My maiden DART voyage

cython

Hilly Bill wrote: »

You are assuming that all drivers in the UK make reqular announcements. There is no argument that some drivers are a bit shy with announcements but there are those that are pretty on the ball with them. A driver can only announce the info when and what they are given.

They can only announce the detail that they are given, but they could tell people if a delay is normal (e.g. some of the ridiculous delays on inbound trains from Maynooth outside Connolly) or out of the ordinary (in which case they could also potentially include a token apology - that couldn't hurt PR) without having to be explicitly told the reason behind it.

Now maybe there is a policy against this type of information (seems unlikely, to be fair), but if that is the case then the level of mismanagement has hit a new level of idiocy for me.

n97 mini

cython wrote: »

They can only announce the detail that they are given, but they could tell people if a delay is normal (e.g. some of the ridiculous delays on inbound trains from Maynooth outside Connolly)

From experience I'd say one in twenty delays outside Connolly will get an announcement. And those delays are frequently 6 or 7 minutes, or more.

n97 mini

cython wrote: »

Now maybe there is a policy against this type of information (seems unlikely, to be fair), but if that is the case then the level of mismanagement has hit a new level of idiocy for me.

If you assembled every employee of IE in one big room and asked who is responsible for such brutal communication with customers you get half telling you there's nothing wrong and the other half would be all pointing their fingers at each other, a bit like PPARS, i.e. someone else is responsible.

cython

n97 mini wrote: »

From experience I'd say one in twenty delays outside Connolly will get an announcement. And those delays are frequently 6 or 7 minutes, or more.

Well seeing as there are several scheduled delays of that duration, or near to it, in the timetable (those that I referred to - look at the variation in travel time between Drumcondra and Connolly across services), I'm not surprised that they're not announced, but even discounting those ordinary delays ( I'll be generous to Irish Rail here after a couple of beers this evening ), I find that the rate and promptness (on the rare occasions they are made) of announcements around out of the ordinary delays is beyond poor.

n97 mini wrote: »

If you assembled every employee of IE in one big room and asked who is responsible for such brutal communication with customers you get half telling you there's nothing wrong and the other half would be all pointing their fingers at each other, a bit like PPARS, i.e. someone else is responsible.

Perhaps, but drivers on trains could improve the impression we get of frontline staff by announcing that there is an unexpected delay of as yet unknown cause, update to follow, etc. At least then the pressure to provide information might be directed beyond them to those who can disseminate it.

devnull

Hilly Bill wrote: »

Which 2 screens? The main board and the blue departure screens? Was this with more than one train?

Yes, the blue departure screens happened on all sets of them throughout the station.

The main departures boards were okay.

It was with several trains, and the second screen (with the incorrect info) wasn't even showing them in the correct order, had a few 21:xx trains with some 22:xx trains in the middle of them as well.

foggy_lad

n97 mini wrote: »

All drivers in the UK make regular announcements. It's a rarity on IE, and my surprise here was not that it took 8 minutes to make an announcement, it was that it happened at all.

Unfortunately on the occasions that IE drivers and staff make announcements they are either wholly or partially inaudible because of faulty equipment or being too close or too far from the microphone and rendered completely useless.

Hilly Bill

devnull wrote: »

Yes, the blue departure screens happened on all sets of them throughout the station.

The main departures boards were okay.

It was with several trains, and the second screen (with the incorrect info) wasn't even showing them in the correct order, had a few 21:xx trains with some 22:xx trains in the middle of them as well.

How long did this last for? did it come back to normal within a certain time frame? It was grand in the morning .
Sounds like a systems fault or someone in CTC not paying attention or not being able to reset it. The geeks in Oriel street would have gone home with no cover to fix it. Keep an eye out for next Good Friday, the times in the morning will show the normal friday service unless the geeks are switched on and get it sorted the night before.

Hilly Bill

foggy_lad wrote: »

Unfortunately on the occasions that IE drivers and staff make announcements they are either wholly or partially inaudible because of faulty equipment or being too close or too far from the microphone and rendered completely useless.

And a lot complain that they didnt hear any announcements without realising that they had headphones on their heads. happens when trains terminate or split .

Hilly Bill

n97 mini wrote: »

If you assembled every employee of IE in one big room and asked who is responsible for such brutal communication with customers you get half telling you there's nothing wrong and the other half would be all pointing their fingers at each other, a bit like PPARS, i.e. someone else is responsible.

