Yes, you guessed it, there can only be one topic of conversation for today’s post. I’d rather not have to mention it but neither can I ignore it. Though much of the south seemed to endure snow disruption on Tuesday night and on Wednesday, it was also universal. In the south, Wednesday service ranged from almost as normal for Transdev Yellow Buses to none at all in more rural areas, including Southern Vectis on the Isle of Wight.
There was an excellent response to yesterday’s post on the industry’s use of social media in trying circumstances. One early comment suggested that Twitter & Facebook had the advantage of being both local in nature and not interrupted, whereas the Arrivabus, Stagecoachbus and First Bus standard websites were swamped and inoperable for much of the morning.
Unusually high bus and rail activity meant that First Bus replaced its front page with a quicker loading temporary fix, as a response to the issues it faced.
The Stagecoachbus site reappeared in the afternoon. Strangely, the front page seemed to vary depending upon the browser used. The service alerts were many and you had to search for your area. Local sites—e.g. Warrington, EYMS, the Transdev Blazefield Group, and others—made life much easier by publishing information direct to their front pages.
Transdev Blazefield sites all replaced their front pages with easy to see service update, though not all were changed regularly throughout the day.
Such was the demand at Arrivabus that, when the front page became available, none of the alerts seemed to load. This level of activity just shows is the importance of these sorts of communications. It represents a new challenge for large operators in keeping the flow of information coming.
It was good to see yesterday’s comments suggesting the positive response from those in the industry who are using social media. And their commitment in posting about problems in the early hours or late in the evening (e.g. Velvet's 0040 update, above). Stevie D, Gareth (Stevens? Mole?) of Cardiff Bus, Bluestar’s Alex Hornbïye and others were right: this should not be seen as “above and beyond” as I put it, but the norm. A late comment suggested that some employers blocked access to social networking sites and operators should be aware that they are only part of the armoury of weapons available. Early updates meant that at least you could view these sites from home before setting out in the morning. One commenter reminded us all that the humble telephone was still an important tool, particularly also early in the morning.
Such disruption should’ve been a good opportunity for the various Traveline sites to excel. South East updated information on its front page; Wales showed basic details, with a link to a separate page, though this appeared dominated by road closures rather than bus service information; Yorkshire mentioned delays in West Yorkshire only, with a telephone number. And that was that. Transport Direct had a link to rail disruptions and a list of major road closures.
Joining or already part of the social media revolution are First Hampshire, Cardiff Bus partly in the Welsh language ; ) First Devon & Cornwall, First West Yorkshire, Plymouth Citybus, Wilts & Dorset, Metrobus, Transdev Yellow Buses, Bluestar, Southern Vectis, Ipswich Buses, Go North East, SYPTE, Merseytravel, Velvet, Nottingham City Transport, Metro PTE and Lothian Buses.
Big G in Plymouth stated that the number of Citybus Facebook “friends” more than tripled. Metrobus and Nottingham City Transport both now stand at over 4,000. By way of comparison, for those southern operators I highlighted yesterday, 24 hours later, I set out the new number of friends or followers:
| Followers or Fans | On Twitter | On Facebook |
| Bluestar | 104 to 147 | 1,002 to 1,591 |
| Southern Vectis | 171 to 242 | N/A |
| Transdev Yellow Buses | N/A | 279 to 379 |
| Velvet | 108 to 125 | 707 to 733 |
| Wilts & Dorset | N/A | 316 to 650 |
Finally, well spotted that one (only) of yesterday's Twitter screen shots was in French. No, Velvet's is usually in English. It's just a little trick I've learnt!
21 comments:
Amazed that you haven't included the excellent service updates on the Brighton & Hove website.
To add to your list of social networking site users is Centrebus who use both Twitter & Facebook and have been doing so extensively over this period of weather disruptions. This is on top of frequent updates on the front page of all the websites with details of what is or isn't running.
German today!!!
I disagree with the comment above about the "excellent service updates" provided by Brighton & Hove. The content on this page is good, however it is not immediately obvious where this page is as the home page is as normal. You have to go into sub-tabs to find it. Plus, the website is running very slowly due to the amount of people trying to access it. For this, I do not see these updates as excellent at all. More bus operators need to move to social networking for this kind of thing. Damn good updates by Hampshire operators! Well done to them. Get with it everyone else. Social networking is the new way!
I must say, coverage by Wave105 radio is very good. They even have a travel tweet page with all major companies twitter updates including rail, airports, airlines, ferries and of course, buses! Can be found here - http://bit.ly/6tRFrU
Just a note on twitter, as someone suggested it could be blocked or frowned upon by employers.
