What's going on with TOC attitudes?

[bramling]

I see posters at stations saying the same thing. Ironically they are often flanked by reliability/punctuality posters from TOCs which show that, in fact, the service is neither reliable nor punctual ... even when the 'punctuality' figures are based on trains arriving no more than 10 mins late. A train which is 1 min late is not punctual, never mind one which is 9 mins late. Anyone trumpeting such figures as 'good' in, say, Switzerland would be laughed at ... and as for Japan, I imagine such figures would result in multiple resignations.

My comments were based on real-life experience. For example, over the last week I have made 14 return commuting journeys in to London. Every single journey was right time. Can't ask for better than that, especially when considering the variability of road journey times in and out of London.

Some people expect to be able to get up at 0700, get a seat on a train which gets them nicely to the office for their 9-5 job, and be able to catch a train home at 1730 which arrives on time. If it wasn't for the fact that too many people also think they have a God-given right to the same, the railway would be more than able to provide it. The trouble is this country doesn't have the appetite for the funding that would be necessary for this, and even if we did in a lot of cases we don't have the space for the infrastructure required.

In the meantime, people should be glad there are railway staff getting up at times like 0300 to take them to work, on a system that, more or less, delivers what is required most of the time. People would soon moan if the railway wasn't available to them, and given the ever increasing usage figures obviously more and more people feel the railway is the best means of transport for their journey.

 

[Senex]

Some people expect to be able to get up at 0700, get a seat on a train which gets them nicely to the office for their 9-5 job, and be able to catch a train home at 1730 which arrives on time. If it wasn't for the fact that too many people also think they have a God-given right to the same, the railway would be more than able to provide it. The trouble is this country doesn't have the appetite for the funding that would be necessary for this, and even if we did in a lot of cases we don't have the space for the infrastructure required.

If employers require their staff all to arrive within the same short time-window for their day's work, shouldn't those employers be the ones to pay for the massive extra capacity required to transport them. A good infrastructure is part of the essentials for a civilised state, but how good? Is meeting the reasonable transport needs of the people the same as meeting the needs of those who want to live quite a long way from their work and all get there for that 9-5 job each day? And it's mainly a London problem, so how far should the rest of the British population be paying for the needs of the very affluent south-east?

 

[Flamingo]

If employers require their staff all to arrive within the same short time-window for their day's work, shouldn't those employers be the ones to pay for the massive extra capacity required to transport them. A good infrastructure is part of the essentials for a civilised state, but how good? Is meeting the reasonable transport needs of the people the same as meeting the needs of those who want to live quite a long way from their work and all get there for that 9-5 job each day? And it's mainly a London problem, so how far should the rest of the British population be paying for the needs of the very affluent south-east?

Good point, well presented

 

[Tetchytyke]

Regardless of transport mode I would not plan my own journeys to the minute because the world has too many variables.

Comparing road punctuality to rail punctuality isn't fair though, as there are far fewer variables with rail travel. There are a consistent number of trains which have a consistent number of carriages and there are a consistent number of passengers boarding those trains. There's the odd difference, such as a wheelchair user boarding a train, but not that many.

My train to work is always 2-3 minutes late, and it is always held outside London Euston for the sleeper ecs to make its way out of the station. When I used to take another train, that was always 5 minutes late because of a freight train going into a loop and the Watford Flyer leaving late out of Watford Junction station.

It's these delays that make the railway look incompetent: none of these trains are unexpected, none of them do anything out of the ordinary.

Now a 2-3 minute delay doesn't bother me- I can be waiting longer than that in Caffe Nero for my latte- but it IS sloppy.

 

[Bletchleyite]

I agree, and it would be solved by simply changing the timetable.

 

[455driver]

I agree, and it would be solved by simply changing the timetable.

Which would have a knock on effect to the rain behind it and the next train that set is booked to work so they would need to be re-timed as well etc etc!

If only things were as easy as you lot think! :roll:

 

[NSEFAN]

Comparing road punctuality to rail punctuality isn't fair though, as there are far fewer variables with rail travel. There are a consistent number of trains which have a consistent number of carriages and there are a consistent number of passengers boarding those trains. There's the odd difference, such as a wheelchair user boarding a train, but not that many.

My train to work is always 2-3 minutes late, and it is always held outside London Euston for the sleeper ecs to make its way out of the station. When I used to take another train, that was always 5 minutes late because of a freight train going into a loop and the Watford Flyer leaving late out of Watford Junction station.

It's these delays that make the railway look incompetent: none of these trains are unexpected, none of them do anything out of the ordinary.

