Acton Mainline issues - FGW response
I use the station a few times a week for getting into Central London for business meetings and have recently been appalled by the lack of information screens. I emailed FGW and copied in Angie Bray.FGW response is below and I encourage all of you to also email them ( fgw.feedback@firstgroup.com )to complain as the response is very poor. I am emailing back to tell them this:Thank you for your email of 10 February 2011. I am sorry for the problems you have had recently at Acton Mainline station due to the failure of the customer information system (CIS).We know how important it is to provide up to date and accurate information to our customers and we fully understand how frustrating it is when we are unable to do this due to faulty equipment. The CIS across our network is becoming old and is no longer as reliable as we would like. The software is dated and is no longer adequate to efficiently process the large amounts of information passed through it. It is therefore susceptible to regular failures, especially in the London Thames Valley area and we are acutely aware of how much inconvenience this causes to our customers. You may be aware that we are currently underway with a major project to completely replace the CIS at all of our stations. We are also installing more help points and when the work is complete the new system will be efficient and reliable, as you would expect. As we work through our stations things are improving, but until all of the systems have been replaced, it is likely that we will be unable to provide comprehensive information at all times. This is also the reason that the clocks have been removed as there will be a digital one on the new screens.If a fault occurs with the CIS at an unstaffed station, our engineers often have to rely on reports from our Station Audit Teams, Environmental Teams, Station Managers and customers, to know that something is wrong. They then have a number of tasks to perform to identify the fault. Usually the problem can be fixed with a system re boot, but if it is a case of needing new parts, unfortunately it is not quite as straightforward and this is usually the problem when the system is out of order for some time.Spare parts for the system are few and far between, mainly due to its age. Some spares were sourced recently though and these will be used to stabilise the systems with the most frequent failures.I do realise how frustrating this is and I am sorry I have been unable to provide any more positive information for you. Until we can renew the system, we expect further faults and all we can do is promise to fix these as quickly as we can. Please do feel free to report any faults to us as soon as you notice them and we will be able to send an engineer out straight away. I am also very sorry that you have noticed problems with graffiti and the lighting at the station. This is clearly not up to our usual standard and I do apologise.We take this very seriously as it directly affects you as a customer. So I have logged what happened as a complaint against the station. That means the Regional Station Manager will see the details in our regular report and can take any action to improve the situation for the future. With regard to the number of services from Acton Mainline, planning our services is very complex and we must always make decisions that benefit as many customers as possible. Our timetable is the best schedule we can achieve, whilst improving journey times and opportunities, as well as catering for our customers changing demands. This means that when reviewing the timetable we sometimes have to make compromises. We must consider passenger numbers and journey patterns, the type of customer travelling on different routes and the feedback we receive. We would very much like to be able to provide every customer with a timetable to suit their individual needs but we know we can never satisfy everyone. That said, over the last few years we have worked extremely hard to improve the timetable and it is now much more robust, with overall better connections and more frequent services. We will continue to make positive changes where we can.Finally I was very concerned to hear that one of our colleagues does not provide you with the service you expect when you use the station.We expect everyone representing our company to be as helpful as possible at all times. There are times when we can't meet every single request, but we will always aim to offer the highest level of customer service and to try and find ways of making your journey as easy and pleasant as possible. I have reported your comments and you can be assured this will be followed up.Thank you again for bringing your experience to my attention. I do hope that future journeys with us will be trouble-free.Yours sincerelySimon PritchardCustomer Services Advisor
Eddy Leviten ● 5692d20 Comments ● 5685d