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

["Ivan Smith" <ivsmith11@hotmail.nospam.com>]

"Bradley Torr" <truenorth@one.net.au.SPAMTRAP> wrote in message
01c0cbda$63337680$0b3d0c3d@default">news:01c0cbda$63337680$0b3d0c3d@default...

> 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 agree completely with you, and it's the reason I would never apply for a
job at the SRA.

I feel for the SRA employees generally. They are all individuals and vary in
their capacity to handle customer issues personally. I wish these people
could distinguish when the system is at fault and when they are at fault and
deserved of custom comment.

That's the only problem above what you have stated, which I can see affects
the SRA at the working level.

As I have stated, I hold no mallace toward the SRA staff, except inspectors
who push to Rail Safety Act 1993 to the letter and won't listen to a
reasonable story.

>
> > 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).

I haven't been to Melbourne recently, so I can't comment on that system, but
I'll have a gander when I get down there.

>
> > 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.

I believe that line isn't anything SRA anyway. It's a business and it shows.
>
> > 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.

I have. Thanks.
>
> > 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'.

And where are the white shirts? No where in sight I bet.

Talk about soft targetting!

The path of least resistance seems to be the way.

Ivan