Currently Browsing: passengers

How To Treat Disabled On Public Transport

Posted by Jon C in passengersMar 12th, 2010 | 2 Comments
While some Auckland mums and disabled grumble about the treatment on Auckland trains, Hamilton local bodies are doing good. CCS Disability Action and Environment Waikato, with help from Hamilton City Council have held an info day to help disabled people understand how easy it is to use Hamilton buses. About 25 disabled people in wheelchairs attended the event in Caro St which involved an Orbiter bus from Pavlovich Coachlines and one of the latest Go Bus urban buses. They were all able to get on and off the buses using the facilities for the disabled, and with the assistance of drivers and caregivers....
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Why Mums & Disabled Give Up On Using Auckland Trains

Posted by Jon C in passengersMar 6th, 2010 | 5 Comments
Back in November, I wrote about passengers openly demanding pushchairs be banned from trains and wrote: Poor old Mum. Passengers got hostile when, as they struggled to get on board the limited three carriages,  a mother with a pushchair was trying to manoeuver onboard. This isn’t the first time I have seen hostility to those with pushchairs, mobility scooters or bicycles but after many years of using the trains, I have noticed growing tension. So, it’s sad to see the situation reaching boiling point. This Mum blogger writes about her growing frustration at trying to take Auckland trains...
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Transport Workers Caught Behaving Badly – Videos

Posted by Jon C in passengersFeb 26th, 2010 | 3 Comments
In London, a train subway worker has had to resign after being videoed verbally abusing an elderly passenger. And a Toronto bus driver has been suspended after a bus passenger videoed him regularly taking a very boring but telling seven-minute coffee and doughnut break mid-route, leaving his passengers on the bus. A craze of filming such incidents and putting them on youtube is starting to rattle authorities. The Montreal bus drivers union is threatening to sue anyone who videos his union members at work. A spokesman told the local media: “It’s personal, you can’t just film individuals...
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Proof Rail Works Here (If We Need It!)

Posted by Jon C in passengersJan 28th, 2010 | 5 Comments
Here’s proof to people who say rail won’t work in Auckland. It’s the ARTA snapshot survey data of passengers – the surveys where for a day they hire people to note who boards and who alights on trains. ARTA says rail patronage has increased by 400% over 12 years – from when trains were completely rundown to where they are now. ARTA projects the number will double from today by 2016. This table has the breakdown of Western Line stations on a particular day in 1997, 2003 and 2009. Obviously, there can be significant daily fluctuations in patronage due to weather, day...
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How We Choose Who To Sit Next To

Posted by Jon C in buses, passengersJan 11th, 2010 | 12 Comments
How do you choose who you sit next to on a train or bus? A Victoria University researcher has been studying how we make the choice and why. One of the things that is always fascinating to watch on the train is how incoming passengers glance around nervously and quickly weigh up who they would like to sit next to – if they have a choice. I made a bad choice in the last week of the train service by sitting next to someone who turned out to have the worst BO I have encountered for a while! It’s always hard to know what to do. Getting up and shifting is pretty rude as it’s so obvious! A PhD...
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Why No Trains On Christmas Day?

Posted by Jon C in passengersDec 24th, 2009 | 4 Comments
In Wellington on Christmas Day, a limited Tranz Metro train service runs. In Auckland, no trains ever run on Christmas Day. The idea that only poor people use public transport is a myth we’ve heard several times this year from some road advocates but Christmas Day may be one exception when mainly poor people without cars do need public transport to get to their Christmas Day family festivities. In an ideal world, we would all have Christmas off but some essential services have to keep running including police, ambulance, service stations and even TV stations. To be fair, buses do run. But...
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441 Cities Late But At Last We Get Google

Posted by Jon C in passengersDec 15th, 2009 | 9 Comments
TRANSIT: A handy Google service Tonight, ARTA has at  last joined the real world and followed 440 cities in 35 countries – like Wellington- in joining with Google Maps to enable us to access public transport information and directions using Google Transit, a feature of Google Maps. I pushed for this back in September saying Wellington had beaten us and we needed to catch up fast! If you’re searching for directions in Auckland on Google Maps, you’ll have the extra option to view public transit options. Initially, the service will extend to the comprehensive network of bus services throughout...
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Passengers Get Angry, Want To Ban Pushchairs, Bikes from Trains

Posted by Jon C in passengersNov 2nd, 2009 | 7 Comments
When trains were replaced by buses the other weekend, the fine print on the notices warned that things like pushchairs, bicycles and mobility scooters were not welcome. STRUGGLING: What rights do Mums have? This is because Railbuses are used and they can’t carry such things. The Maxx website states:  “The majority of rail buses are unfortunately not accessible to wheelchair users and pushchairs. Mobility scooters, bikes and large items of luggage are also unable to be carried.” But I was amazed what happened the other day during a breakdown-affected morning rush hour period. Poor old Mum....
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Commuter Rail Is Just For Poor People

Posted by Jon C in passengersSep 18th, 2009 | 5 Comments
I am often amused by people who are surprised I use commuter rail and say they thought only poor people used trains. I often wonder if that’s also what some in officialdom assume and that’s why it isn’t given a prority or why we get such cramp overcrowded conditions. Looking around the train carriage this afternoon, there were enough electronics to match those in your average Dick Smith outlet. Every third person seemed to have a laptop, most people had iPods and several had smart phones or Iphones and were accessing the internet. Of course that’s possible on a Friday night...
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Train Guards Not Coping With Stress?

Posted by Jon C in passengersJul 4th, 2009 | 4 Comments
Some of the new train managers (you know they used to be called conductors or guards) are getting over – aggressive in their treatment of passengers they think haven’t paid but have. They are probably stressed out with so many people using the trains and the heat they’re getting from the problems. But there is no excuse for bad customer service. The other day I showed the guard my pass but he came back after the next stop forgetting I had not just gone on and stood over me demanding my fare. When I told him I had just shown him the pass he just walked off without any polite gesture. But...
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Tales of Dodgy Romanian Deals

Posted by Jon C in passengersApr 22nd, 2009 | 1 Comment
Keep your conversations private! In an age when people obsess about internet privacy (and the mainstream media thrive on such stories), there’s a bizarre contradiction when it comes to public conversations. Tonight I was upset to discover I had left my iPod headphones attached to my computer and couldn’t listen to it on the slow train ride home. I was soon “entertained” by a man with a very loud South African accent in the very back row – a long way from me as I was sitting further up front in the carriage. Shouting into his mobile as if lecturing us all through some...
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Passengers get ruder and selfish

Posted by Jon C in Environment, General, passengersMar 18th, 2009 | No Comments
What is happening to people’s manners in this recession? Passengers on Auckland trains seem to be displaying more selfish attitudes by the day. This morning, a young woman was blasting – and I mean as if broadcasting from the Sky Tower at full volume to rise above the train noise – her interpretation of good music, namely gangsta rap, to the whole carriage by holding up her mobile phone speaker so we could all enjoy it. She totally ignored a couple of polite suggestions from people around her to turn it down. Passengers got restless and closed their books as they couldn’t...
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Stand up for your rights

Posted by Jon C in passengersMar 15th, 2009 | 4 Comments
These days political correctness is so tricky, who knows what is the “right” thing to do. Good on the young student who tonight stood up in a very crowded train to offer the visually impaired guy with a cane a seat. The poor student wasn’t ready for the dressing down he got with the suggestion he was being patronising. Refusing the offer, the man said: “Do I look like I can’t stand? Do I look like I haven’t got two feet? Why would I need to sit down.” The student apologised and looked most upset to be dressed down with a crowded audience listening. Interesting....
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