"Mike Rupert of the Local Gov blog thinks that the complete lack of communication has killed months of goodwill."

I wasn't aware Metro had any good will towards it at this point.

by yatesc on Jan 27, 2012 8:45 am • link • report

I was reading an article in some airline magazine a few months ago about how customers on hold on the phone were willing to wait longer and were less impatient when they were told what was happening (i.e. waiting for the next available operator) and how long they would likely have to wait to speak to someone. It's amazing how many institutions this lesson is completely lost on. Metro seems vehemently unwilling to communicate even the most basic information about disruptions and delays which, rather than deflecting attention, just focuses it even more on their incompetence and unreliability. Just communicate already! It doesn't have to be a lot, just what's happening and when will it be fixed. Of course, when you're on the train that's further hampered by the fact that announcements are completely untelligible.

by Joe on Jan 27, 2012 8:48 am • link • report

@yatesc +1

I think this really goes to the heart of the communications problem at Metro. While their new PR team is great at chatting with reporters in meetings or putting together new videos, when excellent communication is REALLY needed, they completely fall on their faces.

I'm sure Dan Stessel will have a really good press conference later today or take some reporters/bloggers out to lunch, which will make it all better.

by Cassidy on Jan 27, 2012 9:10 am • link • report

It's not communication; they have a lot of people who communicate. It is honesty that is lacking. Friction ring, my eye. It looked like a brake disc to me

by Charlie on Jan 27, 2012 9:11 am • link • report

I wish instead of "momentarily" they would give an actual estimate of minutes. If I'm waiting at a station, it would allow me to decide to take a bus, bikeshare, or walk instead. If I'm one or two stations away and the wait time is 10 minutes or more, it will be faster to bike or bus (if I have WiFi to check bus arrivals).

by cc on Jan 27, 2012 9:12 am • link • report

Watching Metro diehard Flak extrordinare Dr. Gridlock somehow spin this into some non-issue will be funny.

by freely on Jan 27, 2012 9:12 am • link • report

Is there any evidence that the increasing number of failures and delays on Metro has started affecting ridership negatively? I mean, I rode it to work every day for ages, but about three years ago I decided I'd had enough, and but for a few exceptions, I now drive to work exclusively.

by Ron on Jan 27, 2012 9:13 am • link • report

Looking constructively, what level and type of communication do you think Metro needs to achieve?

Utter and total openness. Sunshine. It's a public good. Let the public in.

by Geoffrey Hatchard on Jan 27, 2012 9:26 am • link • report

I keep hearing the excuse of "30-plus year old system" again and again, but I grew up and lived in European cities with systems much older than that and none of them were a disaster like Metro has become in the past 10 years. Funding is one thing (but even in the worst days of the 90s, when the whole Russia was basically disintegrating, Moscow metro was transporting 10 million people a day without that much of a problem), but also every time I see the Metro workers "doing" their jobs, I have a feeling that the quality of the workforce is seriously lacking.

No amount of PR spin and "communication" can make up for the lack of quality service.

by roomd on Jan 27, 2012 9:43 am • link • report

Metro needs to be more open about a lot of its operations. They also need to be more proactive and comprehensive on PR.

When your PR response flies in the face of what riders experience, it doesn't matter how many times you apologize for the inconvenience. Metro needs to do more to explain exactly what happens during delays and how that plays out for people actually riding the system. The fact that a delay was cleared in 5, 10, 15 minutes means nothing to people if they were waiting on a train for 30 minutes to an hour while everything cleared up. That disconnect is what enrages people.

People already hate Metro's PR. Putting out more information can do nothing but make their image better.

by MLD on Jan 27, 2012 9:45 am • link • report

what's doubly ironic is riders complain on it via online data connections on stuck trains, while WMATA's own radio's are "down"

by charlie on Jan 27, 2012 9:51 am • link • report

I was not stuck in either of yesterday's major problems. I would have been caught up in the morning Red Line fiasco, but I had the fortune to wake up early that morning and had time to check the Washington Post online before going to work, and saw the breaking commuter announcement at the top of the page. After assessing the situation, I dusted off my "Red Line completely nonfunctional" contingency plan, and took three buses to get to work. As a result, my commute increased from an hour to an hour and forty-five minutes, but I saved a few bucks on fares and a whole lot of aggravation.

