Communication

[mfc3024]

Over the last few days I have arrived at Motherwell station waiting for the 7.04 East Coast service to Edinburgh. Due to East Coast implementing an emergency timetable, the only southbound service leaving Glasgow is the 7.04 service.

On Monday the service was great, Tuesday it was 30 mins late and yesterday and today it wa cancelled. I appreciate that the weather is bad and points and signals can fail, however Scotrail have managed to operate the 7.28 service from Glasgow Central to North Berwick via Carstairs so I assume that the route is fine.

My issue is not so much about the 7.04 East Coast service being cancelled, but about the lack of communication. On Wednesday I received five different status updates about the 7.04 service from five different sources. The station staff advised they didn't know if the service had left Glasgow, the station monitor (upstairs) said it was due at 7.22 then 7.33, the monitor on the platform said it was on time, the help-point adviser said he thought it was cancelled and the National Rail live updates showed it as cancelled.

How can there be so much variation on the status of the train, and why would there be no announcements made to passengers as to the status of the train? I understand that station staff and railway operations staff are stretched due to the weather, but I wouldn't have thought it would have been that difficult to establish if the train had left glasgow on time or if it was cancelled. Passengers just want to know what is happening with the trains and if they received some more accurate communication then I think they would be less aggrieved when there were delays or cancellations.

 

[Andrew Nelson]

Over the last few days I have arrived at Motherwell station waiting for the 7.04 East Coast service to Edinburgh. Due to East Coast implementing an emergency timetable, the only southbound service leaving Glasgow is the 7.04 service.

On Monday the service was great, Tuesday it was 30 mins late and yesterday and today it wa cancelled. I appreciate that the weather is bad and points and signals can fail, however Scotrail have managed to operate the 7.28 service from Glasgow Central to North Berwick via Carstairs so I assume that the route is fine.

My issue is not so much about the 7.04 East Coast service being canceled, but about the lack of communication. On Wednesday I received five different status updates about the 7.04 service from five different sources. The station staff advised they didn't know if the service had left Glasgow, the station monitor (upstairs) said it was due at 7.22 then 7.33, the monitor on the platform said it was on time, the help-point adviser said he thought it was canceled and the National Rail live updates showed it as canceled.

How can there be so much variation on the status of the train, and why would there be no announcements made to passengers as to the status of the train? I understand that station staff and railway operations staff are stretched due to the weather, but I wouldn't have thought it would have been that difficult to establish if the train had left Glasgow on time or if it was canceled. Passengers just want to know what is happening with the trains and if they received some more accurate communication then I think they would be less aggrieved when there were delays or cancellations.

Our Tannoy at Mirfield's been Broken for nearly 23 out of the last 24 months, and Northern, bless 'em have been canceling trains on massive basis, unfortunately, the don't cancel them until the are due to leave the originating Station, (Even when the incoming hasn't run either, and as I takes 5 Min's to get to the station, and the Train takes A little more, by the time they decide if it's going to run or not, I should be half way there....

 

[Matt Taylor]

I like how I was aware of wednesdays service plan on Southern after checking online at home on tuesday night yet on arrival at work the following morning Southern had not sent any of that information to the station I work at which is mostly served by Southern trains! And did I have to deal with a passenger this afternoon who had been advised by NRES that she could travel to Crawley and even got a text from NRES saying her train was running despite the fact that at that point Southern had completely suspended all services outside the metro area.

And that is just the start.

*Looks forward to doing it all again tomorrow*

 

[Andrew Nelson]

I like how I was aware of wednesdays service plan on Southern after checking online at home on tuesday night yet on arrival at work the following morning Southern had not sent any of that information to the station I work at which is mostly served by Southern trains! And did I have to deal with a passenger this afternoon who had been advised by NRES that she could travel to Crawley and even got a text from NRES saying her train was running despite the fact that at that point Southern had completely suspended all services outside the metro area.

And that is just the start.

*Looks forward to doing it all again tomorrow*

Often when our whole line is suspended, NR online shows trains running.

I'm sure they sometimes just make it up.

 

[EltonRoad]

Agree, it's the communication that's as much the issue as the actual delays.

Yesterday I travelled from Norwich to Portsmouth and back. Portsmouth to Waterloo was stop/start and was announced at terminating at Surbiton, then ran through without stopping. The guard on SWT was very good, often coming over the tannoy simply to say he didn't know any more than we did. Although a passenger next to me was scoffing at it, I actually admired him for it, and felt like asking this bloke what he would have done in the guard's position.

 

[IanXC]

I did a little experiment yesterday on the way home. A colleague and I arrived at the station to go home and the display was showing "on time".

She went to the booking office and asked when the next train was, the clerk spent a while clicking around his computer before announcing he would need to call the signal box. He came back and stated that the train was "a few minutes late".

I have an application on my phone which shows NRE information, and of course our train was showing "on time". Changing direction and looking at Arrivals I could see that the inbound train to form ours was 22 minutes late.

Sure enough our train disappeared from the station displays showing as departing on time, and sure enough it arrived 22 minutes after its timetabled stop, did a quick turnaround (in fact I'm not really sure how the crew swapped ends so quickly...) and set off.

Now surely the system could take account of late inbound workings and show the delay, as in this case, and I guess many relatively small stations theres absolutely no way the service could depart any less delayed than the inbound service arrives!

