Luddite Transit
Apr. 13th, 2007 08:32 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
talktoolooseCan 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.
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.
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no subject
Date: 2007-04-13 02:02 pm (UTC)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.