Service improved? 5

London Midland have a page on their website titled Improving our services where they describe the steps they are taking to address a number of problem areas.


This is the fifth in a series of blog postings which covers an aspect of the service that London Midland say they are working on.

Better Information

On this area London Midland say only that they are renewing the electronic information and public address systems at their stations between Northampton and London Euston, the work commencing in May and expected to be completed before the end of 2010.

I'm surprised that London Midland are declaring improvement work on just two aspects of communication with their customers given the scope that they could cover under this heading.  I'm therefore going to try and fill in the gaps...

We get our train information on the day of travel from a whole stack of sources.  This is my personal view on how each of these rate:

TV teletext: I check page 432 on BBC Ceefax every morning before leaving the house but am not sure why I bother.  It seems now to only cover service changes due to engineering work and major incidents.   3/10.

The Web: My view on this has changed significantly over the last month.  I was a big fan of the National Rail Enquiries (NRE) arrival and departure boards (and the London Midland equivalent) but one or two recent incidents have revealed some limitations. 

In a Twitter exchange NRE admitted that they currently don't have the capability to predict delays, so if a train is expected to leave Euston on time then until it leaves London they will show it as running on schedule for each stop on the route.  If there is a general problem somewhere on the line which is expected to impact on that train then that won't show up until the train is actually delayed.  Once that happens, the arrival and departure boards come into their own.   7/10.

Smartphone apps (e.g. NRE's UK Train Times): Similar comments to Web.  7/10.

Twitter: Here we've got @LondonMidland, the National Rail Enquiries feeds, and a stack of unofficial sources.  The official ones can usually be relied on but in my experience they report only what they are given (and which presumably has come from or is validated by their own staff, Network Rail etc).  This means that they tend to be a bit slow to report problems and they seem to focus more on general updates, missing issues relating to individual trains.  7/10.

The unofficial are more immediate but like all casual stuff, you have to be careful what you do/do not believe.  Both provide information only where someone is in place to provide it, which isn't 24x7.  4/10.

Station staff - Bletchley: Generally good but why are they never on the platforms when we need them?  I can't remember the last time I saw a member of the London Midland station staff on duty on a platform at my home station.  6/10.

Station staff - Euston: These guys come in for a lot of stick, some deserved and some not.  The line of verse "when they are good they are very very good, and when they are bad they are horrid" comes to mind.  

I don't know what the problem is here, but the station staff at Euston do seem to become invisible when there's a problem.   Much has been made of the new information kiosk on the main concourse but with that serving Virgin customers as well as London Midland (plus a few others), I don't think I'll be heading their way too soon.  What we need is people on the platforms briefed with reliable information who are ready, willing and able to tell passengers what is happening.   4/10.

Station VDUs - Bletchley: the new VDU screens are an improvement at Bletchley but they aren't visible at the ends of platform 4, the main boarding point for passengers heading for London.  5/10.

Station announcements - Bletchley: The same problem applies to announcements as applies to VDUs - The nearest speaker on platform 4 for passengers at the northern end can easily be 50 metres away so any announcements are inaudible.

The problem with announcements isn't restricted to the location of the speakers.  So often when there's a problem there is no message and passengers waiting for a train are left waiting and wondering what's going on.  When we are told, the news is often late (e.g. advice on a change of platform only being broadcast within a minute of the train arriving).  2/10

Station VDUs - Euston: Here London Midland/Network Rail do better, but there is still at least one area of improvement needed...  Why oh why do we have to wait to be told the departure platforms for some trains?  The delay is understandable for the Virgin trains which have to be cleaned and stored, but with the London Midland this (unfortunately) is rarely the case.  Take the 17:51 for instance.  Everyone knows that it's formed of rolling stock which comes in on platform 8 at 17:38, so why do they wait sometimes until 17:45 to tell us where to go?

I think Network Rail also deserve an award for what has to be the daftest VDU message of all - Some evenings the screen on the approach to platforms 16-18 says that it is out of use in order to relieve congestion.  What?!!! 7/10.