The lesson of this story is at the beginning: I was lucky enough to check the Washington Post that morning. It's galling that I needed to be lucky, because I subscribe to Metro's email notifications of service disruptions, and you'd think that yesterday's situation would have qualified. But they never said a word. Metro needs to (1) actually use the notification tools they have, and (2) provide an estimate in the email of how long a service disruption is expected to last.

by cminus on Jan 27, 2012 9:59 am • link • report

@Charlie: I'm not sure - I think poor communication is also a large part of it. Witness last night - there was single-tracking on the Red Line as far as Dupont until past 8, and what that was about I don't know. Was it related to the earlier cracked rail? Something else entirely? None of the annoucements were intelligible at all.

@cc: Yes, that's part of it, too. I resent being told "we will be moving momentarily" without being given any further information.

by Ser Amantio di Nicolao on Jan 27, 2012 9:59 am • link • report

Its time for Sarles to come out and do a full mea culpa and explain a plan for how they are going to turn things around rather than the PR stunts that they have been doing with Metro Forward. There should be plans in place for these types of situations that don't require conductors to walk to the next station to ensure that the tracks are clear.

Also, I think its time for the governments who pay the bills to step in. My tax dollars help pay for WMATA and I think that our elected officials in DC, MD and VA should hold WMATA officials accountable.

by Daniel H. on Jan 27, 2012 10:02 am • link • report

@ Ser Amantio di Nicolao; sorry, you're right. You've got to divide communication/PR (which WMATA has beefed up) vs. communication with riders (nada)

by charlie on Jan 27, 2012 10:03 am • link • report

The most important thing, for me, would be clear communication over loudspeakers in stations or on trains.

If I'm sitting in a tunnel for 20 minutes - I want to know WHY: "We apologize for the delay, customers, but there is a downed switch at Rosslyn and trains are single tracking between Rosslyn Foggy bottom. Expect 10 more minutes of delay." Sometimes, this doesn't happen on trains, though some operators are very good about it. And apparently, this never happens because of metro's own communications problem. See unsuck today for more.

by Nick on Jan 27, 2012 10:07 am • link • report

Wow. A transit system that was once the envy of the nation has become a joke. Hey, but at least metro employees' pensions are fully funded.

by aaa on Jan 27, 2012 10:16 am • link • report

what's doubly ironic is riders complain on it via online data connections on stuck trains, while WMATA's own radio's are "down"

Correct, and their excuse that "Due to the nature of last night's problem, the usual channels for notifying us were disrupted..." (@wmata Twitter) is ridiculous.

Nobody had a phone to call SOMEONE who does social media? Nobody who is around at night has authorization to post something to their Twitter account? That's a problem. People were posting to twitter from trains that were stuck, and @wmata was dead to the world. Really pathetic.

When your radios are down and you can't get in touch with train operators, notifying passengers via social media/text/email is a perfect way to get information out to the customers who are stuck.

by MLD on Jan 27, 2012 10:19 am • link • report

I've long felt that the quality of Metro announcements in the stations and the train cars is very poor. Sometimes it may be due to the quality of the speaker system or to accoustics. Other times the speech sounds so slurred, it could be Marion Barry speaking after two or three cognacs and some coke. Station annoucements, for example, should be pre-recorded in a clear voice, like the doors-are-closing announcements.

by Sarah on Jan 27, 2012 10:21 am • link • report

@ Nick; you're joking, right?

