Arriva Trains Fails - A letter of complaint

Hello all

A complaint letter I sent to Arriva after their shambolic service on Monday 13th April. I shall blog about their response when I receive it (probably in about a fortnight):

Dear Arriva

Even by your low standards of customer service over the past couple of years, you really excelled yourselves yesterday afternoon. Just when I thought you couldn’t treat your customers with any more distain, you totally prove me wrong. The treatment of customers yesterday wasn’t so much extreme distain, it bordered on outright contempt. I suppose I should congratulate you on managing to stoop lower than I previously had thought possible, except you’d probably only take it as a compliment and tweet about it.

Anyway, to summarise my experiences of trying to get home – at 1630 I arrived at Cardiff Queen Street station, platform 5, to catch the 1640 train to Treherbert. I had checked online when walking to Queen Street and it showed that, whilst there were well-known problems elsewhere in the ATW network, the Treherbert train was being displayed as having no delays or problems. This was on the National Rail Enquiries website.

The time 1640 came and went. Unlike my train, which was nowhere to be seen. A quick check on the National Rail Enquiries website showed the train as still being on time…. At some point after this the Treherbert train (which had been displayed as being simply “delayed”) just disappeared off the electronic platform displays. A Merthyr train came and went.  

Time ticked onto 1700, then onto 1710 – when the next Treherbert train was supposed to arrive. Well you could have knocked me over with a feather - it didn’t! Finally another Merthyr train arrived at approximately 1725. My colleague and I decided to jump onto this train simply to escape the Millennium Stadium-like crowds gathering on platform five of Queen Street station.

My first major issue: At absolutely no point from arriving on the platform at 1630 to the Merthyr train departing approximately 55 minutes later did we have ANY platform announcements on platform 5 about any trains towards Pontypridd, Aberdare or Treherbert. Zero, zilch, nada, absolutely nothing. They could have been running late, cancelled or hijacked by train-loving aliens for all that we knew on platform five. There were plenty of announcements about trains on other platforms that were also broadcast on our platform. It’s almost as though you were rubbing salt into the wounds deliberately, taunting  us for daring to live in the Rhondda Valleys and wanting to use public transport instead of joining the general motorised traffic jam on the Northern Avenue and A470.

I assume all your members of staff were hiding in the staff room over on platform four as we didn’t see a single ATW staff member during this time either.  God knows where any station managers were either. I’m beginning to rank your Station Managers alongside the Abominable Snowman  and Nigel Farage’s “I love Europe” car stickers in terms of ‘things I have seen with my own eyes’ as they are never seen… well ever really.

My second major issue: Just before my colleague and I jumped on the Merthyr train, someone standing near us announced loudly that her friend was down at Cardiff Central station, where the Treherbert trains were being diverted to Radyr via the City line before continuing on their standard journey. Turns out the last two Treherbert trains had done this. From what I’ve gathered since, at least three Treherbert trains were dealt with like this. I know my friend who arrived at Queen Street at 5pm, should have got home in Tonypandy around 6pm, and eventually walked in her door an hour and a half late.

Was this just down to congestion on the line or Arriva’s desire to keep the timetable? A train arriving in Treherbert a bit late would look better in your results, those same statistics that are used to amend the price when it comes to us renewing our annual season tickets, even if it had missed out probably the busiest station on the route leaving a few hundred passengers stranded and trying to find their own way home.

I could go on about how your timetable allows you to make up any lost time at the end of your train journeys, thus avoiding more trains falling into the “late” category, but suffice to say we know what you do, Lynne Milligan has almost admitted as much to it, but there’s nothing us general punters can do so we have to accept it and pray to the transport gods that the franchise is simply not renewed with your company in two years’ time.

If only a member of your staff or one of your managers had thought about telling all of us on platform five it would have been absolutely fine. We would have quite happily walked down to Central, thus immediately halving the crowd waiting at Queen Street and no doubt saving your complaints team a couple of days work replying to angry emailed complaints such as mine.  Perfect for you, and better than nothing for us paying punters. Sadly either the thought didn’t occur to everyone involved in that decision chain (highly unlikely) or that you simply couldn’t be bothered.

I was running horrifically late for a Platelet Donor session with the Welsh Blood Service, and if I had missed my appointment it would have been another six weeks before I could get another one, so it was vitally important that I was home on time.  Eventually my colleague got her husband to drive from Porth to collect us from Treforrest. It was purely down to his willingness to do this that enabled me to still attend my donor appointment – albeit almost 15 minutes late.

