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Post by superteacher on May 30, 2008 9:54:45 GMT
The Central line undoubtebly came to the rescue yeterday during the closure of Liverpool Street mainline, so well done.
During the rest of the day, however, there were examples of gaps in the service. Not sure if this is down to the continuing problems with the motors, meaning that trains have to be cancelled. However, my point is this:
Between 3.30pm and 5.00pm, there was quite a few problems with the Epping branch. Trains being turned short at Woodford, two consecutive Debden reversers, with the second one delaying the Epping service because the first was still in the siding. There was an 20 minute gap between Epping trains, and an 18 minutes gap on the westbound from Woodford.
During all this, people were standing around, in the rain, hearing that a "good service" was in operation.
A 6-7 minute interval off peak is a good service on the Epping branch, so how was the above considered as good? Of course, as this was blaring over the PA system, you get the usual comments from the passengers. However, on this occasion, fully justified.
The fact that TFL have to keep announcing a good service suggests a level of insecurity, and if they bothered to remove their head from their backside and look at what is really happening, perhaps that would benefit all.
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Post by astock5000 on May 30, 2008 11:34:51 GMT
During all this, people were standing around, in the rain, hearing that a "good service" was in operation. A 6-7 minute interval off peak is a good service on the Epping branch, so how was the above considered as good? Of course, as this was blaring over the PA system, you get the usual comments from the passengers. However, on this occasion, fully justified. As some passengers think there is never a 'good service', why don't TfL call it a 'normal service' - or is a normal service the same thing as severe delays on the Central? |
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Post by superteacher on May 30, 2008 12:04:31 GMT
During all this, people were standing around, in the rain, hearing that a "good service" was in operation. A 6-7 minute interval off peak is a good service on the Epping branch, so how was the above considered as good? Of course, as this was blaring over the PA system, you get the usual comments from the passengers. However, on this occasion, fully justified. As some passengers think there is never a 'good service', why don't TfL call it a 'normal service' - or is a normal service the same thing as severe delays on the Central? They used to call it a normal service - until TFL started using political spin, You are right about some passengers never thinking the service to be good. On the Central, you can run 30tph and still have crush load conditions. In this scenario, the service can never be described as good! |
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Post by astock5000 on May 30, 2008 12:09:43 GMT
On the Central, you can run 30tph and still have crush load conditions. I didn't realise the Central got that busy. Maybe there is a reason to build Crossrail! |
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Post by Deleted on May 30, 2008 12:19:24 GMT
I think they dropped "Normal Service" because the service was normally delayed!
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Post by superteacher on May 30, 2008 12:20:26 GMT
On the Central, you can run 30tph and still have crush load conditions. . Maybe there is a reason to build Crossrail! Bet your life it's busy! It's the eastern end of the Central that is the busiest - there are a lack of alternative routes. Also, it serves Liverpool Street and Stratford, which are very busy national rail interchanges. You also get a lot of people changing from the district to the central at Mile End. |
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Post by Tomcakes on May 30, 2008 12:27:46 GMT
This has been brought up before, it seems that staff don't want to change it because admitting there isn't a good service, and not shoving it down our throats every 2 minutes, means their station loses points in some highly important league table or other.
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Post by Deleted on May 30, 2008 12:28:18 GMT
I always take the service information with a pinch of salt. Some days there can be severe delays yet I get on a train within a couple of minutes; other times I've had to wait 20 minutes when there's supposedly a good service.