Now a 2-3 minute delay doesn't bother me- I can be waiting longer than that in Caffe Nero for my latte- but it IS sloppy.

I would say that a comparison between railways and roads isn't entirely unfair, although yes there are differences in the way the two operate. It's not the trains that are unexpected but it's the problems that occur which are unexpected.

Signal/track circuit/points failures have parallels with emergency road works. Infrastructure is designed to have some redundancy but at the end of the day things just go wrong sometimes. The ongoing engineering work on the GWML and at London Bridge has parallels with the ongoing smart motorways project, in that both put extra pressure on the existing infrastructure which has to keep working whilst the work is taking place. A one under has the same effect on rail traffic as a severe car crash. An event taking place in a local area causes the same unexpected congestion problems for both roads and railways.

The case you mention of the freight train and the sleeper ECS suggests that perhaps in these cases the schedule needs tweaking. My experience is however that there are quite a lot of variables and factors that can delay my train. Cross Country services demonstrate the trickle-down effect, as a delay at Edinburgh can be ultimately responsible for causing a delay at Plymouth later that day!

Which would have a knock on effect to the rain behind it and the next train that set is booked to work so they would need to be re-timed as well etc etc!

Perhaps then it is time to have more differences between the public and staff timetables. If a journey ends up being consistently late then maybe public arrival times should be altered, so that the public at least then have a more realistic expectation of what will happen. If the train actually runs to its schedule without a problem, then as far as the public is concerned they've arrived early and might even feel positive about it! Such a practice is probably dishonest but might help with the improve the public image of the railway somewhat!

 

[455driver]

Perhaps then it is time to have more differences between the public and staff timetables. If a journey ends up being consistently late then maybe public arrival times should be altered, so that the public at least then have a more realistic expectation of what will happen. If the train actually runs to its schedule without a problem, then as far as the public is concerned they've arrived early and might even feel positive about it! Such a practice is probably dishonest but might help with the improve the public image of the railway somewhat!

Just because a train is 'late' in the public timetable doesn't mean it is late in the working timetable!

 

[Bletchleyite]

Perhaps then it is time to have more differences between the public and staff timetables. If a journey ends up being consistently late then maybe public arrival times should be altered, so that the public at least then have a more realistic expectation of what will happen. If the train actually runs to its schedule without a problem, then as far as the public is concerned they've arrived early and might even feel positive about it! Such a practice is probably dishonest but might help with the improve the public image of the railway somewhat! [emoji38]

Exactly. If the train is due in at 0830 but never arrives before 0833, just change the public TT to 0833. No need to rejig the whole working TT as the content of that is of no concern to the passenger.

 

[Monkey Magic]

and I am sure you did so in a mature, reasonable and well thought out manner and in now way called them incompetent scunthorpes!
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Very well said!

I do use my twitter to report poor service or problems but i always try to tweet in about good service. I also have often written in to back up reports of good service.
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Were it my company we would roll out a unique brand of aggressive, blunt and honest northern logic based customer service. It would be known as our calling a spade a spade policy!

So hang on, you can be 'blunt and honest in a northern way' to the customers but the customers can't be 'blunt and honest in a northern way' to you?

Bad service deserves complaints, especially if fares are increasing and services aren't improving.

And railways aren't unique - I work in education and I frequently get hear 'I am paying £9000 a year...' which seems to mean that people expect me to be on call to give them personalised education and to write their essays for them etc etc 24/7/365. But that's just the way it is.

It strikes me that if people working for TOC have an issue dealing with people then they really shouldn't be in a job dealing with people.

 

[Tetchytyke]

Which would have a knock on effect to the rain behind it and the next train that set is booked to work so they would need to be re-timed as well etc etc!

If it is late every single day then the knock-on effect is already there...

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

If employers require their staff all to arrive within the same short time-window for their day's work, shouldn't those employers be the ones to pay for the massive extra capacity required to transport them.

Surely the employers would take the view that it is the responsibility of their employed staff to ensure that they arrive on time in the morning to commence their day's work. This has been the case since the days of the Industrial Revolution.

If millhands were late for their day's work in the cotton mills of Lancashire, their wages were accordingly deducted.

 

[Senex]

Exactly. If the train is due in at 0830 but never arrives before 0833, just change the public TT to 0833. No need to rejig the whole working TT as the content of that is of no concern to the passenger.

I disagree strongly. If the train never arrives before 0833, then there is something wrong with the construction of the WTT. The WTT is supposed to be a statement of what is reliably possible, neither a counsel of perfection nor something so padded out that drivers routinely need to waste time on a significant scale. In this case there is clearly something wrong, which should be corrected.