It speaks volumes that the announcer on the Merthyr train explained the delays and sincerely apologised, and then followed it up with “I am also going to complain to the managers, on behalf of the customers, for the service offered today”. That man deserved a medal. You’ll probably threaten him with disciplinary procedures for being so honest.

I genuinely have never felt so abandoned as a customer as I did yesterday on platform five. Whilst we accept that incidents on trains happen, we simply can’t accept the complete and utter contempt your company showed to its customers who pay hundreds, possibly thousands, of pounds a year for a service that, in all honesty, is a complete shambles. I have never worked in Customer Service before, but even I can see the basics include clear communication. It’s not a difficult concept to master – talking to people is taught in school these days amazingly, what will they think of next? How on earth can a company as established and experienced as Arriva Trains Wales get it so completely and utterly wrong time after time after time? We can only assume that you do it on purpose, as no one could produce endless performances like this accidentally.

I would ask for compensation, but due to your well-known policy of not offering compensation to the loyal customers who buy monthly and annual season tickets, as well as your fudging of your performance statistics mentioned above, I won’t be holding my breath.

Yours faithfully

Ian Emery

You Wanted It, You Got It!!!

I was beginning to get inundated with requests for somewhere for readers of this blog to post their experiences of ATW.

TBH, I couldn't work out how to do it here (!), but I've set up a Community on Facebook and would love to hear your stories.

Here's the link - see you there!

https://www.facebook.com/ATFails

Poll

On the front page of this blog I've added a poll.
Should I get a load of these made?

The poll is top-right on the front page:
Poll Here

Infamy! Infamy! They've All Got It In For Me! Wales Online Get Onboard Our Push For Better Customer Service!!!

Following a brief chat with Alicia Melville-Smith, this article was published on WalesOnline!

Blog views went from roughly 89/90 a day to 1,700 in 2 days!!

And, AND, I heard someone mention it on the train this morning (when the train eventually turned up)!

http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/frustrated-commuters-arriva-trains-fails-8070065

Dropping the "C" Bomb on Lisvane

I'm trying to think of something less reliable than the 0759 from Lisvane to Cardiff.

And I'm struggling!

When you've been getting the sort of publicity that ATW have been getting for the past couple of weeks, you'd think the one thing they'd try to get right would be Monday morning.

But no. Today they drop the "C"-bomb on us.

0759 Cancelled.

On the positive side, if the last few months are anything to go by, we should now at least get a train for the next 9 days! (Yes, I do know probabilities don't work like that - but give me something to cling to, please!!).

We arrive at Queen Street, finally at 0839 - 28 minutes late. 
Chance of refund: slim.

Although the queue to get a ticket is pretty long:

Time of leaving Station 8:45.

Chance of refund: increasing.

It's 90 Minutes. It's David against Goliath. Winner Takes All. But it's not the FA Cup.....!

Well, last night I got to spend 90 minutes Lynne Milligan, Arriva Trains Wales's Director of Customer Service.

The battle lines were drawn in the ghetto of the John Lewis Espresso Bar.
Lynne paid for the tea (no sugar), and this wasn't to be the last time I had a bitter taste in my mouth.

As the Underdog, I set my stall out early.  In typical FA Cup 1st Round style, I needed to take an early lead against the Giant:

1-nil - An unplanned ambush.  
I told Ms. Milligan about a scene I witnessed in that morning at Cardiff's Queen Street station.
While there's improvements going on, ATW have moved in a small army of blue-uniformed "Customer Service Representatives" to check tickets.
As mine has relocated to the Land of the Lost Sock, I now have to queue to buy one.
There was only 4 of us in the queue.  A lady in front being served.  Me.  And two other souls behind me.
The lady in front completed her transaction and moved on to give one of the blue-clad army her ticket.
As she passed, I noticed him at first smile, then snigger, then laugh, and then tell his mate "She's just given me the 'Return'.  She'll never get home tonight".
He didn't, however, call the unfortunate lady back and give her her ticket back.

Horriffic.

I pointed out to Ms.Milligan that it can't just be me.  It can't just be that when I'm somewhere, something bad happens.  I made her realise that this sort of thing MUST happen, almost every minute, of every day.
And I asked her how she felt about that.

