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BART Investigates Computer Glitch That Crippled System

OAKLAND (KCBS) – Bay Area Rapid Transit officials are trying to figure out exactly what happened Monday night when computers crashed, halting service throughout the BART system for two hours.

A BART spokesman said trains are running normally again.

Computers that control center managers use to monitor the movement and whereabouts of trains went down just after 7:30 p.m. Monday.

KCBS' Bob Melrose:

At first, technicians thought it was a central computer problem.  However, equipment used to troubleshoot the system failed to detect it was actually a network problem.

Director of Operations Paul Oversier told members of the board at their Thursday meeting that in effect, the wrong people were working on the wrong problem.

"And it wasn't until well into the incident we realized hey wait a minute, this isn't the central computer problem. This is a network communications problem," he said.

Oversier said an investigation is continuing and officials are trying to figure out why backups didn't work and whether or not there's a glitch in the operating system.

Service was restored after the control center computers were fixed just before 10 p.m. and service was fully restored about an hour later.

(Copyright 2011 by CBS San Francisco. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)

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