In general I dislike differences between the WTT and the PTT where they are ECML-style 5 minutes stuck on the arrival time of all except two up ICs etc, though there are cases where this can be very useful, as, for example, to take account of unused recovery time.

 

[bramling]

So hang on, you can be 'blunt and honest in a northern way' to the customers but the customers can't be 'blunt and honest in a northern way' to you?

Bad service deserves complaints, especially if fares are increasing and services aren't improving.

And railways aren't unique - I work in education and I frequently get hear 'I am paying £9000 a year...' which seems to mean that people expect me to be on call to give them personalised education and to write their essays for them etc etc 24/7/365. But that's just the way it is.

It strikes me that if people working for TOC have an issue dealing with people then they really shouldn't be in a job dealing with people.

People should think themselves fortunate that the engineers of the 19th centure had the foresight to build a system that, 150 years later, safely and reliably ytansports large numbers of people to work. Without the railway, people would not be able to live in leafy suburbia, or simply would not be able to access many forms of employment opportunities.

The recent election result shows a majority of people prefer lower levels of taxation. This is reasonable, but it is apparent people also expect low fares, as well as low levels of crowding and high levels of performance. Quite simply, people can't have all these things just to enable their accustomed commuting lifestyle. Rather than a misguided and self-centred sense of entitlement from the commuting population, some gratitide wouldn't go amiss for a rail service which is generally pretty good considering the constraints it has to work within.

 

[yorksrob]

And railways aren't unique - I work in education and I frequently get hear 'I am paying £9000 a year...' which seems to mean that people expect me to be on call to give them personalised education and to write their essays for them etc etc 24/7/365. But that's just the way it is.

I can assure you, if I'd had to fork out nine grand tuition fees each year, I'd have expected a gold plated service and wouldn't have shied away from saying so.

As for the railway, it has issues like all infrastructure. I found myself unexpectedly traipsing across Manchester last night because of just these issues. To its credit, the railway was polite, kept me informed and made the necessary arrangements for me to travel another route. I couldn't have wanted anything more.

 

[Monkey Magic]

People should think themselves fortunate that the engineers of the 19th centure had the foresight to build a system that, 150 years later, safely and reliably ytansports large numbers of people to work. Without the railway, people would not be able to live in leafy suburbia, or simply would not be able to access many forms of employment opportunities.

The recent election result shows a majority of people prefer lower levels of taxation. This is reasonable, but it is apparent people also expect low fares, as well as low levels of crowding and high levels of performance. Quite simply, people can't have all these things just to enable their accustomed commuting lifestyle. Rather than a misguided and self-centred sense of entitlement from the commuting population, some gratitide wouldn't go amiss for a rail service which is generally pretty good considering the constraints it has to work within.

And why does that justify an aggressive attitude? TOCs have an image problem and an aggressive attitude doesn't help.

But then people complaining about complainers also also have a sense of self-entitlement that people should lump it, be grateful and stop complaining.

It is just a misguided to dismiss complaints as self-indulgent as to complain about something that can't be fixed because of x,y,z.

We live in a world of Daily Mail outrage where everything is everyone elses fault but if the problem is with us then it is the fault of the people complaining.

The truth is that many of the complaints are valid, it is also true that the explanation as to why there are various problems are complex and multilayered and that most people don't want to listen to such explanations and that the problems can't just be resolved in an instant. However, an aggressive attitude achieves absolutely nothing.

 

[bramling]

And why does that justify an aggressive attitude? TOCs have an image problem and an aggressive attitude doesn't help.

But then people complaining about complainers also also have a sense of self-entitlement that people should lump it, be grateful and stop complaining.

It is just a misguided to dismiss complaints as self-indulgent as to complain about something that can't be fixed because of x,y,z.

We live in a world of Daily Mail outrage where everything is everyone elses fault but if the problem is with us then it is the fault of the people complaining.

The truth is that many of the complaints are valid, it is also true that the explanation as to why there are various problems are complex and multilayered and that most people don't want to listen to such explanations and that the problems can't just be resolved in an instant. However, an aggressive attitude achieves absolutely nothing.

It doesn't help that many passenger complaints are *not* valid. I don't work in customer services, but I get to see all the complaints that relate to my area. Every complaint gets investigated. I can say that when CCTV is reviewed, I'd say that in as much as 80% of investigations the CCTV paints a rather different picture to what the complainant alleged. Likewise when we get complaints about delays or staff, there have been occasions when I've actually witnessed an incident which has subsequently resulted in a complaint, and the actual version events was very different from what was alleged in the complaint. On top of this, you get some who will complain as if the world has ended when one little thing goes wrong, even though the service may have been perfect every other day for weeks on end.