Stations announcements - Euston: Similar comments to VDUs.  7/10.

Train announcements: I've deliberately left this one until last on the basis that it is the one area where I've never heard a passenger say that they are satisfied.  We all have tales to tell of journeys that were delayed where nothing whatsoever was said on board by the train crew.  I know that there are drivers and guards who do their best to tell us what is going on, but unfortunately they aren't in the majority.  5/10. 

I can think of two sources of information that I've left out - The train tracker text and phone.   I use neither so don't feel qualified to comment.

Overall rating?  Sorry, on this one it has to be a red cross.


So what do you reckon, have I been fair?  Is there anything I've missed out?  What's your view?







Following the same order as used by London Midland, the next one in this series will be Shorter Queues.



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What a shambles

This piece is going to start with the text of the seven emails received via the London Midland email alert service as I think these quite nicely tell (part of) the story of the mess at London Euston this afternoon:

London Midland at 1630: "Disruption has been reported to services between your selected stations London Euston to Bletchley.  General disruption along the line caused by a trespass incident may lead to cancellations and delays to the following services: The 17:24, 17:51, 18:05 and 18:29."

London Midland at 1704: "Services from Euston were suspended this afternoon due to reports of a person walking along the tracks, and further disrupted by a London Overground train breaking down just outside the station a couple of hours later."

London Midland at 1750: Disruption has been reported to services between your selected stations London Euston to Bletchley.  The 17:34 will be delayed by about 20 minutes due to an earlier broken down train."


London Midland at 1810: Disruption has been reported to services between your selected stations London Euston to Bletchley.  The following services will be delayed after leaving: - The 17:51 by about 17 minutes caused by an earlier broken down train. - UPDATE: The 17:34 by about 35 minutes caused by an earlier broken down train."

London Midland at 1828: "Disruption has been reported to services between your selected stations London Euston to Bletchley.  The 18:05 will be delayed after leaving by about 20 minutes due to an earlier broken down train."

London Midland at 1847: "Disruption has been reported to services between your selected stations London Euston to Bletchley.  The 18:29 will be delayed after leaving by about 10 minutes due to an earlier trespass incident."

London Midland at 1851: "Disruption has been reported to services between your selected stations London Euston to Bletchley.  UPDATE: The 17:34 will be delayed after leaving by about 38 minutes due to an earlier broken down train."

At London Euston all of the VDUs mentioned the trespasser but not the broken down train.  I arrived at 17:40 and waited on platform 8 for the doors to the delayed 17:34 to open (rumour had it that they couldn't open the doors because they had no train crew).  At one point they announced that passengers for Watford Junction, Berkhampstead and Tring could get on the 17:46 on platform 7.  This left half-full around 17:50. 

Afetr another ten minutes or so (with the doors for the 17:34 still not open) they told us that the 17:51 would go from platform 13 so I ran round there.  That left shortly afterwards (significantly less crowded than usual) and got into Bletchley at 19:07 (two minutes short of the half an hour needed for London Midland to pay out the less than generous £4.00 in rail vouchers for a delay of 30-59 minutes...)


Questions:

1. Why did the Virgin Trains appear to be unaffected by the problems this afternoon?
2. Why do London Midland not initiate the same sort of contingency arrangements used by Silverlink when this kind of problem occurs - Half hourly all stop services from Euston to Northampton (fully utilising the trains and crews available, and ensuring that passengers going to some stations are not unfairly disadvantaged)?
3. Why was the train crew from the 17:46 not put onto the 17:34 which called at the same stations plus a few more?
4. Why at the station were we only given the trespass incident as the cause of the delays?  Why no mention of the broken down train?
5. Why weren't passengers allowed to board the 17:34?
6. Why was there no apology issued either by tannoy announcement at Euston or on the delayed train?
7. Why when passengers are paying £3,000+ for their season ticket and London Midland are receiving £185 million as this year's government subsidy can't we have a better service?  OK, so the trespasser incident was a problem not of their making and trains do break down, but why did this cause so much disruption?