Just do an online poll for them instead, its cheaper .

n97 mini

cython wrote: »

Perhaps, but drivers on trains could improve the impression we get of frontline staff by announcing that there is an unexpected delay of as yet unknown cause,

I suspect a lot of drivers suffer PPARS syndrome and believe it's someone else's responsibility... probably management's.

n97 mini

foggy_lad wrote: »

Unfortunately on the occasions that IE drivers and staff make announcements they are either wholly or partially inaudible because of faulty equipment or being too close or too far from the microphone and rendered completely useless.

I put it down to the driver showing us how manly he is by rubbing the mic off his beard while he's talking.

SpaceTime

10 Min training in microphone technique would solve that.

The usual issue is people shouting into mics or holding them unnecessarily close.
The result is "peaking" which sounds like crackles or gaps in sounds on digital systems and bad distortion on analogue.

Carawaystick

The NTA contract with IÉ , schedule B (Customer Information)

nta&I&#201 wrote:

Where the delay to service is likely to exceed 10
minutes, special public address announcements will
be made at regular intervals providing intending
passengers with the most accurate information
available as to the cause and duration of the delay and
other relevant information. Similar regular and
frequent announcements will be made on in-train
public address equipment. “Regular” means at least
Quarterly Report Compliance with
standards as
agreed between
NTA and IÉ

So it seems the low standards are a result of the nta deciding crappy announcements are fine.

bk

Carawaystick wrote: »

So it seems the low standards are a result of the nta deciding crappy announcements are fine.

I don't think that is a fair criticism of the NTA. Nothing stopping Irish Rail management implementing a policy significantly better then the NTA.

Really no one but Irish Rail to blame here. Plus I'm not sure IE even manage to reach the NTA's low standards here!

Grandeeod

Hilly Bill wrote: »

I can see what you are trying to do across a few threads .

Good. At least you are paying attention.

Grandeeod

bk wrote: »

I don't think that is a fair criticism of the NTA. Nothing stopping Irish Rail management implementing a policy significantly better then the NTA.

Really no one but Irish Rail to blame here. Plus I'm not sure IE even manage to reach the NTA's low standards here!

If IE staff put the same effort into doing the job, that they do defending the criticism here, we'd all be quids in.:D

n97 mini

bk wrote: »

I don't think that is a fair criticism of the NTA. Nothing stopping Irish Rail management implementing a policy significantly better then the NTA.

Ah it is. The NTA were formed to show leadership as the others weren't capable.

bk

n97 mini wrote: »

Ah it is. The NTA were formed to show leadership as the others weren't capable.

And in fairness I believe they have done an excellent job, in the face of politicians messing them around and not giving them the powers they require and CIE pretty much fighting them for power at every turn.

It is clear to me that the NTA is staffed by excellent people who seem to be constantly looking at and trying to integrate international best practices (see their latest information design guide, a superb piece of work).

Unfortunately the politicians are too afraid of really reforming CIE as they fear their unions, so they limit the NTA's powers. Instead NTA are left to slowly chip away around the edges of CIE, proving things can be done better and slowly, very slowly reforming CIE. Just like taking Luas and Metro North out of CIE's grasp and proving it can be done better, licensing private direct bus services, etc.

It will probably take another 20 years for the NTA to reduce the power of CIE to manageable levels.

TheBandicoot

Was looking at the Irish Rail twitter feed, came across a story from yesterday of apparently a DART running non-stop DL-Bray with no announcement and passengers worried it was a run away. I suppose they were expected to get the next northbound DART at Bray back to the skipped stations?(though apparently this was not held and left just as the nonstop arrived). View the replies to the following tweets..

https://twitter.com/laurenceob/status/516646205850673153
https://twitter.com/laurenceob/status/516643345293402113

Lots of small stories like this that undermine confidence in the DART system. I will grant that I think people crying and panicking over it is completely overreacting like idiots, but still.

devnull

TheBandicoot wrote: »

Was looking at the Irish Rail twitter feed, came across a story from yesterday of apparently a DART running non-stop DL-Bray with no announcement and passengers worried it was a run away. I suppose they were expected to get the next northbound DART at Bray back to the skipped stations?(though apparently this was not held and left just as the nonstop arrived). View the replies to the following tweets..

https://twitter.com/laurenceob/status/516646205850673153
https://twitter.com/laurenceob/status/516643345293402113

Lots of small stories like this that undermine confidence in the DART system. I will grant that I think people crying and panicking over it is completely overreacting like idiots, but still.

