World class: Passing through Bow Road tube station last night I was intrigued to spot the arrival of a rare and special visitor in the ticket hall - the legendary TfL Opinionometer. This interactive installation takes the form of a small silver keypad on a message board, and TfL use it to collect multiple choice opinions. They stick up a question or two above the buttons, and passing passengers press the options that match what they think. Obviously I wandered over to give TfL a piece of my mind. And here's the question they wanted me to answer...
You what? Bow Road station, world-class? What planet are you on?
Bow Road station is a couple of 100-year old platforms up the less glamorous end of the District line. Metronet's incompetent refit gave the station plastic walls and a clashing non-heritage paint-job. There are freshly-installed seating areas located so far down the platform that trains don't actually stop there. The westbound train describer only gives 50 seconds warning of the arrival of the next train, and the eastbound train describer no longer works at all. Neither is visible from the entire length of the platform. The ticket office is open only sporadically, and the queue for the ticket machine occasionally snakes out of the door. Staff sometimes give a toss when some thug escapes fare-free through the luggage gate, but not always. Seventy-odd unnecessary CCTV cameras track every move around the station, and intrusive superfluous announcements blare out at too-regular intervals. The photo booth in the entrance hall has recently been ripped out, as have the chocolate and drinks machines on the platform. There's no champagne bar, as at St Pancras, nor a VIP lounge, as at Stratford International. There's no access for passengers in wheelchairs, no smiling member of staff to welcome you through the portal, nor even a booth that sells overpriced frothy coffee. Bow Road is no world-class station, not by any stretch of the imagination.
Which moron set up this survey? Why the hell are they asking random passers-by at Bow Road station to give a value judgement on a lunatic concept such as this? There's not even any attempt to give an objective explanation of what "world-class" means. It's just a worthless buzzphrase slipped into TfL's vision statement by some vacuous managerial gibbon. Every company has to have an inspirational vision statement these days, because Quality Review Monkeys say so, but they're usually so bland as to be meaningless. TfL's vision statement is little more than shallow aspirational fluff. Sure we'd all like a world-class transport network, but does anybody actually have any idea what being "world-class" entails?
I gave the Opinionometer a 4. Bow Road station has a few qualities of a world-class station (frequent trains, for example). But somewhere in TfL HQ some poor unfortunate statistician has added my 4 to their database and is probably using it to generate nonsensical conclusions. "67% of respondents had less positive opinions on Bow Road's transport infrastructure quality." "Stakeholder confidence in TfL's world class vision has not yet reached ceiling targets." "Baseline figures suggest deferred quality optimisation." "Aspirational shortfall is at critical levels." "Station staff should buck up their customer interface protocols or resign."
It saddens me that somebody somewhere in TfL thinks that this survey is a sensible use of time and effort, or even likely to give accurate results. Ask a stupid question, get a stupid answer. And who needs every aspect of the TfL network to be world-class anyway? Maybe they could just concentrate on giving us a half-decent station instead.
World class: Passing through Bow Road tube station last night I was intrigued to spot the arrival of a rare and special visitor in the ticket hall - the legendary TfL Opinionometer. This interactive installation takes the form of a small silver keypad on a message board, and TfL use it to collect multiple choice opinions. They stick up a question or two above the buttons, and passing passengers press the options that match what they think. Obviously I wandered over to give TfL a piece of my mind. And here's the question they wanted me to answer...
You what? Bow Road station, world-class? What planet are you on?
