The National Excuse

There seems to be nothing better in Ireland than an excuse. The opportunity to spin something and make it someone else's fault is usually too tempting to pass up on.

Let me pick on Irish Rail again, masters of spin, who would put new labour and chemical Alli out of a job. One of their classics is "This service is delayed due to the late arrival of the incoming service."

So let us put it to the test. You will find discretely placed arrivals screens around Heuston Station, so when this mornings 0730 to Galway was missing in action at 0730, I went to see which incoming service we might be getting.

It's a bit blurry, because I am not fully used to using the camera on my smartphone, but, as you can see, all the expected arrivals are "on time."

This was taken at 07:34, and the train we eventually got, didn't arrive for a further 5 minutes or so.

Eventually, I saw some lights in the distance, predicted a platform and sneaked through the barriers. A train did arrive, and was promptly announced as the 06:20 from Portlaoise, and, guess what? It had a planned arrival time of 07:30! And, what's more, Irish Rail don't consider a train late, by their own charter, until it is 10 minutes late, so where is that excuse now?

Now, planning to use a train scheduled for an 07:30 arrival for an 07:30 departure is a type of folly which is probably even beyond Michael O'Leary of Ryanair's imagination.

To make matters worse, when Irish Rail did eventually leave at 07:58 (not the 10 minutes late mentioned on the departures board) the onboard information systems were set up for a Galway only train, and people who had booked seats for Galway found their bookings appearing in the Westport bound carriages (see a previous blog). Staff giggled at haughty businessmen and said that it was always like that!

Now how could Irish Rail have done things better?

First of all, they should have looked at their real-time data and estimated what time the Portlaoise train was due. They should also have data on how long it takes to get a train moving again. They could then have changed the departures board in Heuston, which should have read "Expected 25 minutes late" from about 07:00.

Next, they should have updated their realtime information (see here) similarly.

They should also have come clean as to why the set that would normally have been sitting at the platform from before 07:00 was not available for the run to Galway and Westport. Without that information, the experienced traveller assumes that it was just incompetence.

This would have allowed people to plan their day, and to make arrangements for those collecting them etc. It would also have allowed those that might have felt the need to, to go in to the Bar for breakfast (having the train posted as "on time" right up to 07:30 didn't allow this.

As a consequence of this, there were probably a number of passengers whose experience would never bother with the experience of taking the train again. Also, as this was the second time this week the train was late (and it's only Tuesday) they were treating regular customers very shoddily.

Irish Rail Twitter basked in the glory of inexperienced public transport users for the past week, citing people like the Irish Times (see article here) and the Indo (see here) who praised their staff (not their management it should be noted) for keeping the show on the road. Many many tweeters, normally unused to public transport, tweeted their delight at getting from A to B in the snow.

Such low expectations made for party time for Irish Rail.

Most of those tweeting were motorists for whom getting around was never going to be possible (or advisable) in last weeks conditions. However, the railways did not manage things well. Delays were put down to points failures, signalling failures and "technical problems" (a lovely catch all phrase) all week.

Where was the preparation? We had snow like this last year, and temperatures get low enough to freeze points every year.

As for signalling, that excuse is one they have 365 days a year to get worked out.

The reality is that once again Irish Rail failed to perform and failed to inform properly. The realtime information frequently signalled trained as having arrived when they were all lined up in a queue outside Heuston. In fact, worse still, the trains simply disappeared from the departure and arrivals boards, and from the realtime system, when they were still sitting waiting to pull up to the platforms.

Once again the excuse of bad weather was implied. In reality we should be told the truth. Let them have the credit if they can come out with figures. How many hours overtime was there? How early did they get extra staff in to make sure that their equipment was working in the extreme weather conditions. How many free cups of hot tea were given out to passengers in carriages where the heat stopped working? How many of the old "mark 3" carriages were brought out of retirement to deal with the shortage of rolling stock due to weather related breakdowns? How many of Irish Rail management worked overtime (for free) to make sure that their passengers were informed, that their information systems were accurate, and that passengers who were converted to rail users for the duration of the bad weather became more regular users?

