May I make a suggestion?

[eoin]

This section is extremely useful and always up-to-date, far moreso than Irish Rail's website. A new visitor to railusers.ie, however, is unlikely to find it. It's one of eight forums and you'd easily miss the fact that there are forums at all if you were new to the site.

You're providing a really valuable service here, and if there was some way of getting a feed of the threads on your homepage it could really raise the profile of RUI. Imagine if it was spread by word of mouth that "you should check railusers.ie before you get the train". As it stands it looks like you're putting in a lot of work here for little return.

[Mark Gleeson]

We beat Irish Rail to it again, this is on the front page of the site

[eoin]

Yes, I noticed that and fair play, but its appearance on the homepage is the exception rather than the rule. Your post yesterday on Enterprise services, for example, would have been very useful on the front page. As you said yourself, there was nothing on IE's website about it.

[Mark Hennessy]

Originally Posted by eoin

Yes, I noticed that and fair play, but its appearance on the homepage is the exception rather than the rule. Your post yesterday on Enterprise services, for example, would have been very useful on the front page. As you said yourself, there was nothing on IE's website about it.

Hi Eoin,

I agree it is a great suggestion but the problem is that during the week, everyone is just too busy working to keep track of everything and to keep the website up to date in near real time.

I think something I'd like to look into in the future, is a type of Twitter page where people can text in delays and some clever software could put them all together. However doing this is purely a spare time activity.

[Mark Gleeson]

All critical travel info is posted on the homepage, so strikes, accidents etc. If Irish Rail hide it we put it up. Once we had two sources on the incident notice went up

The up to date travel section is a community based service, we can't stand over its accuracy and its content may need moderation, we can't pull it directly into the homepage. There is a slight redesign coming in the next week which will make the site even more passenger friendly

A RSS feed is something we are looking at. You should be able to create a forum account and subscribe to updates in the up to date forum right now, so you get a email automatically

[eoin]

Thanks for your answers, I appreciate the issues around accuracy and time constraints. Just throwing it out there as it seems a shame that such a good resource isn't widely known about.

[Mark Hennessy]

Originally Posted by eoin

Thanks for your answers, I appreciate the issues around accuracy and time constraints. Just throwing it out there as it seems a shame that such a good resource isn't widely known about.

Absolutely, we know!

Please if you have any other ideas don't be afraid to post them up.

[Colm Moore]

Potentially, create a group of users who are trustworthy and give them limited extra authority to post such notices when an admin isn't about.

[plant43]

It would be nice if RUI displayed a human side every so often, rather than engaging in a petty game of oneupmanship as to who can get the notices up on the website first. Yes Irish Rail are slow to get things up on the website alot of the time but I don't think an incident as serious as this (and it could have been very serious) is the time to be going "look at us aren't we great".

[dowlingm]

plant43

unfortunately IE have a thick skin and it takes a LOT of poking to get them to change. The RPA/Veolia seem to be much more responsive.

IE seem to have an old school corporate communications mentality where seven approvals have to be got for anything. Seems to me that BK needs to be replaced by someone a bit more, well, "comms 2.0"

[Mark Gleeson]

Today was a classic example of communications breakdown

Incident happens 11:40-11:45, notice finally given at about 12:50

Passengers where thrown off the 10:30 in Portlaoise, no one was told why and no one on site to manage the bus transfer, station was open but staff went missing.

As we have shown clearly, Irish Rail rarely actually publish accurate and useful information when something goes wrong, in many cases its never published. Clearly a case that Irish Rail needs to wake up and admit when it goes wrong

We have a budget of 0 effectively, Irish Rail have 600 million or so a year yet can't communicate when a train breaks down. The very reason we exist is due to the poor management and communication of Irish Rail

[plant43]

Does it really make a difference in the grand scheme of things if they take 30 minutes or 60 minutes to put a notice up on the website? As it is, I'm pretty sure Barry Kenny going on the radio would have had more impact than the notice on the website (bigger target audience).

I don't see how they could excuse the staff going missing at Port Laoise but I guess that's going to be let slip under the radar.

[markpb]

Originally Posted by plant43

Does it really make a difference in the grand scheme of things if they take 30 minutes or 60 minutes to put a notice up on the website? As it is, I'm pretty sure Barry Kenny going on the radio would have had more impact than the notice on the website (bigger target audience).

I don't see how they could excuse the staff going missing at Port Laoise but I guess that's going to be let slip under the radar.

I guess the principle target would be people who could, if the information was reliable, check the IE site before they travel and be aware of any problems allowing them to make alternate arrangements. As it was, people could turn up for the train and not realise it wasn't running anymore.

The problem, from where I stand, is that it's a very simple problem to solve which makes IE inability all the more frustrating. Everytime CTC or local control notes a problem with a train, it should be a trivial matter for someone to email or ring the communications department and have a notice up within minutes.

[Mark Gleeson]

Well the Irish Rail booking system was still taking booking at 1pm for a whole pile of trains which where either going to be cancelled or delayed

The crew in Translink seem to be able to manage decent and functional information and they don't have a communications office (they sub contracted the press/media to a agency). Irish Rail have a attitude problem, they don't like to admit when they are in the wrong, if its someone else at fault its ok.