It's quite possible to integrate a twitter feed into a webpage - this is something you could certainly expect to see this year on one or more bus website.
But could the Twitter feed be blocked from the webpage?
Arriva site is still very slow today - the situation was so bad yesterday the main www.arriva.co.uk corporate site issued a press release telling people to use the customer services phoneline instead!
Definitely Gareth Stevens from Cardiff bus!
After about 5 hours sleep I managed to get enough worthwhile info to start tweeting at around 0500 this morning, and then the slow trudge in to get the website updated.
The feedback we have had from this has been extremely positive, and the way in which our staff overall responded yesterday.
Poor show by TfL yesterday, though.
Bus services collapsed in the snow and very icy conditions in North London last night - big, big queues at both Archway and Finsbury Park stations...but no info. We waited a while at Archway for a 210 back to Stroud Green, the Countdown display had 41s and 210s disappearing from the display when they became "due", and no "service updates" on the screens.
Why not? It was plainly obvious that there were problems, surely a little bit of info on all screens wouldn't have gone amiss? On the other hand tube information - as always - was second-to-none, so they can do it.
So, a "could do better" for TfL.
@MartinAllanGrey
Re: Twitter feeds on webpages, looking at the screenshots on the blog, it looks like that's already working on the Velvet page?
Although social networking sites are blocked by some employers, an increasing number of people possess web enabled phones, so Twitter et al can still be accessed.
This method has the advantage of being mobile, so can be used at bus stops etc.
This period could be a defining moment for the bus industry in customer service - we are seeing which operators are delivering "customer excellence", which ones are doing something to inform passengers and those who failing to be proactive in any way.
Norfolk Green are using Twitter & Facebook, with Konectbus only on Facebook, Suffolk CC on Twitter.
First Essex & Eastern Counties, Coach Services, Anglian Buses, Suffolk CC, Stephensons of Essex, on their own websites.
Less well done to Traveline East Mids and East Anglia which use the same system as South East but had no updates.
Traveline Cymru simply do the best we can with information provided to us by our operators and local authorities.
Our efforts now are better than in the past when we were unable to post anything to our customers. At least we try!
Traveline Tim is also on Facebook and Twitter regularly posting and retweeting relevant info.
PS All of snow info can be found here http://www.traveline-cymru.info/snow/.
why dont sothern vectis have a facebook page seems silly to me acshully
Re the Brighton & Hove website there's a large box with red text on the home page - what else could be easier?
How good is to hear that operators are using social media to good effect - and how nice to see some new faces commenting :)
The problems with snow in the north west seems to have highlighted a few points to me that, as a passenger and a web professional, I hope operators can put to good use:
* If you're going to use Facebook and Twitter, you need to be proactive, checking regularly to see whether there are any comments or questions to address.
* You need to be able to facilitate those on the ground to issue updates outside of normal office hours.
* If you have a database driven website, there may be a danger that the number of hits will exceed the capabilities of your web server - a temporary static HTML home page (perhaps with a link through to the rest of your website) is your friend in this instance.
* Any PTEs or councils should concentrate on linking to the information that operators supply rather than duplicating it with out-of-date info - concentrate your efforts on finding out what the smaller operators are doing, the ones who have not yet got any web presence.
* Twitter is good for reporting events as they happen. Facebook is good for answering queries. But neither can beat an updated list of disrupted services for ease of finding whether your bus route is affected or not! If you use one or both of the first two methods, it's best to utilise the third method in addition.
* Be as detailed as possible when listing any disruption. If a route is missing out a section of route, why not list the roads it is missing out rather than the name of the area? And if there is a temporary terminus, tell us which bus stops are out of use! :)
And finally, remember: every person who checks the website is potentially one less telephone call you have to deal with!
Re the Brighton & Hove website there's a large box with red text on the home page - what else could be easier?
Some people just expect it to be spoonfed to them. The alternative of looking in a "Latest News" menu is clearly too complicated for them.
If they can't understand Brighton & Hove's website what hope is there for all the others!
No, it's not easy when B&H's site is running at snails pace due to the amount of people on it. It's not bright and doesn't stand out. I didn't see it when first on there. What if I was in a rush and didn't want to mess around? Should be at top of the page with bright warning symbols, or dedicating the home page to the service changes. More could have been done. This is where social networking wins: Social networking can be used to answer individual questions and updated much more easily! Surely the company should be spoon-feeding the passengers too? Why is this a bad thing? After all they should be thinking about how to make this sort of thing easier as the passengers are the ones paying the bills! Much better updates by companies such as bluestar, velvet, yellow buses and a couple more. Go facbook and twitter!
Who's Alex Hornbiye anyway?
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