By the lack of response, I think she was winded.



All I had to do now was hold on to my lead!



We moved onto my missing season ticket:

Would they be replacing it?  No.
Would they be refunding me for the remaining 3 months?  No.
Did I have any hope of convincing her otherwise?  No.

Basically, they can't afford to either refund, nor replace it.  It would open up an option to the fraudulent-types out there.  
Some unscrupulous soul could buy one, and sell it.  
They could then pay a tenner, get another and sell it.
Repeat ad nauseum.

I can see her point.
1-all.  A worthy equaliser.



What I didn't see coming was while I was sorting out my Defence, I was hit with another quick sucker-punch!



The Giant took the moral lead on about 25 minutes.

I brought up the topic of the non-customer-centric policies, namely: no refunds to Season Ticket Holders.

She was prepared.
It was straight off the Training Ground.
An Annual Season Ticket effectively gives 2 months-worth of free journeys to the holder (unless he loses it!).  Buy 5, Get One Free.  Twice.
She pointed out that that's a pretty good deal.  Unless you lose it.  Twice.
She also pointed out that the Valley's lines are both already loss-making.  They can't afford to refund.  And there is no way they're going to adopt the approach of "It's good for the customer, so we'll do it anyway", like ASOS have done with their proactive refunds.
She was on the front-foot by now, and stepped up with a "refunds are built into the costs as we factor in service levels".

I fought back with a "you just manipulate the stats for your own good", but it was too little, too late.  There was no pulling this one back.

2-1 down.



I re-grouped at the interval, and made a tactical change.  Out came the props.

"Let's revisit the topic of manipulating the statistics" said I.

The main performance indicator that Arriva Trains Fails pointed me towards previously were these: http://www.arrivatrainswales.co.uk/Performance/

They say that 97.7% of ATW's Valley's Line trains were punctual (arrive at their destination within 5 minutes of the advertised time) in the last 4 weeks.

However, Ms. Milligan herself admits that the vast majority of these trains are virtually empty during the day.
So, almost nobody cares that the one-thirty-whatever arrived in Penarth with a few seconds to spare.
But ATW can count it as being as valuable as all of the ram-packed-full rush-hour trains.
Useful.
Especially when there's no-one around to see it.

When a tree falls in a forest and no-one's around, does it make a noise?

And it's even more convenient that they don't have to publish the stats for the stations that people actually use (Queen Street and Cardiff Central) as they're not the final destination.
With the pressure mounting on ATW, I pushed for the equaliser with a few maps I'd prepared in true Blue Peter style!

First this:

Which shows ATW gives itself 6 minutes for my train to complete the last half-a-mile of it's journey.  Google says you can walk it in 10 minutes.

Is this unreasonable?
I'll let the reader decide when shown this:

This is the section shows the first 2 stops of my train, seperated by 1.1 miles (if you had to walk it in the 21 minutes that Google estimates).
ATW gives itself 2 minutes for this section.

That's right.
Twice as far.
Three-times as quick.

Is it coincidence that the last half-a-mile is covered in the timetable at less than 0.1 miles per minute, when the rest of the journey is 0.5 miles per minute?

Personally, I don't think it is.
At the 'normal' speed the train should complete the last stage, it should take 1 minute.
ATW have "added in" (for want of a better phrase) an extra 5 minutes leeway in their favour so they can met their targets.
In effect, they can arrive at Penarth 10 minutes later than it could have arrived (the 5 mins they're allowed and the 5 minutes they've generously given themselves) in order to meet their targets.

And what happens?
Ta-da!
97.7% success rate!

It was clear to see, despite Ms. Milligan's half-hearted attempt to answer these points, that I'd pulled back her lead.

2-a-piece!



You want more?
I'll give you more!

I could taste blood and it wasn't the JL tea.

"If only you would publish the performance stats of the trains people actually use.  That'd be useful.  And it'd be good for the customers" I continued.

Ms. Milligan pulled an email chain from her bag.  She'd asked a manager within Customer Services to find the stats for the 0759 from Lisvane for the last 2 months.  The manager had forwarded it on to their MI team with the request accompanied by "Lynne is meeting with an unhappy customer..."
The reply that came back began: "I'm not surprised he's unhappy! ...".  Good of her to come clean with that!

