Re: [NSW] Indicator Board - Wrong Destination

["Dave Proctor" <thadocta@spambait.dingoblue.net.au>]

Chris Downs wrote in message ...
>Blame the passengers (customers) - bad approach.

Only when it is their fault - what did you expect them to do? Go up to each
individual passenger and ask them where they were going? They did all they
could.

>If a store announced over the PA numerous times that an item cost $5, I
>picked it up and went to the counter, was focusing on pulling out my money
>at the checkout when a corrective announcement of $10 was made and I found
>later that I'd paid $10 and not $5 I'd be pissed off.

Totally different situation, and a totally inappropriate analogy.

>That's how these passengers felt.

Then they should learn to listen to announcements. That is why they make
them, to advise people of what is going on. If the passengers cannot be
bothered listening to the announcements, then that is their fault.

>As far as I'm aware no one went to any extra length to
>advise that the indicator and announcements were wrong - an essential step
>(and a bare minimum) considering the timing of the correction after the
>train had stopped at the platform.

You yourself said that the board and announcement was corrected. Were you on
the train when this was done, or were you on the platform? If you were on
the platform, how do you know the guard did not make an announcement? If you
were on the train, how do you know that the station staff did not make a
manual announcement? How do you know that both were not done?

>Most people are generally reasonable (shock horror disbelief) and will
>happily live with a clear, comprehensive and timely corrective announcement
>(yeah they'll grunt and groan but only the ones with a tenuous grip on
>reality go ballistic) rather than losing 5% of their day because they
didn't
>listen to a revised platform announcement that made no mention of an error
>or a correction (that's a good reason to lose it unfortunately).

What a lot of rot.

>The mind set that the passenger has it wrong and the attendant contempt for
>passengers is a significant problem for CityRail.

And sometimes the passengers do have it wrong. You should have seen the
doozies that I saw when I worked for QANTAS, Greyhound-Pionner, Deluxe
Coaches and Bus Australia. Passengers are capable of getting it so wrong, it
is not funny. The passengers clearly got it wrong in this case. If the
indicator and announcement was not corrected, then you would have a point -
but they were corrected, and announcements were made.

>You only need see the
>difference in passenger reaction when a delay occurs and an announcement is
>made (even if it can't advise the length of the delay) compared with the
>frequent deathly silence that often accompanies a delay.

Agreed there - some info (even incomplete info) is better than nothing.

>Wow - this is almost as good as having a shot at Miranda Devine or Piers
>Ackerman in the Tele's letters to the editor.  I'll jump off my soap box
>now.

As will I.

Dave