Actually, within about 10-15 of the incident being reported there was full alt ticket acceptance on the lot. When LO went down, we are accepting tickets. not much point admittedly, but it was there. And this came through every 10 mins. (to us yes, but others get the same feed)
Thank you for the information.
I believe you, but this was not communicated to the public for London Bridge. Maybe it was later on, but not when I left work and had to make a decision where to travel from. Once at London Bridge there was no useful information provided, and the mobile network was overloaded, so no online status either.
For Victoria passengers then yes, it was reported. But since my ticket is probably not valid from there anyway, it was of little use.
To be fair to you, I would normally assume acceptance was in place anyway in times of trouble for Southern, Thameslink and SWT. Bus and Tube however are a different matter.
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I wasn't there, and can only go by what I've read about the situation. However it seems extraordinarily implausible that someone would choose not to show information about delays. What possible gain for Southern would there be in not showing information about train delays, knowing what the likely consequences would be? Far more likely that any failure to show information would have been unintended.
It does sound 'extraordinarily implausible' I agree, but it keeps happening. It 'can' happen 2 or 3 times a week. Before leaving work I check the disruptions pages to decide whether to use London Bridge, Waterloo/Clapham Junction or Blackfriars/Thameslink core. Time and time again I get to the station 15 minutes later and find a problem which had not been communicated. Sometimes it is minor, other times serious, and clearly had occurred long before I checked.
I, and I am sure others, also check the live departure boards very carefully. Any sign of delayed trains (even on other routes) may give a clue. You may find a 'This train has been delayed by xxx' which is not shown on the main disruption page. Checking the progress of an inbound train to London Bridge is another example. We should not need to do this detective work. Oh and are we supposed to check Twitter, FaceBook and every other damned data feed as well before we travel?
If a TOC has the information and decide not to publish it in a timely manner then that is a choice. If they decide not to have staff available to update public information, that is a choice. Probably a commercial decision to save money, I don't know.
Most commuters are quite resourceful. Given timely and accurate information they will find an alternate route *if* they can. This lightens the load on the TOC in the problem area, results in fewer Delay Repay claims to process, and we get home earlier than we otherwise would.
Perhaps it is over reliance on automated information systems these days. When train and platform staff have the information, and make manual announcements they usually do a brilliant job of keeping people informed. It is just too rare.
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Nope you had the experience that many people had.
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Clearly I don't intend to p*ss anyone off so apologies if it comes over that way.
And I wholly agree that the comms were not good and need improving. In mitigation I would argue that comms have never been good in situations like Tuesday's, whilst in the past couple of years twitter and other apps have given people the ability to know more than the railway team in the front line. Not an excuse, but a reality that needs addressing.
Regarding the train service, it is simply not true to say that few or no trains ran. More than three quarters of the peak did run, some of it was delayed, but it still ran. True there were some large gaps in the service to some destinations, equally, many destinations had a reasonable service.
Talking about this in the office today, none of us could recall a time when both the ELL and Victoria offered no effective service for the evening peak. It is fair to say that had this happened 4 years ago, the result would have been the same.
I can only assume I was caught in one of those gaps then. All I said was very few were leaving at the time I was there. I fully accept they may have left later on.
Not trying to shift the argument, but the train I eventually boarded was crush loaded, and seemed to leave quite a few people behind. The Brighton service due out next was cancelled. So I would imagine some people had to wait much longer than me, others would have had a much easier time as you had said.
On the subject of comms -
I think part of the problem is that it is assumed passengers will all use Twitter and other apps as it is the modern cool source of information. Things to remember are :-
Not everyone has a smart-phone and/or knows how or wishes to use Twitter.
Twitter is very 'noisy' when I have tried to used it. Trying to filter useful information from the rants and other chit-chat can be hard.
As others have also said, the mobile networks get overloaded in a crowd like London Bridge on Tuesday, so (almost?) nobody can access any information.
We need a single source of accurate and timely information and not have to play detective across a variety of apps and websites, which as noted above may not be accessible anyway.
The TOCS have a lot more information than they are passing on to the passengers and even their own staff on the ground. As discussed in another posting this is their choice. They could have person(s) dedicated to providing information to the passengers and staff at stations, for manual announcements or display, but they typically don't. Okay some of it may be inaccurate and subject to change, but that's far better than what we saw on Tuesday at LBG. The occasional train popped up on the departure screen just before it entered the platform. Did nobody know it was coming until that time? This late notice made it extremely hard for the platform staff trying to manage the crowd and provide to an exit route for arriving passengers.
So yes, comms. does need addressing. Perhaps some senior rail industry bods need to spend some time on the ground for an extended period, in the crowds, with the same level of information as the normal cargo, maybe understanding will improve.
Anyway, keep discussing. Despite being p*ssed off, I still respect and value what you have to say.
Cheers,
Barry.
