Hundreds of thousands of commuters in Tokyo got a free ride to work this morning after a systems glitch caused more than 7,000 ticket gates at 662 railway stations to fail. The gates, which allow passengers with contactless smart cards to access the railway, did not start working when the system was opened. Rail operators allowed passengers to get on trains at no charge because of the problem. A large number of passengers use the contactless cards and forcing them to buy paper tickets would have meant long lines and congestion at railway stations during the morning rush hour. While the cause of the failure is not yet known, the fault appears to lie with the manufacturer of the ticket gates, Nippon Signal Co., according to a report by Computer World.