{"id":6285,"date":"2012-08-30T14:27:35","date_gmt":"2012-08-30T04:27:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/michaelwyres.com\/?p=6285"},"modified":"2012-08-30T14:27:35","modified_gmt":"2012-08-30T04:27:35","slug":"rail-failures-a-question-of-protocol","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/michaelwyres.com.au\/mwdc\/2012\/08\/rail-failures-a-question-of-protocol\/","title":{"rendered":"Rail Failures: A Question of Protocol"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last night, both V\/Line<\/a> and Metro Trains Melbourne<\/a> (MTM) commuters were delayed due to various problems with the rail network in Melbourne.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Some V\/Line customers were heavily affected by a points failure at Southern Cross Station which prevented some trains from getting out of their platforms to start their journeys.<\/p>\n

On the Frankston line, an arson attack destroyed an electrical switch box<\/a> between Carrum and Seaford stations, leaving several trains and their passengers stranded between stations for an extended period.<\/p>\n

Commuters understand that things go wrong from time to time – it’s a man-made system, so it’s a fact of life that they break down. There’s also not a lot you can realistically do to stop someone from setting something on fire.<\/p>\n

Ultimately, you can’t really blame either company for the problems. You could argue that better maintenance might have prevented the V\/Line points failure, but brand new infrastructure can fail too.<\/p>\n

Here’s where failure can<\/i> be prevented – customer communications.<\/p>\n

I was on the 16:19 train from Southern Cross to Geelong which was blocked into platform 3 by the points failure. Subsequent trains heading to Geelong were scheduled to depart at 16:37, 16:47, 16:55 and 17:08. There shouldn’t have been a problem getting passengers from the 16:19 onto these services.<\/p>\n

Well, there was.<\/p>\n

After one tweet<\/a> saying the train would be departing 20 minutes late, and then another<\/a> saying it had departed – (untrue) – and that it had been delayed 15 minutes, we were assured on board that the train would be departing very shortly.<\/p>\n

When the 16:37 departed first, there were a few unnerved glances between the passengers waiting. At 16:44, we were directed to platform 8 South to board the 16:47, as the points failure had not been resolved. With only three minutes to go, people bolted to the other platform.<\/p>\n

Only we had not been directed to the 16:47 at all. We’d been directed to the 17:08. Nobody had time to locate and transfer to the 16:47. By the time most people realised what was happening, the 16:55 had left as well.<\/p>\n

Leaving everyone who originally boarded the 16:19 to wait for the 17:08 to depart to commence their journey home.<\/p>\n

V\/Line could have directed passengers to the 16:37, 16:47, and 16:55 services – but instead directed them to the 17:08, whilst telling them it was actually the 16:47. Many people were very pissed off when they realised what V\/Line – deliberately or not – had done to their evening commute time.<\/p>\n

Yet another demonstration of how badly V\/Line copes when something goes wrong.<\/p>\n

Over on the Frankston line, people were just as frustrated:<\/p>\n

“Five trains, carrying hundreds of commuters, were stranded between platforms for up to two hours before the passengers could eventually alight at Seaford station last night.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Many of passengers claimed of receiving no information about the continuing situation – and alas, this is entirely believable. It happens over and over.<\/p>\n

Things go wrong – it is unavoidable.<\/p>\n

What is avoidable is the continuation of poor customer service, despite claims by both V\/Line and Metro Trains that their communications are improving.<\/p>\n

Well, they’re not. They are getting worse.<\/p>\n

There still seems to be no protocol as to what to do when incidents like this occur.<\/p>\n

It is undoubtedly a complicated situation, but here is one suggestion for V\/Line and Metro Trains. It is not even a complicated suggestion.<\/p>\n

Communicate.<\/p>\n

Start building a protocol – and part one of that protocol is tell your customers what is happening.<\/p>\n

Don’t lie. Don’t make stuff up. Don’t give out clearly inaccurate information.<\/p>\n

It would really be nice to not have to sit in a train carriage wondering if you’re even going to get home at all.<\/p>\n

Last night, lots of people were wondering just that.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last night, both V\/Line and Metro Trains Melbourne (MTM) commuters were delayed due to various problems with the rail network in Melbourne. Some V\/Line customers were heavily affected by a points failure at Southern Cross Station which prevented some trains from getting out of their platforms to start their journeys. On the Frankston line, an […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[349,503,572],"class_list":["post-6285","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-transport","tag-metrotrains","tag-springst","tag-vline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelwyres.com.au\/mwdc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6285","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelwyres.com.au\/mwdc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelwyres.com.au\/mwdc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelwyres.com.au\/mwdc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelwyres.com.au\/mwdc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6285"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/michaelwyres.com.au\/mwdc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6285\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelwyres.com.au\/mwdc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6285"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelwyres.com.au\/mwdc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6285"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelwyres.com.au\/mwdc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6285"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}