The Toleration Of Public Transport
Standing in a 40 minute queue this morning to travel 50 metres underneath the rat-hole that is Waterloo station, it occurred to me that there is some kind of issue every day in my journey in and out of London. The issues have been down to things like:
- Signal failure
- Ice on the tracks
- Doors jammed
- Ticket machine not working
- Staff shortage
Today, it was a combination of all 5. The one that puzzled me the most was the ‘Doors jammed’ situation.
See the above picture, on the left hand wall there is a big steel door with a sign above it.
THAT is the door that is jammed…..and it has been for 3 days…..but only in the morning when there are stacks of people. Surprisingly, the door is fine in the evening.
Due to the door being jammed, this picture was taken standing in the middle of the road with buses and taxis swerving in and out of hundreds of people. I am sure there is some kind of legal issue with that…but anyway…
There I stood with people who have paid good money to experience the relentlessly useless service that Network Rail provide with 3 or 4 barriers to get down into the tube with thousands queuing and 8 or 10 barriers to exit with (I counted) 154 people in 40 minutes going through them.
My theory is that atleast half of the reasons outlined in today’s escapade where fictitious.
My theory is that this is some sort of ‘traffic calming’ excersize to ensure a drip feed of people into the tube – possibly to make the lives of staff easier, or possibly so that real problems don’t then happen.
Can you see a scale issue with this?
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From trying to engage with the staff at various help points over the last year I have reached a fairly horrible conclusion – although one which probably wont come as any surprise.
They don’t give a shit about us.
Why could that be?
Because they think we don’t have a choice in the matter.
Today’s assistant was called ‘Terry’. He informed me that I could always take a taxi.
Thanks Terry. And do what with it? Smash it over your tiny little head?
I have already paid my money, so I think you will find that I expect SOME FORM OF CUSTOMER SERVICE.
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Can you imagine if there was an alternative system to ferry us around town en masse?
Imagine if Network Rail had a competitor called ‘UTS’.
UTS could be short for the ‘Ultimate Transport System’
Imagine if you went down into the underground and there was a left turn to Network Rail and a right turn to UTS.
UTS prices are slightly more but the service would be unbelievably good.
During the night, when the stations are shut, UTS fix and avoid all problems so that by 530AM their service runs like a dream. Meanwhile, Network Rail employees sit at home watching rubbish television complaining about their working hours to their union.
I imagine 3 outcomes:
1. UTS take all the custom and NR shut.
2. Some still use NR even though its fucking useless but hey, its a quid cheaper so why not?
3. NR realise that people will not tolerate horrible experiences when there is a better alternative and they improve their ethics, systems and survive infrastructure.
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Lets look at another imaginary situation:
Can you imagine if, for every time someone turned up late for work due to the rail system, Network Rail were fined?
With RFID, the system could track when people started their journey (so as to validate their times) and there could be a window of ‘accepted delay’ above which, NR accumulate fines for every single one of us delayed passengers.
I bet that even before this system was in place, miraculously, the signals would stop failing, doors would stop jamming and ice WAS NO LONGER A LAME EXCUSE.
If the system went live, and assuming the miracles above weren’t to be, I reackon NR would have a change in work ethic very quickly.
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Of course, we look at alternatives with a degree of skepticsm because ‘well, it just doesn’t work like that though does it?’.
But why settle for that?
Do we not deserve more?
Why are we tolerating such an ignorant, lazy, complacent, insincere, inefficient bunch of talentless assholes determining whether or not to provide us a service for the money we pay?
Honestly, I think its fucking criminal and they should not be allowed to get away with it.