The answers to these questions is probably underwhelming, but we will never know, because they had an excuse, snow.

Just like the HSE have an excuse to make blunt and unsustainable cuts, there is no money in the economy.

Just like FF love the excuse that we live in a small open economy.

Or the old excuse that that was what the market did to us.

Like the goverment have an excuse to cut the minimum wage (IMF told us) despite the evidence to the contrary that shows we don't have the highest minimum wage in real spending terms and that cutting it does nothing to improve employment.

Now I am going to be 45 minutes late for work, time that I will have to make up. I won't have the excuse to make to patients that I can't check that their medications are correct, because my train was late....

Just as I write, the driver of the train has just taken it upon himself to inform passengers that we are going to sit in Portarlington for 10-15 minutes. An excuse he could have used was due to years of investments in the roads instead of rail, there is only 1 line between here and Galway, and so we have to wait for the Galway to Dublin train to get out of this little rail boreen before we can get into it. What he didn't say was that we are probably holding up the Dublin-Cork Express which should be behind us, and that all the trains for the rest of the day will now be late.....

But these are never the excuses we hear. Irish officialdom likes the easy excuse, not the one that asks questions or the one that informs choices, or ones that invite constructive feedback. In fact, even if they did invite constructive feedback, most of official Ireland doesn't have a facility to receive it, and will probably refute it.

Mentioning my blog from July again, (see here) the information railroad has still not moved on, and the situation has still not improved, despite a promise by Irish Rail management, who I met at one of their "Meet the Management" PR exercises in Heuston Station that he would e-mail me.

"Sure aren't they great lads altogether"

Excuses.....

There is no excuse for not changing the system so that people are given accurate and usable information whenever anything does not go to plan for service providers in the public and private sector. Also, there has to be a mechanism in this country so that the end users are listened to and that we can stop putting up with the excuses.

Man with a Pram

The Daisy Gogarty incident on Monday seems to have divided the nation in a Keane vs McCarthy sort of way.

I can see many reasons why Paul Gogarty should not have allowed his baby daughter to be pictured in the press conference. Similarities could be drawn to Michael Jackson and the incident where he dangled his son "Blanket" out the window. You would also wonder whether there weren't hangers on-ers in the background that could have looked after the child for the few minutes.

I have been leafletting twice for the Green Party with my 1 year old daughter Maeve, once 6 months ago with her strapped to my chest. People are less likely to give you grief! In fact we were just joking about bringing her canvassing last week (won't be happening!)

But, maybe he was right. Daisy Gogarty, like Maeve, will be paying for the incompetence of Cowen and his party for their whole lives. It is Daisy and Maeve who will probably have their children's allowance cut, have their class sizes increased, and if they make it to College will have to pay massive "registration" fees. They will be paying the taxes to bail out Anglo and the developers for much of their working life too.

Maybe, like me, one of the reasons Paul is in politics is to make a better Ireland for his daughter.

The man with a pram is also a potent symbol of Ireland in 2010. So many men previously employed in construction and related fields are now left at home to mind the children. Look on the streets and you will see many men pushing prams. My personal experience is that we are still viewed with suspicion, or with a condescending "great to see a man with a pram."

On top of that, many men of my generation (and I presume Paul) want to do the best for their children. Children at the age of 1-2 are at their most formative pyschologically and need lots of "daddy time" as well as time with their mothers. Many in the profession of teaching, particularly primary teaching are female, so children need male role models. Many fathers in their 30s and 40s have recognised this, and are making time for their children. I take half a day parental leave a week which I spend with Maeve.

The other issue too, is that it brings some humanity into politics at a time when it is being relegated to a sideshow to the EU/IMF economic dictatorship we are moving into. There is more to life than economics, and maybe we need a baby at all press briefings to bring this home.

