Obviously this is about the power outage in Spain.
While normally, if a card declines, people would probably have to leave their IDs with the restaurant while they went to get a withdrawl from their bank; this is a power outage, withdrawls wouldn’t work. It would be silly to arrest people because of a power outage. So I’m assuming people just have to give the restaurant owner/management their identity info with a promise to pay?
And power outages shouldn’t affect buses, since they run on gasoline/diesel, but the payment system processing transit passes might not work. Do buses still get run during a power outage and they just let people on for free, or do they just shut down the bus lines?
Most cell towers have generators but only about 2-3 days of fuel. So you might have ways to charge your phone but it might not have a network to connect to
You don’t need a cell signal to get a GPS location so having some offline maps like OrganicMaps or OSMand can still be useful
Another point on this, in events like this the cell network is often under very significant stress as every single person tries to contact their family and friends at the same time to check if they are OK. The general advice is to avoid making phone calls if you can to keep capacity free for people who need to contact emergency services
Refrigerated goods would be an issue soon.
I would assume a restaurant couldn’t function at all, they’d close shop. It would be easier to forgive the cost of a few meals than try to track things down afterward.
My bidet uses electricity. Terrifying if you plan on taking a shit during a blackout
you shit in your bidet?
In the u.s. a bidet refers to a type of toilet or an attachment for a toilet that shoots water at your asshole to clean it while your still on the toilet after you shit. The separate sink as a bidet is unheard of here.
In wet areas or areas during a snow melt, sump pumps are a big factor. Many people have emergency generators or battery back up pumps if their sump pit has a lot of flow.
Also rural people will often lose power to their water pumps and disinfection equipment for drinking water.
(I haven’t been paying attention to news.)
But if power is out I could see some traffic lights eventually failing to work, at which point I might guess the driver/organization sees it as a liability to continue the routes. So, I don’t know if the payment system would be the limitation.
For buses in particular, bear in mind that liquid fuels typically require pumping, which usually uses electricity. So gasoline or diesel pumps might not be available, even if the underground storage tank has fuel. Here in California, a lot of public buses are fueled with Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) which in theory could have already been compressed at the depot, but this would only last so long, since it takes energy to run the compressor, assuming the natural gas pipeline is unaffected.
Obviously, battery-electric buses and trolleybuses need electricity. So at this point, perhaps the only bus that would be totally immune is an omnibus, that 19th century people-mover that was drawn by horses. But consider the “emissions” from a horse though…
In all seriousness, the contingency plans for a transit agency will vary depending on where you are in the world. For American transit agencies, most don’t even offer service on Sunday or holidays (very strange in the land of hyper religiousness; no bus to church??) and any labor strikes usually result in every service being closed, sometimes including essential ADA operations. So likely a prolonged outage would affect the buses quickly.
no bus to church??
In the US, many (most?) churches offer their own transportation. It’s common enough that the term ‘church bus’ is a thing, although it’s usually more like a large van. For those that don’t, the parishioners will often offer transportation to those that need it.
TIL
When I worked in a restaurant we still had paper bills in the office we could write up if our system was down. If you wanted to pay with card, we would offer to write down your card info and charge it later, or accept cash only. We’d always inform new customers of this before taking their order.
If someone already ordered and was unable to pay we’d just take the loss on good faith that they’d return to pay, no holding ID or anything like that. It’s a relatively small loss for the restaurant to maintain a good reputation. Orders get comped all the time for more trivial reasons, and food cost is already a major part of a restaurant’s overhead.
But if power is out, then that generally means the kitchen isn’t functioning either unless the restaurant has generators
Yeah, credit cards were originally similar to checks in how they were handled by stores and restaurants. I loved those old clunky sliding machines that you put the cards into and KACHUNKed it onto a carbon copy receipt!
If you wanted to pay with card, we would offer to write down your card info and charge it later, or accept cash only.
That could be illegal in certain countries
If someone already ordered and was unable to pay we’d just take the loss on good faith that they’d return to pay, no holding ID or anything like that. It’s a relatively small loss for the restaurant to maintain a good reputation.
I mean, the alternative is… holding them as prisioners?
