an open letter to adelaide metro

Dear Adelaide Metro

People often malign you and say that buses and trains don't run on time or whatever, but I've never really had much of a problem with you. Sure, I'd love it if you made all the F and X express buses pick people up from my stop onwards... but I know that that's not going to happen.

And sometimes I wish that you'd send a long bendy bus when you know it's going to be busy in the afternoons.

And that it would be nice if the mostly empty bus that comes just before I leave work actually turned up just after I leave work so I could catch it. But on the whole, these are minor issues.

However, I will say that this whole test you have of the new Metrocard system has been a complete fuckup... and I don't even have my card yet.

I submitted my name to the number in question, that part was easy. Then a nice lady from some other company called me up to ask me a bunch of questions and let me know that I was indeed eligible for the card. That part was also easy, even though it was slightly bad timing that she called me on a Sunday while I was on my way to the shops.

She also told me that I would get an email that my card was ready to be collected from the InfoCentre in the city, which is fine because I work close enough to there that I could collect it in my lunchbreak. And that I would get the email within two weeks.

Honestly, after that, I kind of forgot about it a bit... but then the brand new multitrip I bought failed to work in two different machines... bit of a bugger that. I went into the InfoCentre to get them to give me a new one. I also realised that even if I was supposed to get the email within 14 business days, I should still have been notified about picking up my Metrocard.

So since I was there anyway, I may as well check to see if they had my card ready, or if not, maybe I was hoping they could, you know, do it right there and then because I was standing right there.

However the young man who served me could find anything in the database. I don't mean he couldn't locate my name, he actually couldn't work out HOW to search for my details. And nobody else appeared to know anything either. As you can imagine, I was a little annoyed by that. But they took my name and mobile number down and said that they would give me a call when they found out the information.

I'm still waiting for that phonecall.

And just briefly, while we're on the topic of my trip to the InfoCentre, the young man mentioned that a number of multitrips had been failing because the new ticket machines aren't designed for them. Seriously? You have an existing system with a considerable amount of money invested in it (just from the customer perspective... I can't be the only person who bought tickets well in advance), and decide to roll out a whole new system that doesn't work well with the current tickets? The logic of that does escape me to be honest.

But anyway... where was I, oh yeah, still waiting for my phonecall.

Then, at the end of June, some time after my trip to the InfoCentre, I received an email letting me know that "a number of people" had said that it was too difficult to go to the InfoCentre to pick up their Metrocard, so the decision had been made that they would all be mailed out. And could I just complete these details about my postal address.

You know what would have been nice? If that had been a choice. If the email had said "if you wish to have your card mailed out, please provide your address details, if you still wish to pick up your card from the InfoCentre, don't do anything". But that just makes me think that it wasn't about people complaining, it was the fact that your InfoCentre staff couldn't handle either the demand or perhaps just finding people's names on a list (because really, how much harder than that could it have been). So somebody decided to go with this instead.

Which means that I've had to wait for ANOTHER 7-10 working days which means more waiting.

And then I've got to take the card somewhere to have money loaded onto it so that I can use it. Which I could have done at the InfoCentre if I'd been allowed to pick the card up from there.

So what I guess I'm saying is that I haven't even gotten my hands on one of the cards yet, and already I'm kind of annoyed by the whole thing. Well done!

Regards
yani

Current Mood:

No comments: