When February 29 becomes March 00

BUS travellers trying to buy a weekly ticket to ride had to take a leap of faith because of a computer glitch.

Ticket machines on all First buses in Calderdale had not been programmed for a leap year and were issuing week-long passes ending on March 00 yesterday, rather than February 29.

Keith Roebuck, business director at First, said the machines had not been programmed to take in a leap year, which has 366 days rather than the usual 365.

He said bus drivers had been notified of the problem and would issue tickets valid for the week regardless of the incorrect date printed on them.

"This will only happen every four years and that's the situation," he said. "Apparently, because it's a leap year this year we automatically issue a weekly ticket with an expiry date, which in this case was wrong.

"But there is no reason why we shouldn't sell these and when a ticket says March 00 we will take it in lieu of the correct date. We will let our staff know about it."

Mr Roebuck said if anybody had been inconvenienced with any extra expense because of an incorrectly printed ticket they should contact 01422 422122.

According to the Gregorian calendar, which is the civil calendar in use today, years evenly divisible by four are leap, with the exception of centurial years that are not evenly divisible by 400. Therefore, the years 1700, 1800, 1900 and 2100 are not leap years, but 1600, 2000, and 2400 are leap years.

Leap years were created to make up the difference in length of tropical years, which are longer by 0.00078 days, and a calendar year, which is 365 days long. A leap day is added every four years to make up the difference.

-- Anonymous, March 01, 2004