The loudspeakers in WMATA are the next escalators. I'm sure we will soon be getting reports that it take 8 months to replace them in a station.

by charlie on Jan 27, 2012 10:22 am • link • report

Communication is nice but not having these failures is even nicer. Where's the money?

by WRD on Jan 27, 2012 10:23 am • link • report

@charlie:

Well, yes, they [i]have[/i] beefed up PR, but still. That doesn't change matters when I'm sitting in a train for an extra half-hour, late for work, with no way to contact my boss because my phone doesn't work underground, and I have no idea why. Maybe the beefed-up PR will work for them short-term, but long-term they risk severely angering their customer base. I'm not sure how, yet, but one of these years it's going to come back to bite 'em.

@MLD: I can't help wondering if part of that is due to the relatively low ridership at that hour of the night. I've sometimes taken the train home at that time, and there are very few people aboard. Perhaps they figured there weren't enough people who would care?

by Ser Amantio di Nicolao on Jan 27, 2012 10:26 am • link • report

@freely

It was only in Dr. Gridlock. Apparently the Post didn't think it that important.

by jim on Jan 27, 2012 10:26 am • link • report

@jim,

It was in his blog, written by another reporter. I expect the actual Dr. Gridlock to come out in a day or so as he always does when Metro is a joke and provide us all a menu of excuses why it isn't really metro's fault, making any possible excuse for them.

by freely on Jan 27, 2012 10:46 am • link • report

"some problems are going to crop up"

This kind of willful diminishing of the magnitude of the problems that Metro riders face on a daily basis is ludicrous and undermines any credibility.

by Fantine on Jan 27, 2012 10:49 am • link • report

It's astounding that Metro was built without any kind of redundant control and communications systems.

I can't source this right now, but I remember reading that a fair number of systems at Metro HQ run off of a single, aging set of switchgear - that one electrical bus powers the signaling and train operations systems, the radio repeaters, the in-house webservers, and - for some freakish reason - non-essential systems like office air conditioners.

As best as I can tell, if the Jackson Graham Building ever caught fire, no trains would be able to move until Metro repaired the damage.

Safety-critical systems aside, what kind of large IT organization doesn't have a backup webserver, located elsewhere?

by David R. on Jan 27, 2012 10:50 am • link • report

On Wednesday morning, there was some sort of malfunction near the East Falls Church station that meant my westbound train sat and waited several times and it took me twenty minutes or so longer than usual to get from Courthouse to WFC. Throughout, the operator kept making announcements, but every time he slurred it so much that all I could make out was something about a delay and that he apologized for the inconvenience.

Rather than making the same useless announcement fifteen times, how about making it once but speaking clearly--and then updating with an estimate of how bad it might be whenever you have one? This shouldn't be hard to train people on.

by Gray on Jan 27, 2012 10:52 am • link • report

I'm curious to know what the frequency is of Metro's trains breaking down while in service and how it compares to NYC, Chicago, and Boston? It seems as though I'm constantly hearing about a train malfunctioning here in DC (and often stuck dealing with the delays), but I rarely recall trains malfunctioning and needing to be pulled out of service when I lived in Chicago.

by Aaron on Jan 27, 2012 10:52 am • link • report

@David R:
The Examiner's Kytja Weir is reporting that the outage occurred at Metro's new control center, not the one at the Jackson Graham Building.
https://twitter.com/#!/kytja/status/162920131712925696

by Matt Johnson on Jan 27, 2012 10:52 am • link • report

@aaron: Metro stopped reporting the data I used to track metro service disruptions. When I did my first look at the data, I found Metro trains were taken out of service about twice as often as the worst NYC transit line.

Trying to find the article but I can't search here for only articles I've written.

Ah, here it is:
http://www.infosnack.org/2008/09/metrorail-breaks-down-twice-as-often-as.html
http://greatergreaterwashington.org/post/9032/metrorail-reliability-declines/

It is interesting that soon after I published the second article, the publicly available disruption data stopped being updated.

by Michael Perkins on Jan 27, 2012 11:01 am • link • report

@Matt Johnson

Interesting. There's a new OCC at Carmen Turner in Landover. Great.

