A couple of incidents this week confirmed to me just how inadequate the current systems for informing passengers of delays and late changes-both at stations and on-line are.
Yesterday my wife was due to catch the 1800 from Selby to Leeds, arriving1832. I was meeting her in Leeds. When I arrived at Leeds station at 1812 the arrivals board stated that the train had already arrived which was clearly an impossibility. I checked Live Departure Boards and, apart from advising that the train would arrive at Leeds 3 minutes late, did not suggest any problems.
A few minutes later I got a call from my wife to advise that the train had been cancelled. However no one at Selby, the staff included, had known anything about it. The displays at Selby were still showing the train as operating. It was only when a passenger checked on-line that they saw it was now showing as cancelled.
When the staff member went to the office to check they found that a message had now arrived to say that the inbound train that would have formed the journey has been terminated short at Leeds but until then none of the systems had shown any problem.
On Tuesday morning the 0811 from Selby to Manchester Piccadilly was terminating short at Huddersfield. However, at Selby, aside from a message on the platform display for the journey stating 'please note change of timetable' there lead little to flag up the change. True the platform display read 0811 Huddersfield' rather than Manchester Piccadilly as did the automated announcements at the station and on the train but none of them flagged up that this was any variation to normal I.e. they simply announced that the service was to Huddersfield as if that was its normal terminating point every day. Similarly, on checking on-line, no service disruptions were flagged up for that route.
It all confirms my view that the current systems for detecting and reporting late service changes-for passengers and staff-are seriously deficient.1
Yesterday my wife was due to catch the 1800 from Selby to Leeds, arriving1832. I was meeting her in Leeds. When I arrived at Leeds station at 1812 the arrivals board stated that the train had already arrived which was clearly an impossibility. I checked Live Departure Boards and, apart from advising that the train would arrive at Leeds 3 minutes late, did not suggest any problems.
A few minutes later I got a call from my wife to advise that the train had been cancelled. However no one at Selby, the staff included, had known anything about it. The displays at Selby were still showing the train as operating. It was only when a passenger checked on-line that they saw it was now showing as cancelled.
When the staff member went to the office to check they found that a message had now arrived to say that the inbound train that would have formed the journey has been terminated short at Leeds but until then none of the systems had shown any problem.
On Tuesday morning the 0811 from Selby to Manchester Piccadilly was terminating short at Huddersfield. However, at Selby, aside from a message on the platform display for the journey stating 'please note change of timetable' there lead little to flag up the change. True the platform display read 0811 Huddersfield' rather than Manchester Piccadilly as did the automated announcements at the station and on the train but none of them flagged up that this was any variation to normal I.e. they simply announced that the service was to Huddersfield as if that was its normal terminating point every day. Similarly, on checking on-line, no service disruptions were flagged up for that route.
It all confirms my view that the current systems for detecting and reporting late service changes-for passengers and staff-are seriously deficient.1
