How is email that comes in at 9:11 am discussing a 9:05 am departure time helpful? Or at 8:38 am?
And as mentioned in the comments below, if people on-board were being duly informed, why send the alert out at all, to everyone, including those of us already at work?
I found the SMS text message alerts better than the emails. At least that hamster ran its wheel more efficiently.
Useless. And irritating. There is no reason why these cannot be sent when the delay occurs and not whenever someone remembers to hit the submit button.
ReplyDeleteWhy are they doing to In the Know campaign when they can't be bothered to actually let us know in a timely manner.
It is one of the many things that irritate me about the system and Metrolinx. Apparently 10 days away isn't long enough to get rid of the irritation I feel whenever one of their emails appear.
At 9:11 that train was still sitting outside Rouge Hill with a just-resurrected loco, about to roll forward 500m to the station itself. So, yes, it was timely.
ReplyDelete(Also, 9:11 is 28 minutes after 8:43, hardly a "whole hour"!)
Was it useful? Well, if you were on the train, you got regular updates from the CSA. If you weren't on the train, then it might have been useful. So, not usre there.
@Squiggles: "There is no reason why these cannot be sent when the delay occurs".
ReplyDeleteWhat would you send then? It would just read: "The train has been delayed. Could be two minutes, could be two hours. We don't know at this point"
Many times there are absolutely no alerts. Customer Relations provided me with the following last month:
ReplyDelete"We recognize that consistent communication is essential to keeping passengers informed and we will be introducing a system that automatically notifies us of all bus delays in real time. The system is expected to be in place by January 2014 and we trust that you will see an improvement in the consistency of alerts being sent out. In the meantime, we will continue to work with our Operations team to ensure all delays are reported."
"Operations" is the new name for what was the GTCC. New name, same level of service.
If the information was only pertinent to the people on that train who were given timely informed updates by the CSA, then why bother sending out the alert at all?
ReplyDeleteI agree that I was wrong to expect GO to know at 753 there would be issues but that alert was also sent out after the anticipated departure time from Rouge Hill.
And Peter raises a good point. Us bus passengers are rarely ever told about bus delays or told what happened to a bus that never came.
@TomW
ReplyDeleteNope. I mean those times where you leave work at 4.50 to catch the 5.10, no sign of a cancelled or delayed train on the board, sit on the freaking train for 30 mins before you even hear what a possible excuse for a delay is, then don't receive the email alert about it until 6.30/7pm that night.
And we won't even touch upon those situations that I refer to as a clusterf*ck. They just give up informing us cattle what the issue is and cancel trains left right and centre.