Apparently, 77% of the time my train is on time.  This is "on time" in their ATW-friendly definition.
But it also means that more than once a week, it isn't.

11% of the time it's Cancelled, or Part-Cancelled.  Part Cancelled means it just went past the in-between stations without stopping.
That's once a fortnight!

They also said, in this 2 month period, the trains had been a total of 186 minutes late (their late, again).
That's more than 3 hours!!!

Slightly different to the 97.7% they publicise.

I suggested that ATW make the stats for individual trains journeys available to the public.
She liked this idea, especially as it would allow them to communicate that they know something's wrong and they're going to do x, y and z about it.
She gave me her word that she would go away today and try to make this happen.

3-2!



Using the "making things public" stance, I segwayed seamlessly into the "Your letter from last week" topic.

I told her I despaired at the use of "leaf fall season".
I pointed out that this is obviously ATW jargon and that 'real people' call it Autumn.

She visibly crumbled.
I think at that moment she felt the same as I did when I read that I couldn't get compensation for my season ticket almost 2 weeks ago!

There was no comeback.
There was no argument.
There was an acceptance that I was indeed correct, and an assurance that no ATW communication WILL EVER contain the phrase "leaf fall season" again.
And I can take full credit for that!

She also said my earlier emails were the reason for the release going out! 
Boom!

4-2!!
Get in!



Was there time for a 5th?

At this point, Ms. Milligan brought up the "Passenger Panel".
It's a focus group of ATW customers that meet to discuss performance, change, successes and failings.
She said there is a long waiting list to get on the Panel, but would like to personally invite me to be the next member!

Obviously, I accepted.
A chance to voice the concerns of the masses to the people that matter was too good to turn down!
I'm hoping that this blog now becomes a conduit for me to pass on the sentiment that the customers of ATW are feeling.

The bonus - which was then explained to me - is that members of this Panel get free ATW travel!

5-2!

Game over!

See you in the 2nd Round!




I'm not on the Panel yet, but I will be soon.

And I really want to hear what's happening across the rest of the rail network.

And if we get through the 2nd Round, then the 3rd Round will see us in a position to take on the Premier League outfits......!

But let's take each game as it comes, eh?

Thanks for your continued and on-going support!

Now, please SHARE!!!

An update

So, a meeting is arranged for Wednesday 4th November at 5pm.  I wonder how late she'll be?!!  I'm expecting several indecipherable messages, followed by a last minute cancellation due to "leaf fall season".  (That little beauty is going to stay with me for ever!)

There was no offer of assistance (in true Arrive Trains Wales style) in my quest for a second annual season ticket - but it has been added to the agenda.

If there's anything you want me to raise at this meeting, please comment below.

Well, well, well!

And, as if by magic, THIS appears on the ATW website today!
Signed by the recipient of my frustrations!

My favourite bits are the "low rail adhesion" attributed to "leaf fall season".
Or "autumn" as it's annually known!
Like it's a surprise!
Perhaps I was right about "rocket science" in my earlier posts, and maybe I am smarter than I've ever thought (probably not possible!).

Fear not!  These beauties are in the bank ready for my meeting with her!

I would like to think that in some small way, everyone that's read, shared, and (hopefully) laughed at this has helped!

Thanks and keep up the good work!

Apology Letter Regarding Fleet Shortages, October 2014

31 Oct 2014

Dear Customer

We would like to take this opportunity to apologise to our customers for any journeys you have made with us recently where the number of carriages we have provided has been fewer than normal. We’re also mindful that in some instances it has been necessary for a different type of train to be provided in order to avoid cancelling the service and this has meant that you haven’t experienced the usual standards of comfort on longer distance journeys. Our staff on the ground have been feeding back customer experiences from onboard the train and comments raised on our Twitter feed have also highlighted to us how frustrating this is for you.

A number of unrelated incidents have meant that we have been unable to deliver all our fleet at the right time and in the right place. Some of these issues have been caused by freight trains breaking down on our Cardiff to Manchester / Holyhead routes and this extensive disruption has led to us needing to re-start services with another train to avoid them being completely cancelled. The only way we can do this is by taking capacity from other local services, which then reduces the overall number of carriages allocated to each service. The disruption has also led to some trains finishing the day in a different location meaning they’re not in the right place the next morning and this affects the number of carriages and type of train that we can deliver at peak times.

