Luddite Transit

[talktooloose]

Can someone explain the TTC's (Toronto Transit Commission) reluctance to embrace useful technology? Studies have shown that card readers for passes should be put on busses to reduce fraud and help leave the driver in peace. Hasn't happened.

When there are problems, they don't use the video screens in the stations to explain anything; they use loudspeakers that, for the most part, are of poor to terrible audio quality. Also, they get employees out in their purple jackets who smile and flap a lot, but don't really understsand the whole crowd management and information thing.

This morning, two subway stations are closed due to a murder investigation. The shuttle bus information (which Snake needed to get to work) was contradictory on the radio so I went to the TTC website. No information AT ALL and, in fact, no place in the page design for emergency announcements.

It's like they don't understand that a certain growing percentage of the population might actually use the Internet to find out things in a timely manner.

That is all.

Comments

[bitterlawngnome.livejournal.com]

1) They have a very closed mindset especially when it comes to "the public" who are seen at best as statistics, 2) they are a union shop, and 3) they have lived a culture of poverty for the last 15 years: reasons, if not excuses.

When I was in school one of our projects included a redesign of an existing identity, and I tried to connect with the TTC design people - guess what, they don't have any. Everything is done by the communications department, none of whom are trained as designers.

[talktooloose.livejournal.com]

Well, if it's a "communications department," they might want to learn some communications skills.

My favourite piece of bad design on the website is that you have to know a route number to find information on a bus. That's right, in the huge pull-down, the buses are not sorted alphabetically. So if you're coming to visit me and you want to know the schedule of the Christie bus, you have to either somehow find out that it's bus #126 or look through the whole list while holding the mouse button down.

You have a good point about poverty but I think it's closed culture that is resistant to change (perhaps the union shop aspect). If we can ever pry some money from the federal or provincial hands to expand the system (as we must), we will have to learn to think more creatively to make the system work.

[quirkstreet.livejournal.com]

For what it's worth, we have similar issues in Boston ... but I could echo Bill's comments about union shop issues and poverty. People in this city complain endlessly about how expensive mass transit is, even though the rates are generally lower than in many other metro areas, and kept that way by heavy tax subsidies, which, however, still don't seem to cover expenses.

I can't prove that the union is overpaid or under-caring. I can definitely prove that Bostonians carp about the system a lot, that it could run MUCH better, and that my brief glimpses of Toronto's systems suggest you are similar to us but slightly better in some respects. There's room for improvements on all counts, including the ridership.

The good news is, we did get card readers around the start of the year, and despite the ENDLESS complaining about them, they seem to be working well in general. They're ultra convenient for me, since I have a pass that gets funded partly by the school and partly from a payroll deduction, and it renews itself automatically.

[talktooloose.livejournal.com]

I just always have NYC to compare the TTC to and Toronto always comes up looking crappy.

The biggest issue here is that we do not receive enough funding from higher levels of government. A statistic is thrown around that Toronto is the most underfunded mass transit system in North America. Toronto's subways system is already deeply overburdened and even if we started building new subway or RT lines tomorrow, we'd be way behind the curve. And we're not building them.