For an equal and inclusive society, we have to stop getting outraged when we see something different. Men have the same right to push prams as women do, so lets get over our stiff adherence to the old roles.

But, at the end of the day, some parenting advice for Paul, get that baby used to other people so you don't put her through this again!

Listen to the little people

I work within the public sector, so I see at first hand what we are good at, but also what we are not good at. One of the biggest problems that I, and many more of my colleagues find, is that we can't really change things that much, either because of management, other workers or the unions. We find also that sometimes management, other staff or the unions change things without asking us, leading to more problems. People are very resourceful, so they come up with great workarounds. Unfortunately, sometimes the workarounds take over, or the problem that the workaround was supposed to work around goes away, but the workarounds become what the unions and management call "custom and practice."

So picture it this way. There used to be 3 staff in an office and they got the work done , but 1 left and wasn't replaced because of the employment embargo. They had to stretch, but they still got most of the work done. The phones had to be manned all the time but if one person was off or at a meeting, everybody still needed a tea break in the morning (you do, for your own mental and physical health, and for various other reasons) so they took turns in having a cup of tea and reading the paper at a desk. Unfortunately, a member of the public who was trying to get service at another office noticed a person sitting reading a paper mid-morning when he was not being served, got rightfully very annoyed (wasn't being served and was being treated badly by a monolithic state organisation) and rang Joe Duffy, getting the wrath of the nation going about public servants....

Another office needed a certain type of pen to complete certain tasks which required them to annotate certain documents. The ink in the pens had to be waterproof, smudge proof, visible when photocopied, and microfichable. The office went and found a suitable product that was being used in similar offices through the country. They then went and got all the documentation completed so that the company supplies offices would be able to supply a suitable product. The supplies office never seemed to like anything that was not standard, so it was no surprise when the second time the product was ordered, they told the office that the type of pen was discontinued, and that they would supply an alternative. The next time around they just sent bic biros, but when challenged, they then supplied, after a suitable delay in time, another type of pen. It was then discovered that the replacement pens were neither waterproof or smudge proof, and while out shopping a member of staff spotted the original pens, still for sale in a shop.

The workaround here was that the office went and got a purchase order to bypass their supplies office. This meant that they were paying full high street prices for the pens, and had to go through the costs associated with generating and processing a purchase order. This was not the first time that departments in the organisation had to resort to this approach. The supplies office were a much prized part of the organisation, but in reality, they were cutting costs because the people they were supposed to serve were ending up making different arrangements. They were so favoured in the organisation that they were able to get technology and staff numbers that other parts of the organisation could only dream about.

In many other cases, areas have been left understaffed, and the slack is taken up by agency staff, temps, and outsourcing. In fact, in some cases in the HSE it has been reported that nursing staff have taken retired only to turn up back in the same places as agency staff, costing more than they were originally paid, with the money going to the agency.

Now, I am not for one minute suggesting that if left to their own devices that no public servants would slack off. However, the lack of flexibility in the system, and the lack of any perception that change is possible, doesn't help people take initiative, except to organise workarounds when a task becomes impossible.

What I think is needed is some sort of channel of communication. The office causing the "reading the paper at work" scandal should be able to tell someone they need access to relief staff. The office with the supply problem should be able to burst the bubble of their supplies people, and have everything organised properly. But for these things to happen, senior management and politicians need to listen to the people on the front line (and not their union reps) about how things can be changed.

People at the coalface know how to make things better, piece by piece, cog by cog. Ideas from the grassroots can lead to better results than those worked out on a calculator in an corner office of an international consultancy firm on a retainer, or ideals held by politicians who have spent their lives among other politicians, where life is a game and frontline staff are pawns. There is no doubting that our whole public sector is a mess. But we can fix it. But we have to be given a chance. We have to be listened to.

High Speed Information Railroad Needed

On the morning of 17th June, I turned up in Heuston station at 7:26, 2 minutes ahead of the 7:28 deadline for my 7:30 train! I showed my ticket to the Irish Rail employee who was leaning on the electronic ticket gate and he let me in. Half a train was sitting at platform 3, with a few hundred passengers milling about on the platform. They all seemed to be getting off the train.