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Post by astock5000 on May 30, 2008 12:30:47 GMT
I think they dropped "Normal Service" because the service was normally delayed! Then 'Normal Service' could mean different things on diferent lines: on the Circle, it means 'Delays due to lack of avaliable trains', and it means 'Good service' on the Met! |
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Post by superteacher on May 30, 2008 13:20:45 GMT
This has been brought up before, it seems that staff don't want to change it because admitting there isn't a good service, and not shoving it down our throats every 2 minutes, means their station loses points in some highly important league table or other. The league table of lies then! |
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Post by c5 on May 30, 2008 14:29:49 GMT
This has been brought up before, it seems that staff don't want to change it because admitting there isn't a good service, and not shoving it down our throats every 2 minutes, means their station loses points in some highly important league table or other. Not quite Tom! The station must agree with what the Network Operations Centre messages say. If they don't it affects their station performance scorecard and the DSM/GSM get involved! It is the line that decides the delay message, if it was only a few trains being delayed/cancelled (sometimes you might have say 3 trains cancelled, but they are nowhere near each other except for one trip!) then it may well be left as Good Service (or if the olympic people are about!). Also, late running isn't always a good enough reason "as there is still a regular flow of trains" even though a passengers journey may take twice as long! Though, what also happens is that the line will report delays then the NOC will say that there isn't and keep it as good service!  There are of course ways that staff can get around this nonsense: Say Good Service - then say that the next Epping train is cancelled along in 20 mins, then say journey time is longer due to X/Y/Z! ;D ;D ;D |
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Post by North End on May 30, 2008 14:39:04 GMT
The fact that TFL have to keep announcing a good service suggests a level of insecurity, and if they bothered to remove their head from their backside and look at what is really happening, perhaps that would benefit all. Whilst there are definitely situations where "Good service" is inappropriately announced, may I respectfully suggest that there are sometimes operational reasons for this. Two of the stations on my group have no CCTV covering the platforms despite being busy central London stations, and have a very old DVA system which is only able to play messages at a maximum interval of 55 seconds for up to 10 repeats only. Both stations are controlled from the Station Supervisor's office, and if there's a full compement of staff there would be 3 SAs on duty in the peaks. So, in the peaks I can have 2xSAs on the gateline and one on the busiest platform. In order to safety man the station, it is good practice for the Supervisor to man the other platform and/or monitor crowding in the circulating areas. So if a message is provided in good faith to inform customers on the PA or platform indicators, if the situation changes whilst the SS is out of the office, there's nothing that can be done. So in the above situation it can be seen that no information is probably better, which is normally what happens. Now imagine it's off-peak and the SS is in the office. Information can now be provided, but if a problem kicks off the SS will be straight out of the office, meaning again incorrect information is being provided. Dealing with an incident is obviously higher in the list of priorities than keeping the customer information up to date. So, given the technical limitations already described, what would customers prefer? Maybe passengers need to grow up a little, and instead of instantly reaching for the conspiracy theory, they could instead consider that staff are trying to provide the best information possible given the limitations of a railway system where by nature situations change on a frequent and constant basis. |
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Post by jamesb on May 30, 2008 15:55:50 GMT
The fact that TFL have to keep announcing a good service suggests a level of insecurity, and if they bothered to remove their head from their backside and look at what is really happening, perhaps that would benefit all. Whilst there are definitely situations where "Good service" is inappropriately announced, may I respectfully suggest that there are sometimes operational reasons for this. Two of the stations on my group have no CCTV covering the platforms despite being busy central London stations, and have a very old DVA system which is only able to play messages at a maximum interval of 55 seconds for up to 10 repeats only. Both stations are controlled from the Station Supervisor's office, and if there's a full compement of staff there would be 3 SAs on duty in the peaks. So, in the peaks I can have 2xSAs on the gateline and one on the busiest platform. In order to safety man the station, it is good practice for the Supervisor to man the other platform and/or monitor crowding in the circulating areas. So if a message is provided in good faith to inform customers on the PA or platform indicators, if the situation changes whilst the SS is out of the office, there's nothing that can be done. So in the above situation it can be seen that no information is probably better, which is normally what happens. Now imagine it's off-peak and the SS is in the office. Information can now be provided, but if a problem kicks off the SS will be straight out of the office, meaning again incorrect information is being provided. Dealing with an incident is obviously higher in the list of priorities than keeping the customer information up to date. So, given the technical limitations already described, what would customers prefer? Maybe