What happens when tech fails?

I was travelling in a bus and the ticket dispenser failed - low battery. And whoever designed this system had no plan B. The conductor had no spare battery, no charging point or even manual tickets to give. So, he closed the bus doors and told the driver, we cant take any more passengers and sped to our destination.

Whoever thought of this wonderful tech did not think of a plan B in case it fails. Aside, the electronic ticket dispenser is slower than the manual ticket and at peak hours, it is quite an effort for the conductor to keep up. And most of them hate electronic payment at peak hours - simply because it is way too slow for them.

This is similar to toll boths in India (some of the high through put ones) which are faster than fast-tag (yet).

This does not mean that tech is bad or tech is too slow - it just means, it needs to designed and thought through better.

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