It's no wonder some railway staff adopt a "take it or leave it" attitide. As usual in life, actually *most* people are reasonable. It's the minority who make a lot of noise and stand out, and mess things up for everyone.

 

[Monkey Magic]

I have students who complain about universities ripping them off not giving them services that are worth £9000, I have colleagues who complain about students being lazy and not wanting to work because they feel that they are entitled to a degree because they are paying for it, and who complain about administration and senior management. I have colleagues in administration who complain about students and academic colleagues and so on and so forth. Everyone thinks their complaints are valid and everyone else is a self-indulgent baby/aggressive self-entitled arse.

If people didn't complain about stuff I think most people would have nothing to talk about.

Needless to say, being aggressive achieves nothing. Staff being aggressive doesn't help. It doesn't resolve the complaint, if anything it makes the situation worse because the complainer feels even more slighted/not taken seriously/offended. At the same time, there is no call for aggression by passengers either. I didn't like the fact that the guy in front of me in the queue for the ticket got angry about the fare rises and shouted at the ticket seller. It was hardly her fault that FGW had kept the price rises and changes in off-peak, peak etc very quiet so no one knew this week what was going on. Uncalled for, unnecessary and unpleasant.

His complaint was valid but his way of going about it was not.

I treat people as I would like to be treated myself. FGW has a whole series of 'put yourself in their shoes' posters up - which are aimed at passengers and staff alike. Although I think the worst offenders on both sides have never bothered to read them let alone absorb the message.

And there is an element of mutual re-enforcement - an aggressive attitude by staff to passenger unhappiness leads passengers to be aggressive which means staff take on a move aggressive position, which makes passengers more aggressive.

 

[455driver]

I can assure you, if I'd had to fork out nine grand tuition fees each year, I'd have expected a gold plated service and wouldn't have shied away from saying so.

You did get £9K worth of education its just that us tax payers paid for it!
all that happens now is that the person who will benefit from the education pays for it instead of the tax payer.

As for the railway, it has issues like all infrastructure. I found myself unexpectedly traipsing across Manchester last night because of just these issues. To its credit, the railway was polite, kept me informed and made the necessary arrangements for me to travel another route. I couldn't have wanted anything more.

The railways work bloomin well considering the amount of passengers we are expected to carry, people seem to expect perfection the whole time and that just isn't possible.

As for the difference between PTT and WTT, I cant see the point in it most of the time.

 

[yorksrob]

You did get £9K worth of education its just that us tax payers paid for it!
.

Perhaps I should have demanded more face to face tuition on the taxpayers behalf!

 

[Monkey Magic]

Perhaps I should have demanded more face to face tuition on the taxpayers behalf!

To go OT. But it is a case in point about a complex problem where front facing staff get it in the neck and the people making the decisions get away with it.

We would love to give you more face to face tuition. However, the way money is distributed is on the basis of research and not teaching, so if we are teaching we are not researching, so we are under pressure to not teach and to research from senior management.

People will be sacked/pushed out not on the basis of being a crappy teacher but for not researching. Thus people are incentivised not to teach, or not to spend time on it.

The problem is that students seeing their 9k fees and want more contact time, senior management see shrinking budgets from central government - their response is 'get more students', 'do more research', which is why you are have increasingly teaching being done by hourly paid staff on zero hours contracts (c£30 p/h (doesn't include prep or marking you are expected to do that for free)- 9 month contracts - and no pay from June - November (always paid a month later)) because it is cheap and it frees up the full time staff to do the research and to keep senior management in their 6 figure salaries.

 

[PHILIPE]

If an example of poor TOC attitude is required, please refer to current thread "Unhelpful station Help Points". I always thought these calls would go to somebody in Control not outsourced to wherever.

 

[Clip]

Many moons ago spare drivers and guards were the norm (at larger sheds/depots at least). BR did get a bad press for many things, but I do not recall this issue being one of them.

The real reason why 'spare' turns have been removed is, I believe, this


and nothing to do with media uproar. Indeed, contemporary criticism is regularly focused on the failure to run extra services for big events or at peak holiday times, unlike years ago when such extras/reliefs could be manned by 'spare' crews.

Quite, however BR didn't have to operate in this day and age of social media and internet forums, which is presumably how you and others seem to know how tightly drivers diagrams are now

I can even write the headline for you now if you want once someone lets it slip that there are proper spare turns where they may do nothing

'Train drivers paid £50,000 per year to sit around and do nothing'

You know full well it would happen and what the outcry would be.


Still no answers to how we deal with passengers delaying a train I notice.

