The Computer still says Yes! at Canterbury West on 3 December 2010 (credit: @set_railfail)
Many of us grudgingly accept that there may be disruption to rail services when there is bad weather. However in the age of mobile phones and the internet there can be no excuse for not providing passengers with accurate, relevant, comprehensive and up to date information. Good passenger information is going to be essential during the London Bridge rebuilding. We are working with some other groups representing Southeastern passengers on improvements we would like to see. We would welcome your ideas, comments or examples.
Among the items already on our list:
- the station displays showing everything is fine when all trains are actually cancelled (see the photo above from @set_railfail during the snow in December 2010)
- different information on the National Rail Enquiries and the Southeastern websites – and sometimes neither of them accurate
- better and more up-to-date information on Twitter from other passengers than can be found on the ‘official’ websites
- trains being shown as ‘on time’ on the website and the station display until their scheduled start time – even when there is widespread disruption
- delays in making emergency timetables available on the websites and at the stations
- unreliable “due” times on the station displays and use of the unhelpful “delayed” status
- inability to announce train stops until the doors have been locked and the train is leaving the station.
- poor design of information systems and signposting at London Bridge – especially when the walking routes are changing so frequently.
Please use the comment box below to add your own examples which you would also like us to pursue!
The passenger information display screen at Bat & Ball station has not worked properly for almost one year; it displays muddled information. I have reported this in many different ways on numerous occasions to Southeastern but nothing is done to rectify the problem.
Station display saying a due time then just adds an extra minute every minute until it arrives. Also agree Bat and Ball station clock and display has not worked for at least a year.
Doubt anything will ever change though.
Problems with incorrect data appearing on the live departure boards site relative to the actual ‘on the ground’ experience at Borough Green, plus missing train progress data on the Live Departure Board site led me to contact Network Rail over the issue of when the sensors (or whatever the technology is) along the Ashford-Maidstone East-London line would be fixed so that we can actually rely on the timings shown. I received a reply indicating that it is South Eastern Trains who are responsible for the equipment on that line that enables train progress to be tracked, but I haven’t yet had an opportunity to contact them about when they might fix that equipment. The only monitoring points that appear to work down the line from Borough Green are now Ashford and.., well, sometimes but not always, Maidstone East. When we had all the rain a while ago the Maidstone East sensor appeared to break, so it would appear that there was nothing working along the line after a train had left Ashford that could actually indicate where the train was!!
If the location and timing data that we look at via the Live Departure Board site or on the South Eastern site are not reliable, they might as well not be there.
Would it really be that difficult to install a GPS device in every train so that reliable location data can be gathered??
When there is significant disruption in London, passenger information frequently breaks down completely. Example: Christmas eve 2013, only the occasional Slade Green train running from Cannon St. Other trains simply disappeared from boards when reaching their “delayed” departure time. After walking to London Bridge, more mayhem and chaos. No information on when next Chislehurst train arriving. Information only available 5 mins before a train pulled in (after 1.5 hours waiting. National rail and Southeastern websites were showing all trains running as scheduled.
Took me over 5 hours to get home – I left work at 2pm got home gone 7pm for a 30 min journey. Merry Christmas Southeastern 🙁