 

[TGV]

The communication was the least of your problems. You were in Motherwell...

 

[me123]

East Coast suspended most, then eventually all, services to Glasgow due to the weather. Let's face it, they just don't care about that stretch any more.

Anyway, communications were a major problem on Tuesday morning. Indeed, it's hardly been great on the other days either. Do make a point of writing to Scotrail (who I believe sort out all the communications stuff for Motherwell station?), because the provision of information over the last week has been wholly unacceptable.

 

[route101]

East Coast suspended most, then eventually all, services to Glasgow due to the weather. Let's face it, they just don't care about that stretch any more.

Anyway, communications were a major problem on Tuesday morning. Indeed, it's hardly been great on the other days either. Do make a point of writing to Scotrail (who I believe sort out all the communications stuff for Motherwell station?), because the provision of information over the last week has been wholly unacceptable.

East Coast and also XC dont care too much about the Glasgow Central to Edinburgh section , i come across a few cancelled Glasgow bound XCs this year. Tho the units are based at Craigentinny.

 

[jopsuk]

The communication was the least of your problems. You were in Motherwell...

He was trying to get out, give him some credit...

 

[Metroland]

It tends to be the same old story I'm afriad, resources get stretched when things go badly wrong. For example, in some areas just one or two people control the whole CIS for a TOC with hundreds or thousands of trains. Behind the scenes you have train failures and delays with a handful of people judgingly resources, deploying them out on the track, with things changing minute-by-minute. Set swaps, timetable alterations, train crew resources, and regulating is real time and constantly changing to a developing situation. At times the system gets overwealmed and things get missed, or it's not apparent what the plan is until information is gathered, people and equiupment has been put in the right place.

The same applies to the road network and the airports.

Whereas I'm sure things could be handled better and improved, this constant expection by the general public, politicians and the media that we can have a very resilient transport system is unrealistic and dishonest given real world financial and resource limitations. For example there are already food and fuel shortages in some parts of the country as a direct result of ‘just in time’ freight transport, which is cheaper.

Yes other countries cope better, but they throw more resources at the problem as often their weather is somewhat more predictable.

 

[Greenback]

Spot on Metroland! It's the British Way - just enough and just in time!

 

[DaveNewcastle]

The Office of the Rail Regulator came to the same view:

1st December 2010 Newsletter - http://www.rail-reg.gov.uk/upload/pdf/orr_review_issue3.pdf

One area where improvement is needed is passenger information during those frustrating occasions when things do go wrong.

Last winter’s bad weather again highlighted that there is still much room for improvement in providing useful information to passengers during times of disruption.

But it is not just the regulator who has been left unimpressed. Most importantly passengers have been calling for improvements.

For the last three years Passenger Focus’ National Passenger Survey has shown that only around a third of passengers are satisfied with the way delays are handled, with only about two in every five passengers satisfied with the usefulness of the information provided during delays.

Further research from Passenger Focus published this summer showed that improving the way passengers are kept informed during delays ranks fifth in order of passengers’ priorities after prices, punctuality, frequency and crowding.

The recently published independent Winter Resilience Review also looked at the performance of England’s transport system during winter. The review emphasised the importance of communicating the state of train services in real time during periods of major disruption. It also highlighted that good channels of communication with customers underpin an operator’s confidence to introduce contingency timetables at short notice.

Useful passenger information during disruption is vitally important – and the rail industry needs to make urgent improvements.

. . . . .

During disruption, the code of practice requires:
> Information for passengers to be well structured, concise and jargon-free
> Messages should contain information on the problem and its impact and advise customers accordingly to allow them to make informed travel choices
> An initial message should be sent to customer-facing staff within 10 minutes of an incident being notified to a control office. If this incident results in major disruption then subsequent messages should be updated every 20 minutes

To deliver these improvements Network Rail and train operating companies have implemented a joint programme of work to embed enhancements to a wide range of railway operational systems and procedures. A cross-industry training programme is currently underway to ensure rail staff have the right skills.

As a result of these initiatives we would expect passengers to see improved timeliness, quality and consistency of information given to them from station staff, information screens, on the train and through the internet.

. . . .

We will publish examples of successes, to encourage and share best practice. And we will name and shame any who have failed to meet required standards.

Should we continue to see Network Rail and train operators failing in this area, we will work closely with the Department for Transport to explore options for taking action against poor performers.

 

[me123]

East Coast and also XC dont care too much about the Glasgow Central to Edinburgh section , i come across a few cancelled Glasgow bound XCs this year. Tho the units are based at Craigentinny.

East Coast do better with Glasgow, as they stable two sets overnight in Polmadie. But there's little or no incenctive for XC to serve the "Dear Green Place", because the units go back empty/on a lightly used passenger service to Edinburgh anyway!

 

[ChrisTheRef]

It's not just the railways though. I spent 6 hours trapped on the M6 overnight and the matrix display simply showed "CAUTION - SNOW - 40mph"

 

[route101]

East Coast do better with Glasgow, as they stable two sets overnight in Polmadie. But there's little or no incenctive for XC to serve the "Dear Green Place", because the units go back empty/on a lightly used passenger service to Edinburgh anyway!

Yeah your right lets see what happens in may.