Monday, March 24, 2008

>1 year later, TfL respond

At long last, TfL have made a serious attempt at addressing the issues raised by the incident, over a year ago, in which my wife was detained and assaulted by a member of TfL staff because a failure in the Oyster system meant her card didn't work correctly.

Sorry this is quite long, but since I have blogged for so long about this it seems only fair to show you all of what TfL have to say. Note, though, that this letter is not actually from TfL, it is from London Travel Watch who seem to be acting as editors ...

Dear Mr Badger,

Subject: Dissatisfaction with Oyster

Thank you for your recent email, TfL have now provided a response which was received on 14 March 2008. Tfl apologise for the delay in replying.

In order to answer the points raised, TfL have answered them one by one and I have set this out for you in the same format below; the bold text being your further questions.

TfL need to acknowledge that there are systemic problems with the Oyster system and the training of station staff regarding the Oyster system.

By and large, TfL say the Oyster system has proved to be a success. Its introduction has reduced congestion in ticket halls, as well as allowing station staff to be more flexible, out with the customers where they are needed. However, there are occasions when an error will occur on a card and they do sympathise, as this can be very frustrating. Fortunately, they say the majority of these problems can be resolved by their Station staff. That said, some more complicated issues will require the help of specialist Oyster staff. This is due to the significant scale of the Oyster system, as well as the complex mechanisms and procedures that govern its operation. We would agree with TfL that on the whole Oyster has been a success, but there have been issues and this could be put down to it being a new system.

In terms of the training of their staff, all London Underground station staff undergo an extensive three week initial training programme, before taking up their post within the station. During this course they are trained to effectively provide customers with support, advice and assistance in many areas including Oystercard protocol. This training is further consolidated by an additional two weeks of mentoring with a senior member of staff.

TfL say with the ongoing support of their training and development department, station staff continue to be trained, and develop the appropriate skills to ensure excellent customer service standards.

TfL need to explain what station staff should be expected to do in
situations such as the one we suffered.

If an error occurs on a customer's card, TfL say a Customer Service Assistant (CSA) should take them to the ticket office where a statement can be printed. If this does not resolve the issue, the CSA has access to further information from the staff Oyster helpline. London Underground Station staff are the public face of TfL. As such, they are expected to be courteous and respectful at all times. They are sorry that your experiences were contrary to this.

TfL need to explain what passengers should do in situations such as the one we suffered. (e.g. should we have immediately called the police?)

If a customer wishes to complain about an incident or a member of TfL staff, they can speak to the Station Supervisor. If this is still not sufficient, the supervisor should explain the complaints procedure, where matters can be investigated further. If the incident is a particularly serious one, the customer can demand that the British Transport Police are contacted.

Most of all, TfL need to take this matter seriously. Some of their words suggest they are taking this seriously. Their actions say very loudly and very clearly that they are not taking this seriously at all.

TfL say they are eager to resolve this matter to your satisfaction. In order to do this however, they require a detailed account of what happened (e.g. in what way was your wife assaulted), including a detailed description of the member of staff involved. Without this information, they say there is very little they can do to pursue this incident further.

If you would like to meet with an appropriate manager to discuss the matter, TfL say you should phone Cassius Powell, the Group Station Manager (GSM) at Bank station on 020 79189875.

TfL do not feel it would be appropriate to offer a further goodwill gesture, as they feel that the earlier cheque was sufficient. They also do not wish to give you the impression that they are simply giving you money in the hope that you will drop the matter. As already mentioned, TfL repeat they are very keen to resolve this incident to your satisfaction, and the emphasis they feel must be on that.

The offer of a meeting might prove helpful as face to face contact rather than correspondence can be beneficial. If you have any comments or questions on the above, please let me know. If you are dissatisfied and in order to see if we can progress this further with TfL, it might be helpful to state why and to do so in point format in response to their answers.

Yours sincerely

Wednesday, March 19, 2008

Patent Office loses software not a patent case | The Register

Ugh

Patent Office loses software not a patent case | The Register

IMO the UK should not accept software idea patents at all but it seems that the EPO think that the UK patent office should grant even more of the ghastly things.

We really need the legislators to step into this and make it clear, again, that software really is not patentable.

Sunday, March 16, 2008

An Oyster Anniversary

It's a year ago today that my wife was detained and (verbally) assaulted by a member of TfL staff at the Bank tube station.

After a year TfL have essentially done nothing about this incident. They did give us a refund to cover the financial cost of the bug in the Oyster system, but have not done anything at all about the far more serious matter of the assault. So, what are we looking for out of this?
  • TfL need to acknowledge that there are systemic problems with the Oyster system and the training of station staff regarding the Oyster system. (e.g. staff don't know how to react when the Oyster system causes problems)
  • TfL need to explain what station staff should be expected to do in situations such as the one we suffered. The public should know what to expect.
  • TfL need to explain what passengers should do in situations such as the one we suffered. (e.g. should we have immediately called the police?)
Most of all, TfL need to take this and like matters seriously. Some of their words suggest they are taking this seriously, but their actions say very loudly and very clearly that they are not taking this assault seriously at all.

The TfL method for dealing with such serious matters appears to be to absorb them rather than to respond to them, they are a veritable tar baby. But if TfL are hoping that this matter will go away if they just ignore it for long enough, they are going to be sorely disappointed.

Monday, March 10, 2008

Bin liner sales to soar in London

We use plastic shopping bags as bin liners, among other things. We even have a nice linen dispenser for them so newly acquired bags squish in the top and we pull them out of the bottom when needed.

But it seems that we will have to start buying plastic bin liners instead of using the shopping bags even though ...

Plastic bag campaign falls apart at the seams | The Register

... And the bin liners are not as good as the shopping bags because they don't have the handles we use to hang the nominated trash bag on the kitchen cupboard door.

As Private Eye might say - it's trebles all round for the bin liner manufacturers and the stores that will now sell lots more of them.

Saturday, March 01, 2008

MOO-XML: not quite dead yet

It looks like ISO are ridding themselves of the MOO-XML (Microsoft Office Open - XML) format embarrassment:

Groklaw - OOXML Fails to Get Majority Approval at BRM - Updated 2Xs

... but I think we can expect some last minute squirming and manipulation as Microsoft desparately try to salvage their attempt to undermine ODF with their proprietary format.

Microsoft dread having to compete on merit, but perhaps it would do them some good if they were forced to do so rather than continuing to abuse their monopoly position in the market.