After watching Channel 9 News last night I was left shaking my head and the more I thought about the two stories that were aired I became increasingly angry. I am angry because the South Australian public deserve more of our public transport than the boffins in charge of it care to provide. Furthermore, these so called experts that are in control of our public transport MUST get their collective arses out of each others bum crack and start smelling what they are shovelling. Running public transport is not rocket science, one just needs to be smart and listen to their staff at the coalface.
The first story was about the lack of public transport in the evening when the Moon Lantern Festival is on. I do not for one second blame the service providers for this lack of for sight. I am sure each of them would have approached their all powered leaders in DTEI for some funding to provide some extra services for these evenings. And these pencil pushers in a over staffed and out of touch Government Department would have said "No, not required"!
When was the last time these self confessed experts were out in the field actually running public transport services and taking the heat from disgruntled passengers? Last night, I am sure the poor bus driver that rocked up to pick up what looked like at least two bus loads of passengers waiting in Grenfell Street for an O-Bahn service would have copped a ear bashing from the hundreds of passengers boarding, then from the ones who had to wait for the next bus. Then there would have been a repeat performance at the other two stops in the City. It is not the drivers fault that our transport services are being mismanaged in such fashion, but they are the face of it, they are at the coalface.
Where are the experts, the boffins in charge on nights like that? At home curled up on the lounge with their families. Some may have even attended the Moon Lantern festival themselves, but how many of them would have used public transport? None of them, despite their free travel. They would have driven their cars.
What needs to happen here, is when there are events on either in the City or Glenelg or Semaphore or wherever then the service providers be permitted to provide extra services that they know will cater for demand, then simply send DTEI the bill. The nuts and bolts can then be explained at a Managerial debrief between service providers and DTEI. This would be a better arrangement than the current situation where, like a scene out of Oliver the service providers must grovel to the experts in DTEI with cap in hand saying "Please Sir, can we have some more (money for extra services)?"
I am thoroughly disgusted.
The second story was about the loop hole that train passengers on the Outer Harbor and Grange trains have found to get free travel to and from the City. Many passengers are catching trains at Grange, Taperoo, Alberton or Woodville and places in between alight at Bowden Station then walk across to the Entertainment Centre and hop on the free tram service into the City. Now, the experts have just realised this!!
Again, the experts (and I use that term loosely) assume that everyone is honest and they seem genuinely stunned that our system gets ripped off to the tune of millions of dollars a year by fare evaders and fare cheats. If there is no staff on a train with the capacity to check tickets and ensure that everyone validates a ticket and has the appropriate Concession cards on them, then human nature says that they will not follow the rules. It is not right, but in times of high unemployment, high drug use and dependency just to name two reasons, many people find anyway they can to save money. Why buy a train ticket if no one is there to police it.
I say, that our rail system is a joke in many many ways. The State Government should re-instate Guards on ALL train services. Guards are responsible for the train, not the driver. The driver simply drives the train, nothing else. The Guard and his Conductor patrol the carriages, checking and selling tickets, like it was when I used to catch the train to school.
I often caught Gawler trains and rode the full length of the line. The Guard and Conductor would be constantly walking back and forth through the length of the train, often 5 or 6 carriages. If the train was EXPRESS from Greenfields or Dry Creek the Conductor would do a final ticket check through the train prior to reaching Adelaide. Heading home you could bet your bottom dollar that as the train was heading out through Adelaide Yard the Conductor was off doing a ticket check.
We need to revert to this system. I am amazed that their is only token effort employed in protecting revenue, add this to the cost of vandalism and anti-social behaviour then you have a system out of control. Could you imagine a store not protecting their revenue? If Bunnings, Coles, Caltex or the corner Deli didn't protect their revenue, they would be broke and out of business in the blink of an eye.
Why do we, the citizens of this great state of ours allow the State Government to not protect OUR revenue? Public transport belongs to us, hence the word public in public transport!
We have and must lift our game.
That's my opinion!
No comments:
Post a Comment