July 2010

Issues discussed at the July meeting include:

Journey Check Disruption Alerts
 
c2c gave a presentation to explain the rationale behind the decision to withdraw the text alert facility in favour of one via e-mail only. In summary:

• Up to 13 JUne, customers had the option to register for disruption alerts via text or e-mail.
• Of the 14,871 people registered, only 6% had registered for text only, although a proportion had registered for a mix of text and e-mail alerts.
• The 160 character limitation on text messages was making it impractical to give comprehensive and consistent information, and providing information in two different formats was proving to be expensive and time-consuming.
• There were also delays to texts arriving on the customers’ phones, which often meant that the information was not timely.
• The rise in ownership of i-phones and Blackberry phones had resulted in a rapid fall-off in the use of text only phones.
• The decision was therefore taken to withdraw the text alert service from 13 June.
• Customers were informed by e-mail, or by text asking them to obtain detailed information from the c2c website. 36 customers responded with problems, of which 7 were asking for a multiple e-mail address facility, which has now been provided. Only 12 customers withdrew from the service, of which 8 have since re-registered to enable them to register multiple email addresses.
• There are now 15,068 customers registered to receive e-mail alerts.
• The new facility had shown benefits during the extensive disruptions of 15 July, when a consistent message was sent out simultaneously to all 15000 registered users.

Review of Incidents

c2c reported that it is yet to conduct a full review of the overhead line related incident on 16 July, caused primarily by the high winds. The prime cause was the tree falling on the overhead line at West Ham, which resulted in severe difficulties through the evening peak. Specific aspects of the day’s events were –

• A contingency plan was in place quickly for the service to be moved from Fenchurch Street to Liverpool Street, with a break in service from 1530 to 1615, while resources were moved from one station to the other.
• Additional overhead line problems at Limehouse and Rainham hampered this transfer of resources at a key time.
• This resulted in much reduced departures from Liverpool Street
• The plan to use 2 dedicated platforms at Liverpool Street was not strictly adhered to by owing to the fact that National Express East Anglia were also suffering disruption.