passengers need to grow up a little, and instead of instantly reaching for the conspiracy theory, they could instead consider that staff are trying to provide the best information possible given the limitations of a railway system where by nature situations change on a frequent and constant basis. I agree with what you've said, except that it isn't necessarily the passengers fault that the technology at the station isn't as new as it could be. Passengers are not getting the ride on the train for free, as a favor, they are paying for a service. The safe running of anything always comes first, and individual members of staff work very hard to deliver a good service. But shouldn't London Underground directors/powers that be be aiming to provide a service above the bare minimum requirement of meeting basic safety requirements, as in the case of the example you described above? Therefore shouldn't we be blaming the higher up people who try and remove staff from ticket offices etc. rather then passengers blaming the station staff and station staff (understandably) getting frustrated with passengers attitudes. I think it is fair to say that both platform staff and passengers have to put up with things. |
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Post by Tomcakes on May 30, 2008 16:02:51 GMT
This has been brought up before, it seems that staff don't want to change it because admitting there isn't a good service, and not shoving it down our throats every 2 minutes, means their station loses points in some highly important league table or other. Not quite Tom! The station must agree with what the Network Operations Centre messages say. If they don't it affects their station performance scorecard and the DSM/GSM get involved! Exactly, but the passenger doesn't care about their performance scorecard! It would be far better if stations said what was actually occuring, not what they were told they should pretend is occuring, stuff the performance scorecard. |
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Post by c5 on May 30, 2008 16:07:05 GMT
Not quite Tom! The station must agree with what the Network Operations Centre messages say. If they don't it affects their station performance scorecard and the DSM/GSM get involved! Exactly, but the passenger doesn't care about their performance scorecard! It would be far better if stations said what was actually occuring, not what they were told they should pretend is occuring, stuff the performance scorecard. Send an e-mail off to LUL, BoJo and his Prince of Darkness  ;D ;D |
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Post by superteacher on May 30, 2008 16:16:37 GMT
I am not blaming the station staff for any of this - it's the silly messages that come from central control saying there is a good service when there is not.
Somebody mentoioned that one or two isolated cancellations does not warrant not calling the service good. This I agree with. However, it's the whole terminology that is causing these problems. Good is a meaningless word anyway. And it's quite true that even with severe delays, you may get a train within 2 minutes. Obviously, the passenger neither knows nor cares that this particular train is 40 minutes late!
Wood Lane control centre is (or was) state of the art. They should have been informing the passengers on the Epping branch of the cancellations, and the reasons why, rather than allowing a "one size fits all" message to be broadcast. It's like saying the weather is going to be sunny, just because it's sunny in London. What about the rest of the country?
And why, oh why the controllers can't be a bit more creative with the service is beyond me. I am sure that they could have diverted at least one Hainault bound train up to Epping. I know there are issues with crew reliefs, but if the driver is at the start of his turn, thay could make up the extra time for the run to Epping by short tripping on its westbound run.
During the 20 minute Epping gap, there was a Debden reverser. It would make sense to extend that to Epping, then short trip it on the way back. This used to happen much more years ago, but seems very rare now.
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Post by astock5000 on May 30, 2008 16:41:08 GMT
However, it's the whole terminology that is causing these problems. Good is a meaningless word anyway. And it's quite true that even with severe delays, you may get a train within 2 minutes. Obviously, the passenger neither knows nor cares that this particular train is 40 minutes late! And shouldn't there be something between 'Minor delays' and 'Severe delays'? |
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Post by superteacher on May 30, 2008 16:46:23 GMT
I think something like "some delays possible" would be better than minor delays, then "delays likely", then "signicant disruption".
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Post by astock5000 on May 30, 2008 16:49:36 GMT
'Some delays possible' should be 'delays possible', so it isn't so long.
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Post by Deleted on May 31, 2008 15:51:24 GMT
But then "Delays Possible" would replace "GOOD SERVICE" - as delays are always possible at any moment.
Also how quickly can the service react to a delay? I checked the delay on the Central Line, just before the big delay 5 trains arrived at Epping within a 10 min window.
So in essence to be 100% accurate, the message would needed to have changed "Minor delays to Eastbound services Leytonstone - Epping" to "Minor Delays between Leytonstone - Epping" to "Minor delays Leytonstone - Epping westbound only" to "Good service" within about a 30 min period.
One delay, one line. Mutiple that across the network and you'll be forever changing those blinking messages.
I personally believe that no messages should be played unless a big problem warrants one, or at an interchange station - after all a service status board is available at every station.
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;D ;D