I was on a DART train a few weeks back which was running late and noticed that the display at Connolly where I was waiting about 10 seconds before the train started to arrive at the station changed to "Non stop to Howth Hunction then all stations to Malahide"

It was odd since there were no announcements on the platform, nothing on the train and there were a lot of confused people when we went pasts a huge number of stops, especially as the PIS was reading the stops out we were missing out just before we reached them.

Lots of very confused people got out at Howth Junction and I don't know why nothing was said. Oddly though when we got to Howth Junction there was a manual announcement saying it will now serve all stops to Malahide?

Also in that case,, what kind of mechanical fault would need a train out of service quickly but runs full speed with passengers on? Seems a little odd?

TheBandicoot

Yeah, to be honest, more inclined to believe it was a driver approaching his max hours or something,

Padraig Mor

OP here. I heard back from Irish Rail a few days ago and am happy to report that they have taken my concerns very seriously and I have no doubt that they will investigate the matter thoroughly and be rigorous in their implementation of any improvements to deficiencies identified.


And, if you believe that, perhaps you'd like to buy some magic beans?! True to expectations, and very much in the mould of the IR supporters here, the response I got was essentially a great big "Well, what the **** do you want me to do about it boy?!"

My initial complaint to them was essentially the same as my OP so I won't copy it here. Their response was:

"Dear Mr Mor,

Thank you for your e-mail.

I have checked the running of the DART concerned, 16.00hrs from Howth, for the date in question and I am sorry for the delay experienced.

This train operated 7 minutes late through platform 6 in Connolly Station and this delay was caused by the late incoming service from Belfast which itself had been delayed due to a trespasser on the track. The electronic signage would normally scroll through the next three departures operating via the specific platform and if a service is behind schedule the system will show the estimated number of minutes that the train will arrive at the platform. If a train is anticipated to be more than 5 minutes late, an announcement should be made from Traffic Control and I am sorry if this did not happen. There were no reported issues with the platform signage at DART stations on the 20th September.

I do not know who the member of staff was onboard the train as we would not have staff rostered to travel on DART's outside of Revenue Protection staff.

Train headboards would show the destination in Irish at least half the time and would alternate with the English regularly but I would suggest that most passengers would know where the train destination was and that DART services serve all stations in between.

I will forward your feedback to our Traffic Control for their information.

Regards
Paul Slowey

Customer Care, Iarnród Éireann Irish Rail, Connolly Station, Dublin 1."




I have just emailed them the following:

"Hello Paul,

I find your answer very disappointing. Note that my main complaint is not with the delay itself (which was minor), but the handling of the issue by Irish Rail and consequent *uncertainty* about when, or if, the train would appear. My four main complaints, and my comments on your responses are as follows:

1. The platform signage gave no information whatsoever about the train, simply showing the following departure. You state that there were no reported issues with the signage on that day as if that “makes it OK”, perhaps even implying that I’m making it up. Paul, I can assure you that the signage was exactly as I described, i.e. non existent in the case of the 16.25 Connolly – Greystones. There were a 100+ other confused passengers on the platform who can attest to this and who had *no idea* when that train would arrive, if it was going to arrive at all.

2. You state that an announcement re the delay should have been made “if this did not happen”. There is no “if” about it Paul; no announcement was made subsequent to my arrival on the platform at 16.22.

3. You suggest that “most passengers would know where the train destination was” as if it somehow obviates the need to provide accessible information and excuses the lack of it on this occasion. It most certainly does not! There were quite a number of passengers who clearly had *no idea* if this was the correct train or not. This would not have been as much of an issue if the platform signage had displayed the information it was supposed to which, of course, it didn’t! Quite frankly, I find the dismissive tone of your response to this issue to be very concerning.

4. My most serious complaint – the disgraceful staff member who laughed at a confused tourist as the doors closed in her face, rather than try to assist. Your response seems to take the form of a virtual shoulder shrug – “what do you expect me to do about it?!” is perhaps the phrase you wished to type. What I would expect is efforts to trace the staff member and discipline them – their behaviour was shocking, cruel and wholly embarrassing to the company you work for, and even to the country itself. Perhaps the man *was* a Revenue Protection official? Would it be too much to even inquire if this was the case?


As I said, I am most disappointed with your answers and believe that they minimise the experience of myself and many other passengers on that train, even to the point of insinuating that I perhaps imagined it. Surely it is the purpose of Customer Care to obtain feedback from customers and use this to improve the experience of all customers going forward? As far as I can see, you have signalled no intention of getting to the root of the issues on this particular day.

I am unfamiliar with the feedback mechanisms of Irish Rail – could you please let me know if there is someone within Irish Rail to whom I should escalate this complaint, or is my next option a complaint to the National Transport Authority?

