a highly protected (more beefy than normal) seperate server that has no links to the rest of the TTC's network, not even physically. If you noticed, the TTC website never really went down, as where VISION, tracking, general comms went down, as they're in seperate servers. The DMZ had to be opened and closed to patch the new website, not the general servers, meaning that it was a coincidence. 
However, if someone inside the TTC wanted to wreak havoc on the DMZ server AND the other servers at once, that is possible, but one cannot cause the other. 

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