Say Something...

Ah, the pains of catching public transport, or the "pleb mobile" as a friend once described it. With more and more people catching the train to work, the system is barely able to keep up. Case in point: this morning, my train was canceled. And of course, everyone who missed the that particular train tried to cram themselves onto the very next train... you can imagine how that looked.

It's always funny how it pans out. At the start, people still have space to well, have space I guess. The carriage would be considered crowded, but just wait til the train makes a few more stops. As more and more people get on, those already on board defend their personal space until it is absolutely necessary to move closer together. This is usually forced when someone from the outside decides to force their way in, and people start pleading for oxygen with their last gasps before they are engulfed by the mob, another casualty of the public transport system.

Of course, an overloaded carriage is always preferable to the alternative outcome. At least in this case, another train eventually shows up. When one train is forced to stop because say, someone feels like their life isn't worth living anymore, and the best way to tell the world is to make sure no one else gets to work on time, that really fucks up your day. Now that might sound insensitive (I just read it back out aloud, it sure does...), but standing on the street waiting for a replacement bus for the best part of 40 minutes doesn't exactly do wonders for your sanity. And yes, did this happen to me once... fun times indeed.

Of course, many of these inconveniences are not always the fault of the operator. Random things like signal failures and the situation I described above happen from time to time, and a certain degree of patience is required. But clearly something can be done to improve things if such an event is to occur. It is clear that staff are not always properly trained to deal with extraordinary situations, and one would suggest some sort of crisis management training would be in order. The procedure to take may also need revising and made more clear to help staff understand what to do.

*Just so you know, this was not the actual train I had to catch... there was a perfectly good train arriving 3 minutes after I took this photo, and this train was not late at all. The train in this picture did not appear to be running late when I looked at my watch, it just happened to be scheduled to arrive in an hour. Sorry to get your hopes up if you were looking for proof of super inefficient public transport...