 

[Tetchytyke]

I can even write the headline for you now if you want once someone lets it slip that there are proper spare turns where they may do nothing

'Train drivers paid £50,000 per year to sit around and do nothing'

You know full well it would happen and what the outcry would be.

Hmm. I don't agree, to be honest. Although I'm not saying there should be loads more spare turns, I'm just saying there should be more recovery time in a staff diagram between arriving at the terminal station and leaving again.

Still no answers to how we deal with passengers delaying a train I notice.

If it is a regular occurrence at a particular station try and work out why and timetable appropriate dwell time.

The worst dwell times I see are when London Midland stick a 4-car on a busy weekend train (because they don't want to pay Siemens the rental fee, which is charged per mile), meaning it takes ages to board because there's no room on the train. I've been sat at Bushey for five minutes before now, all because LM think four cars is enough, the train is already wedged leaving Watford Junction, and there's no room to get on board. Stick another 4-car set on the back and, hey presto, the dwell time reduces.
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To go OT. But it is a case in point about a complex problem where front facing staff get it in the neck and the people making the decisions get away with it.

We would love to give you more face to face tuition. However, the way money is distributed is on the basis of research and not teaching, so if we are teaching we are not researching, so we are under pressure to not teach and to research from senior management.

Indeed. At my institution the VC has banned the use of the word "teaching", to the extent that papers sent before Senate about teaching must use euphemisms or they will be rejected.

It is becoming an increasing problem, and it is mostly around expectation management. Because students are paying the cost of tuition now, instead of the taxpayer, they expect it to be like school. Contact time is important, but university is about independent research and learning, something too many students forget about. A constant refrain from students who have failed is "I've paid £9000 for my degree!"- they haven't, they paid it for the tuition, which they have wasted.

But yeah, totally off topic.

 

[Flamingo]

An American friend could not get over the fact that University costs up to £9000 a year in the UK. He could not believe that you could get a degree from a top-flight university for that.

He's looking at paying out (or rather, owing) over $100 000 for his son to go to NYU.

 

[khib70]

You did get £9K worth of education its just that us tax payers paid for it!
all that happens now is that the person who will benefit from the education pays for it instead of the tax payer.
.

Right. When someone qualifies as a doctor, teacher, engineer,research scientist, the only person who benefits is themselves?

Your ignorance and misanthropy is matched only by the mighty Daily Mail itself.

 

[Via Bank]

I can assure you, if I'd had to fork out nine grand tuition fees each year, I'd have expected a gold plated service and wouldn't have shied away from saying so.

This is veering dangerously into offtopic territory, but I can assure you that in my industry (software) £27k for three years of tuition, from scratch, on computer science, is good value. And our student loan system is also extremely good value.

Of course, one could self-teach, but one could also walk from London to Birmingham, to which I say "good luck."

 

[Flamingo]

Right. When someone qualifies as a doctor, teacher, engineer,research scientist, the only person who benefits is themselves?

Your ignorance and misanthropy is matched only by the mighty Daily Mail itself.

It depends on what they do with the qualification, who they work for, and where. There is a lot more to it than simple platitudes. But as a general rule, if somebody gains a qualification at taxpayer expense that increases their earning potential to a high level, I see no problem with expecting them to pay back some of the cost of that education, if only to fund others coming up behind them.

 

[Tetchytyke]

Right. When someone qualifies as a doctor, teacher, engineer,research scientist, the only person who benefits is themselves?

The fact that some of these professions have a wider social benefit is reflected in the fact that these students are not required to pay the full cost of their tuition. Universities receive some additional funding for courses like medicine for this reason.

But I see no issue with people paying towards the education they have chosen to undertake in the hope that it will increase their earning potential. Whether it always does or not is another debate- probably one for the general stuff forum- but students start higher education in the hope and belief that it will.

 

[DarloRich]

So hang on, you can be 'blunt and honest in a northern way' to the customers but the customers can't be 'blunt and honest in a northern way' to you?

Bad service deserves complaints, especially if fares are increasing and services aren't improving.

And railways aren't unique - I work in education and I frequently get hear 'I am paying £9000 a year...' which seems to mean that people expect me to be on call to give them personalised education and to write their essays for them etc etc 24/7/365. But that's just the way it is.

It strikes me that if people working for TOC have an issue dealing with people then they really shouldn't be in a job dealing with people.

No - my point is that if it were my company help would be available to all but with an understanding that if you swear at us we will swear back. Then tell you to f off.

You seem incapable of grasping the point that complaints should be made in a dignified and polite fashion, not in jabbering about like a rabid moron!