The odd part of this story is that the website went down as well - if it was related, they'd need to have moved the webserver to Landover too.

by David R. on Jan 27, 2012 11:10 am • link • report

@Mperkins; thanks for the links.

I applaud your efforts to get passes on the public comment. Pushing for the accountability on data is also a worthwhile goal.

Could a public database be assmbled?

by charlie on Jan 27, 2012 11:13 am • link • report

@charlie: Kurt Rashke has been collecting PIDS information. I don't know what he plans on doing with it.

by Michael Perkins on Jan 27, 2012 11:22 am • link • report

As awful as metro is, it is hard for me to imagine that people along the silver line will willingly give up their cars and parking lots to hitch there transportation needs to this wagon.

I can only hope the suburbanites have not yet experienced metro in full and will embrace its arrival

by Tom on Jan 27, 2012 12:18 pm • link • report

Michael, thanks for the links to your previous efforts to compare Metro's train reliability with others.

by Aaron on Jan 27, 2012 12:23 pm • link • report

@Ron
"Is there any evidence that the increasing number of failures and delays on Metro has started affecting ridership negatively?"

Of course not. Metro insists that the declining ridership is solely the result of the economy.

by Sam on Jan 27, 2012 12:46 pm • link • report

Why is Metro's age consistently cited as an excuse for its' myriad mechanical and technical breakdowns? Many transit systems are several times Metro's age (The NYC Subway, London Underground and Paris Metro come to mind immediately) yet don't suffer nearly as many breakdowns. The issues here are mismanagement and maintenance/repair work that is either not done at all or not done competently not age. WMATA management needs to be held accountable for allowing the system to reach its' current state of disrepair, not provided with excuses and justifications.

by Jacob on Jan 27, 2012 1:51 pm • link • report

@Jacob, I definitely feel your frustration over the situation. I'm stuck commuting on the red & yellow lines each weekday between my apartment in Dupont and my job in Alexandria. However I'm not sure whether the current management at WMATA can be blamed for the situation we're experiencing today. Most of the blame can probably be lumped on past management (unless mangers in the 80s and particularly the 90s are still part of management today). That's not to say I think the current management has gotten everything correct with regard to public information & customer/agency interaction, but they're attempt to spend the next 5-6 years performing an immense amount of track work to make up for previous maintenance deferrals is at least somewhat indicative they're attempting to improve the situation. Unfortunately we're all f&cked for the next 5 years. *sigh*

by Aaron on Jan 27, 2012 3:11 pm • link • report

On Thursday, at 9:30am I got on a Southbound train at Bethesda.

I didn't find out - until I was on the train - that there was a MAJOR delay. The electrical signs had no warning and the employees gave no warning [they were in the booth]. If I had known about the delay I would have run my errands another day.

by Capt. Hilts on Jan 27, 2012 6:07 pm • link • report

@David R.

The train control system is designed to allow the operations of trains without the need for central control. The problem is the lack of trust in the ground equipment and wayside train control, you can add to that the operating rules that are presently in effect that require operators to get permission from central control first before they can blow their noses.

@Matt Johnson

The $64.00 question is why would a power failure at the Turner facility effect communication between central control at Jackson Graham and wayside.

by Sand Box John on Jan 28, 2012 9:12 am • link • report

Is there any indication that Metro's problems are responsible for the decline in Metro ridership?

In our household, daily ridership has dropped 100%. My partner's medical condition is exacerbated by stress, and - after several dreadful Red Line experiences - the doctors with whom he works suggested I drive him to work for health reasons.

It's much more expensive - with the cost of gasoline - and takes up a big chunk of my personal time, but you gotta do what you gotta do.

The truth is the truth: Metro is neither safe nor reliable, and - in our case - it is bad for your health. (And I am not joking or making this up)

by Mike on Jan 28, 2012 10:30 am • link • report