TFL Twitter

Glad you brough up this topic as the emotions expressed on twitter by the travelling public is something that has really intrigued me recently. Of the few services i follow TfL Rail has a lot of berated passengers tweeting to them. for example recently they tweeted about a bench and responses they received were interesting;



Personally speaking i dont air my frustrations on social media, however this gem of ridiculousness required a response from me:


I didn’t really get the rationale on keeping minor delays an unexpected surprise. Not sure what benefit this has if passengers cannot plan ahead to make alternative journeys instead of cramming onto busy platforms.

I often find myself and others trying to calm the wrath of an angry commuter on twitter who's been hit by delays by explaining to them the actual problem, why it may take so long to recover and politely (admittedly sometimes a bit aggressively) reminding them how fortunate they are to be in London in terms of transport and reminding them that things can't always work perfectly. I've had an increasing amount of "thanks for giving more info than TFL seem capable of", it's getting a bit pathetic. I always thought TFL were quite good with communicating with passengers but they've gotten far worse.

On a similar note, last week I witnessed a man call a 3 minute delay on the overground "an absolute shambles and mockery of the British rail system". I thought he was being sarcastic but on further conversation, he was being dead serious. All London Overgrounds Twitter account could reply with was a link to a refunds page but I can understand why they wouldn't waste their time on someone like that.

While I take your point about the 3 minute delay the bit that people don't consider is that rightly or wrongly a fair proportion of passengers work on very narrow time margins to get to places or to make connections. If you are used to a train service habitually running on time then you will (a) notice and (b) possibly be narked if it starts running late. Yes things go wrong but if your day to day experience is that they do NOT then people notice very quickly. I used to be like "Mr 3 minute delay" at times because I wanted to make connections to bus services and the Vic Line in those days was forever having pregnant pauses at Seven Sisters or deciding at the last minute the train would terminate there rather than run to Walthamstow. Thankfully I no longer commute and I tend to allow more time so am far less stressed out about journeys.

On the more general issue then the loss of knowledge and experience at TfL is evident all over. The poor souls lumbered with the social media work have a thankless task but they are also lacking in support resources, up to date information and basic knowledge. I pointed out earlier this week an error in the "poster" about the early finish / late start on the Vic Line due to emergency engineering work. Some of the bus info was incorrect - I tweeted TfL. No acknowledgement, no correction, nothing but repeated tweets with the wrong information. If you can't be bothered / are not able to take on board genuinely helpful feedback then your organisation is in a mess. I wonder why I even bothered.

Finally it is worth noting that City Hall strictly control what TfL is allowed to say. Note the lack of press releases compared to past Mayoral regimes (regardless of the fact we are in purdah at the moment due to the impending local elections). This whole thing about not publicising minor delays or explaining in any great detail what is actually wrong is all part and parcel of a "we don't want any bad news" culture that starts from the large glass building at Tower Bridge and stretches right through TfL. It's a bit ridiculous tweeting about new seats on TfL Rail stations as some great achievement when anyone paying an ounce of attention will know Crossrail faces the most challenging 8 months in its history and there is an absoulte shed load of things that can go (and have gone) wrong before we reach December this year. Mayor Khan really does not like bad news or anything that casts him a bad light. We can all argue about the efficacy or otherwise of Ken Livingstone and Boris Johnson but both had egos large enough to be able to take the rough with the smooth in their own inimitable fashions. I don't see the same "ease" with the current Mayor. You'll notice that the Met Police are similarly "sat upon" by City Hall - the new Commissioner has a ridiculously low public profile when you consider what is going on.

There have always been problems with interpreting problems and giving sensible information.

Trains may be delayed and out of position without affecting the perceived service. In the past you would hear announcements that there are delays to the service when a passenger would be getting on a train with no obvious delay.

I regularly do surveys on platforms and have to wear a hi vi. I am often asked for advice even when I'm standing next to a uniformed member of staff.

They have access to information that I don't.

To take Ethan's example. It is possible that was a problem with the London Bridge - Lewisham service (not an infrequent event) and the traveller was seeking an alternative route.

 Hope I didn't direct him to a cancelled service  

Exactly, I always feel good helping confused travellers. I don't really think of closures when travelling and it's not too rare for me to turn up to a station and find it closed and I really hope I haven't put any advise seekers in that position.

Is TFLs 'bot thing' still a thing? Do people find it more useful than Twitter updates, I've never tried it. I may even be hallucinating about the bot even being a thing.

You may have noticed the TfL Rail twitter feed becoming a bit more interactive/responsive since Easter due to a trial where they are located in the ROC and Romford near the control team. They also did a survey recently asking what improvements would be made to the TfL Rail feed.