This was a slow process with mothers and babies, elderly nuns in wheelchairs and tourists. There also didn't seem to be anyone in charge, but later on a lady without an id badge seemed to be in control. The ticket checker was chatting to some people.

There was a virtually inaudible announcement with the standard "we apologise for the late departure of this.. mumble mumble mumble" but the platform display was still showing a nice big "on time."

From taking the train every day, and noticing the fact that we only had half a train (a 3 carriage set) I assumed that they were waiting for a second 3 carriages, and this was in fact what happened. I confirmed this when I managed to. but in on the ticket checkers conversation, and then finally at 7:35 or so, they backed up a second 3 carriage train and stuck it on.

Then, there was mayhem as they tried to get the elderly people going to Knock, the tourists and the foreign nationals with children back on the train.

Now for those that take this train every day, we know that the 3 carriages nearest the gate go to Westport and the 3 furthest away go to Galway. The announcement said, "board the top 3 carriages for Galway and the rear 3 for Westport" which makes sense if you are a train driver, but perhaps not for anyone else. (this happens every day)

What generally happens every day is thats passengers ask each other, and get on a carriage, sometimes the right one and sometimes the wrong. On a good day there are announcements from the automatic voice on board, repeating the "top 3 carriages" lark. This has been going on for months and every day the stress levels of infrequent travellers are piqued, as they worry whether they are in the correct carriage. Most days, the scrolling electronic display on the train is just set for Galway, causing the Westport patients to have hernias.

Then there is the booked seating. Sometimes it is turned on. Sometimes it isn't. Lately someone has started putting "this seat is booked" cards on seats, but there is no name on the electronic display, no date or time on the piece of paper and no information about which portion of the journey the seat is reserved. Lately, they have started putting big stickers on the windows, but again, no indication of for when they are valid.

I went on twitter to give out to @irishrail. When I was there, I decided to see what people were saying in general to @irishrail. A common theme seemed to be lack of information. www.railusers.ie also have a few sections of their forums set aside for information breakdowns by Irish rail, particularly destination displays that go wrong.

It is all very simple. Irish people know that everything is not going to go to plan every day, but why not give us information, so that we don't have to guess!

Today's fiasco could be easily remedied.

Firstly, the platform should not have even been announced to passengers until the train was completely ready for all passengers to board.

A message should have been displayed on the main board in Heuston, announcing that the train would be delayed, and giving an estimated boarding time and departure time.

Next, Irish rail should at this point have fixed their train information displays to deal with joint running trains. Coaches A, B and C should always go to Galway, and should say "Galway - Gailimh" on the side. Inside the scrolling display and automated announcement should list all stations to Galway. The display and announcement should then tell people that the Westport service was in Coaches D, E and F and that passengers would need to get out and go to the left or right (as appropriate) Similar information should be displayed in the westport bound coaches.

The display the station should also make it clear which coaches passengers needed to be in for each station.

Next, the booking system just has to be used. When there is a group, the name of the group could appear instead of the name of the passenger, but it should still be there. Where large groups of school children, or tours going to knock are expected, extra coaches should be used, even if they are only starting from Athlone, but all of this should be announced, on platform displays and by announcements on the train. No more making it up as they go along. No more bits of paper. The train staff should also enforce the reservation system, and have a way of turning off individual seat bookings, perhaps using their mobile phones, if the named passenger is not in their seat as the train is due to depart.

All in all, they just need to get their communication with the customer right. If that happened, travelling by train would be less stressful, and more people might travel! As it is, the system seems to be geared towards keeping people in the dark. The timetables are given padding so that trains are scheduled to take 10-20 minutes longer to get to Dublin from Portarlington, than Portarlington from Dublin. This is, in the style of Ryanair, so that they can claim to be on time, even when the train is late.

So if you are listening Irish Rail, just get the information right, and that will be a start!