In addition we have been unable to deliver all our trains to passenger services due to a combination of urgent maintenance or repairs to our fleet. Two of our Class 175 trains (used on longer distance routes) have been out of service for a number of weeks, one due to striking a tree on the line, but both these trains will be back in service from 03 November, greatly assisting capacity and comfort on longer distance journeys. 

We have also had several services affected by low rail adhesion, which is caused by the leaf fall season when leaves are crushed onto the railhead making them slippery, and the majority of these trains operate our busiest services on the Cardiff local routes & Valley lines. This can cause the train to slide along the rails when the brakes are applied and result in damage to the wheels. If this arises we may have to take the affected carriages out of service to avoid damage to the track and further damage to the wheels.  We then carry out the repairs as quickly as possible by ‘turning’ the wheels on a wheel lathe in order to get the train back into service, but in the meantime this will mean that some services run with fewer carriages than normal.

Please be assured that we are working hard on finding ways to reduce instances of us being unable to provide the required number of trains for service each day and we will keep you updated on our action plan.

Our apologies again for the frustrations you have been caused and we thank you for your patience in the interim.

Lynne Milligan, Customer Services Director

Matt Prosser, Engineering Director   

1,000 Views in a Week!!! Thank you!! Together We'll Change Arriva Train Wales Anti-Customer-Centric Stance!!!

I sense a torrent coming on...

Once again, thanks to everyone that's read, liked, shared, forwarded, tweeted, an whatever else, this blog.

I'm overwhelmed with the level of interest - almost 200 views a day at the moment - it's spurring me on to get this (soon to be THESE) Arriva Trains Wales policies overturned.

I'm not (yet) actively looking for examples of ATW sticking two-fingers up to the advance fare-paying public, they're just rearing their heads on their own at the moment!

Today, I'm giving you an advance viewing of the email that'll be dropping into Lynne Milligan's Inbox in the morning.

Enjoy, and thanks again!
Steve




Good morning Lynne, 

They’re just like trains!

They really are!

No sooner does one non-customer-centric policy that shakes me to the core arrive, but there’s another one right behind it!

And I have to say, you’re very good at them!

In a very untimely coincidence, this week I’ve managed to lose my annual season ticket – the non-compensable one that caused me to contact you in the first place.

Unfortunately, this is the second time this year, and I have been informed that this means I can’t get a replacement.

That’s right.  Arriva Trains Wales expects me to write off the remaining £170 of credit that I had on the ticket.

Just like that.

Wow.

Okay, I know that I have to take a great deal of the blame for losing it in the first place – and the second place, come to think of it – but is this really the policy of a public service company?

When I first mislaid the original, I berated myself for doing so only a couple of weeks in to the 12 months and £680 outlay.

I was relieved, however, to find out that for the reasonable sum of £10 (or two Lisvane to Cardiff return tickets) I could get a reprint.

I don’t recall that it was made clear to me that this was a “One Time Offer” although, to be fair, it is possible.  At the time, this wouldn’t have bothered me as I had no intention of losing it again.

But, despite my best endeavours to live up to this self-promise, it would appear that “accidents can happen”.

HOLD THE FRONT PAGE.  I kid you not, they actually can.

However, ATW don’t appear to recognise that whether or not a customer has had a previous accident is a mutually exclusive event when it comes to calculating the probability of another accident occurring.

ATW seems to work on the theory that if it's happened once, the chance of it happening again is zero.

Now, I studied Mathematics.  I specialised in Statistics.  I even spent a few years teaching the subject.  But this strain of the science has, until now, eluded me.

It appears that there’s a “2 strikes and you’re out” rule that, even now, I’m struggling to find on the website.

When I asked the otherwise very polite female ‘mushroom’ on the Helpline why this rule was in place she told me “they don’t tell us why, they just tell us that’s what happens”.  Helpful.  Kept in the dark and fed on s***.  You can check this, it was recorded for training and monitoring purposes.

It’s not that I would resent paying another £10 to recover the remaining £170 credit that was on the ticket – well, I would a little, but that’s my problem – but it seems that this isn’t an option that’s open to me.

Surely £10 would cover all the administration and printing costs required to check my details – and if not, you either need to pay the people checking the details less than £100 per hour, or you need to speed them up a little.

Is this something that you would be able to look into now please, or should we add it to the agenda for our coffee morning?

Kindest regards

Steve