Regards,
Padraig Mor"

devnull

Padraig Mor wrote: »

If a train is anticipated to be more than 5 minutes late, an announcement should be made from Traffic Control and I am sorry if this did not happen.

In all my time getting the DART, I've never heard a DART train be announced as late when it goes over five minutes. The train I get home each evening is late arriving by anywhere from 4-9 minutes each day since the schools went back, I've never heard any announcement. It's normally 10 minutes before I hear something at the very least if I hear one at all.

Train headboards would show the destination in Irish at least half the time and would alternate with the English regularly but I would suggest that most passengers would know where the train destination was and that DART services serve all stations in between.

Not an acceptable response and a number of the trains have defective passenger information equipment, which show the wrong destination or get lost on a regular basis - an issue which has been known about and plagued one type of train for many years

The idea of providing passenger information is to INFORM, it shouldn't need someone to know every in and out of the system or the timetable inside out first, since it should be providing an adequate level of information, something that does not happen at present.

I am unfamiliar with the feedback mechanisms of Irish Rail – could you please let me know if there is someone within Irish Rail to whom I should escalate this complaint, or is my next option a complaint to the National Transport Authority?

I have found that cc'ing the NTA on more serious complaints such as this one has in many cases yielded a much better response than contacting the company directly. However it is not worth emailing the NTA over every little problem such as your day to day stuff that is in the companies remit such as the price of tickets, general delays or suchlike.

I know someone who complained about a particular issue on Irish Rail last year to Irish Rail and basically got fobbed off as well, but another colleague wrote a similar mail about the same incident to Irish Rail cc'ing the NTA and got an altogether better response from both the NTA and Irish Rail, after the NTA asked Irish Rail to look into it.

n97 mini

TheBandicoot wrote: »

Was looking at the Irish Rail twitter feed, came across a story from yesterday of apparently a DART running non-stop DL-Bray with no announcement and passengers worried it was a run away. I suppose they were expected to get the next northbound DART at Bray back to the skipped stations?(though apparently this was not held and left just as the nonstop arrived). View the replies to the following tweets..

https://twitter.com/laurenceob/status/516646205850673153
https://twitter.com/laurenceob/status/516643345293402113

Lots of small stories like this that undermine confidence in the DART system. I will grant that I think people crying and panicking over it is completely overreacting like idiots, but still.

That's pretty shocking stuff! If that happened in any other country there'd an enquiry and someone would be fired.

Hilly Bill

Padraig Mor wrote: »

OP here. I heard back from Irish Rail a few days ago and am happy to report that they have taken my concerns very seriously and I have no doubt that they will investigate the matter thoroughly and be rigorous in their implementation of any improvements to deficiencies identified.


And, if you believe that, perhaps you'd like to buy some magic beans?! True to expectations, and very much in the mould of the IR supporters here, the response I got was essentially a great big "Well, what the **** do you want me to do about it boy?!"

My initial complaint to them was essentially the same as my OP so I won't copy it here. Their response was:

"Dear Mr Mor,

Thank you for your e-mail.

I have checked the running of the DART concerned, 16.00hrs from Howth, for the date in question and I am sorry for the delay experienced.

This train operated 7 minutes late through platform 6 in Connolly Station and this delay was caused by the late incoming service from Belfast which itself had been delayed due to a trespasser on the track. The electronic signage would normally scroll through the next three departures operating via the specific platform and if a service is behind schedule the system will show the estimated number of minutes that the train will arrive at the platform. If a train is anticipated to be more than 5 minutes late, an announcement should be made from Traffic Control and I am sorry if this did not happen. There were no reported issues with the platform signage at DART stations on the 20th September.

I do not know who the member of staff was onboard the train as we would not have staff rostered to travel on DART's outside of Revenue Protection staff.

Train headboards would show the destination in Irish at least half the time and would alternate with the English regularly but I would suggest that most passengers would know where the train destination was and that DART services serve all stations in between.

I will forward your feedback to our Traffic Control for their information.

Regards
Paul Slowey

Customer Care, Iarnród Éireann Irish Rail, Connolly Station, Dublin 1."




I have just emailed them the following:

"Hello Paul,

I find your answer very disappointing. Note that my main complaint is not with the delay itself (which was minor), but the handling of the issue by Irish Rail and consequent *uncertainty* about when, or if, the train would appear. My four main complaints, and my comments on your responses are as follows:

1. The platform signage gave no information whatsoever about the train, simply showing the following departure. You state that there were no reported issues with the signage on that day as if that “makes it OK”, perhaps even implying that I’m making it up. Paul, I can assure you that the signage was exactly as I described, i.e. non existent in the case of the 16.25 Connolly – Greystones. There were a 100+ other confused passengers on the platform who can attest to this and who had *no idea* when that train would arrive, if it was going to arrive at all.

2. You state that an announcement re the delay should have been made “if this did not happen”. There is no “if” about it Paul; no announcement was made subsequent to my arrival on the platform at 16.22.

3. You suggest that “most passengers would know where the train destination was” as if it somehow obviates the need to provide accessible information and excuses the lack of it on this occasion. It most certainly does not! There were quite a number of passengers who clearly had *no idea* if this was the correct train or not. This would not have been as much of an issue if the platform signage had displayed the information it was supposed to which, of course, it didn’t! Quite frankly, I find the dismissive tone of your response to this issue to be very concerning.

4. My most serious complaint – the disgraceful staff member who laughed at a confused tourist as the doors closed in her face, rather than try to assist. Your response seems to take the form of a virtual shoulder shrug – “what do you expect me to do about it?!” is perhaps the phrase you wished to type. What I would expect is efforts to trace the staff member and discipline them – their behaviour was shocking, cruel and wholly embarrassing to the company you work for, and even to the country itself. Perhaps the man *was* a Revenue Protection official? Would it be too much to even inquire if this was the case?


As I said, I am most disappointed with your answers and believe that they minimise the experience of myself and many other passengers on that train, even to the point of insinuating that I perhaps imagined it. Surely it is the purpose of Customer Care to obtain feedback from customers and use this to improve the experience of all customers going forward? As far as I can see, you have signalled no intention of getting to the root of the issues on this particular day.

I am unfamiliar with the feedback mechanisms of Irish Rail – could you please let me know if there is someone within Irish Rail to whom I should escalate this complaint, or is my next option a complaint to the National Transport Authority?

Regards,
Padraig Mor"

I think it's now becoming a case of over reaction. I asked in a previous post as to how you know that this chap was an employee.

irishgrover

Hilly Bill wrote: »

I think it's now becoming a case of over reaction. I asked in a previous post as to how you know that this chap was an employee.

I guess there is no certainty on that....but to be honest the rest of the responses are really shocking...made up broadly of...
Well this should happen...... (regardless of what actually did happen)
AND
Most passengers would know where they are going....

It those types of answers are deemed acceptable by anyone then it's a pretty sad indictment of minimal expected service standards..

Padraig Mor

Hilly Bill wrote: »

I think it's now becoming a case of over reaction.

"The customer is always wrong".

I asked in a previous post as to how you know that this chap was an employee.

I don't recall you doing so. But the Irish Rail orange fluorescent jacket was a bit of a giveaway TBH.

Hilly Bill

Padraig Mor wrote: »

"The customer is always wrong".


I don't recall you doing so. But the Irish Rail orange fluorescent jacket was a bit of a giveaway TBH.

What are you actually looking for? Where do you get the customer is always wrong from?
Was Irish Rail written on the jacket? I'm just trying to narrow it down here. you were given an apology for the displays and pass on your feedback to the relevant dept what more do you need? nobody including the e_mail you received suggests that you made it up.

monument

Grandeeod wrote: »

Good. At least you are paying attention.

Grandeeod wrote: »

If IE staff put the same effort into doing the job, that they do defending the criticism here, we'd all be quids in.:D

Cut it out and read the charter before posting again.

You're getting infracted for the combo of these two posts.

-- Moderator

Hilly Bill

devnull wrote: »

I was on a DART train a few weeks back which was running late and noticed that the display at Connolly where I was waiting about 10 seconds before the train started to arrive at the station changed to "Non stop to Howth Hunction then all stations to Malahide"

It was odd since there were no announcements on the platform, nothing on the train and there were a lot of confused people when we went pasts a huge number of stops, especially as the PIS was reading the stops out we were missing out just before we reached them.

Lots of very confused people got out at Howth Junction and I don't know why nothing was said. Oddly though when we got to Howth Junction there was a manual announcement saying it will now serve all stops to Malahide?

Also in that case,, what kind of mechanical fault would need a train out of service quickly but runs full speed with passengers on? Seems a little odd?

It would run non stop if it's out of place due to delays etc. Either way passengers should be informed of this. I was on one once and an announcement was made then. one thing though that it can be easy to miss any announcements if they have music blaring on their head phones but you don't expect your train to run non stop.