Here is my 2p. I currently commute 3 days a week between Castle Cary and Reading
For my Journey into work - basically I want to get to the station, park my car, get on the train with as little noise, disturbance, hassle as possible.
1. I'd agree with other comments, I dont want to be listening to "see it, say it, sorted" at 06:35 in the morning, reduce the amount of announcements or reduce the volume of them.
2. Improve the flow through the gateline or at least encourage people to find their ticket and have it ready prior to getting to the gateline and then stopping to fish it out of their pocket etc
For my Journey home
I want to get off the train and get into my car and out of the station carpark as quickly and as easily as possible
1. Improve the flow of people off the station, i.e. some way of educating people so that if they are meeting people off the train dont wait for them at the bottom of the footbridge steps, creating a pinch point and causing people to have to queue or walk around them
2. Encourage people who are waiting to meet people off the train to use the station carpark spaces, rather than just abandoning their car as close to the platform as possible and then blocking the car park up, or even blocking me in so I cant get my car out to go home.
The problem is fixing most of those things involves education and some realisation for how we behave as individuals and how our actions impact on other people and its my sad impression that we live in a society where most people simply dont consider other people anymore so there isnt much that can be done, when you add into that I also feel that I live in a world where everybody is stressed, busy feels under pressure all the time I'm not surprised nobody really thinks about what they do and how it impacts other people and there is nothing in my opinion that the "railways" can do about that.
I've tried to deal with it all by controlling what I do and how i feel about it.
1. Noise cancelling headphones
2. Leaving myself time and not being in a rush so that if I do get blocked in or somebody causes a queue I just take a deep breathe and count to 10 and try and let it brush over me
Therefore, maybe the way to improve a commuters well being is to either
1. Teach mindfulness or coping techniques so that when you get blocked in or somebody pushes in front of you or you walk into somebody at the gateline who just suddenly stops and looks for their ticket it doesnt annoy or irritate you.
2. Encourage employeers to embrace flexible working methods, such as working at home or flexible hours so we arent all craming ourselves onto the same trains at the same time because we are forced to go physically into the workplace or work 9 to 5 hours ( I do realise that some jobs this cant be avoided )