Three commuter travel information web sites were unable to cope
with increased number of enquiries this morning about disruptions
due to snow falls across southern England.
National Rail's site was downed when visitors to the site peaked at
six times the normal.
Problems were also reported with the web sites for South West
Trains and Transport for London, but neither was able to say to
what extent they were affected or how site visits compared with
normal levels.
All three sites were later working normally, but
Thomas Herbert, product manager at web hosting firm Hostway UK
said it is surprising that transport sites are still failing to
build in the capacity to cope with the extra visitors such events
bring to their sites.
Despite forewarning, travel companies underestimated the number
of commuters logging on, said Rob Cotton, chief executive at IT
services
organisation,
NCC Group.
"It is essential that travel providers load test their websites
ahead of periods of expected high volumes of traffic to avoid
costly downtime, which can be damaging to an organisation’s image
and leave travellers in limbo," he said.