Re: [NSW] Fare evasion, and other social ills

["Bradley Torr" <truenorth@one.net.au.SPAMTRAP>]

Ivan Smith <ivsmith11@hotmail.nospam.com> wrote in article
<HNNE6.9653$ff.67917@news-server.bigpond.net.au>...
> I could comment here, having been trapped recently, but I do know the
> difference between someone doing their job, someone being an arsehole and
> someone who doesn't give a toss. There is a general malaise amongst the
SRA
> staff which has to be weeded out first.

I'm a little ambivalent at this. I'm certainly no expert when it comes to
organisational culture (HR stuff generally bores me to tears), but I would
assume that the malaise of which you speak isn't due to an inherent
contamination of the soul of the employees, but due to an indifferent
management, staff cutbacks, malevolent customers, and politicians who keep
treating public transport as though it were a business, when it is a sorely
needed social service and an investment in the community. 'Tuning out' and
not giving a stuff about one's job may well be the best coping mechanism
railway staff have when it comes to dealing with their employment!

> I empathise with you, but if the ticketing system wasn't so restrictive
and
> the Rail Safety Act so narrow in trip definition then there would be a
lot
> less tension.  All the SRA has to do is look at the way the Brisbane City
> Council runs those trains and that ticketing system and we'd have a
better
> all round time of it in Sydney. 

Oops - I think you mean QR. The City of Brisbane runs the bus and ferry
services within its area of jurisdiction using its wholly owned subsidiary,
Brisbane Transport. Brisbane's ticketing system is just as bad as Sydney's
IMO. If you want great ticketing, see Melbourne! (Though M*tcard has plenty
of faults and is a massive degradation of the system that was in place
before, Melbourne's ticketing still remains the most flexible and
user-friendly in the nation).

> in Sydney - too expensive for what you manage and we won't go into the
$9.80
> one way to go on a normal train to the airport!

Once again, politicians treating infrastructure as though it was a
business, instead of a social service. This is what happens when pollies
keep trying to get the private sector involved in every single aspect of
government service provision.

> Today is good example. I want to buy a weekly this morning but I can't
> because your staff won't sell it and the machines are closed down.

There was a strike this morning. Why not buy your weekly tomorrow? That
way, you get an extra day on the weekly you bought previously.
 
> That said - Fare evaders need to be caught and brought to justice,
because
> the rest end up paying for it. The thought of some twit jumping a fence,
> running down the street, picking up his $300 deal of consumable
substance,
> jumping back over the fence and doing the same thing on the other end
> because he can, pisses me off no end.

LOL, here in Wollongong, they don't need to jump over the fences - no
stations have electronic ticket barriers, and the station staff are too
jaded to bother dealing with the cattl... err, passengers. Wollongong
Station is a junkie haven - there's this methadone clinic just up near
Jubilee Bridge, you see. You should see the local Thirroul to Port Kembla
daytime all-stations shuttles. Junkies (illicit drug users for the
politically correct amongst us) from the Housing Commission estates of the
northern suburbs catch the two-car L-sets down to Port Kembla, where they
sell their bodies or their stolen goods in return for their consumable
substances. They then dawdle back to PKM station in a confused state to
travel to the hovels from whence they came, and do this over and over out
of habit. I've seen the same guy on the L-set shuttle begging for money off
other passengers three times in the same day.

The Cumberland Line has NOTHING on the Thirroul to Port shuttles; the
latter is truly deserving of the title 'DrugLink'.
 
Regards
BT