CTA Tattler

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"The challenge is at the control center to get the information out to riders. We have to translate our jargon to useable information."

Huberman's plan to do that is to dispatch two teams of employees by van with all the latest info to strategic locations anytime a major, unplanned service outage occurs.
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So instead of having someone in the control center who can monitor all the incoming information, and translate it, the plan is to send people out in the field, and rely on what they'll be able to see from there?

Sending people out to help those already in the field control movements, answer passenger questions and such might be a good idea, but it's not the answer to getting the information out in the first place.

The answer to getting things out in the first place is to have a PIO (public information officer) in the control center, and in constant contact with an incident commander. The PIO's primary responsiblity would be to get information out to the public in real time, and their secondary responsiblity would be to discuss past incidences with the press.

If you've got the budget to have a couple van loads of people on-call to respond in the field, you've got the budget to leave a seat empty in the van, and put a PIO in the control center at all times.

Now where have I seen the idea of a PIO available at all times before? Oh, yeah. Just about every big and medium-sized city police force does it. You'd think that someone who claims that heading the CTA is just like being a police officer would have thought of it first.

Instead, we get an answer that might look good in the PowerPoint world, where travel times to the site of unplanned incidents can be ignored, and simple solutions, like one person in the control center acting as a PIO don't look as flashy on a slide, let alone a series of slides.

Seriously. Is there anyone here who can't see that the solution to "The challenge is at the control center to get the information out to riders. We have to translate our jargon to useable information" isn't as simple as making it *one* person (at all times)'s job? Does anyone look at that problem and see sending two van-loads of people to the scene is the answer?

Rusty: I never said there would not be a central person at the control center getting info to these teams. Of course there will be. And there always has been. The problem has been getting the info from the control center PIO to the masses. That's what these two teams are charged with doing.

I wonder how much those people in the van will be making?

Any bets that it will be over $100K? Or that those are "new" positions?

KevinB

So a person in the control center, listening to all the jargon on the radio, with access to all the internal information that's available in the control center would be unable to translate that information? They would be so unversed in the jargon being used that they would need to dispatch a couple van loads of people to the scene to do the job?

At best, Kevin, you're misreporting what the job of the teams will be.

There's no valid reason to dispatch a couple van-loads of employees to the scene to gather information to report it back jargon-less. That doesn't make a lick of sense.

The job that's not getting done that a couple van-loads of people might solve would be public contact at the scene. In other words, the information would not be flowing from the teams to the control center, but from the control center to the teams.

The Huberman quote stating the problem shows a good understanding of the problem. But if you left out that there would be a PIO in the control center, and then presented the concept of the teams being sent to the scene as the answer to the stated problem, either you're misreporting what the teams will be charged with doing, or the plan is messed-up.

Either way, the answer to a failure to de-jargonize the information, and get it out in real-time is not two van loads of people charged with surveying the situation, and creating a jargon-less version. At best, information will be flowing TO the teams, not FROM the teams as reported.

One of the reasons the "Seen and heard on the Chicago Transit Authority" entries here are nice is because they don't encourage wonks like Rusty to barrel in here shouting about how their agendas make soooooo much more sense than the CTA's or everyone else's for that matter.

I'm confused too. Are they going to board the affected trains with some magical carpet and tell the riders what the train operator should be telling the people in the first place? Or will they be like those stride gum vans?

We all know what the problem is. The CTA is lousy at getting information to the customers. They are lousy at coodination both internally and externally and just downright lousy at any sort of communication at all.

I'm the one that brought this up at the coffee....I think my words were to the effect that "you could have the greatest, whiz, bang, technology solution for imparting the information, but if you can't get it out to your employees and customers in a timely and clear manner, then it's a big waste of time, money and other resources."

What needs to happen in the control center using the recent "self evacuation" of the trains.

First, the information needs to get out to the train operators. A message like the following should go out as a general announcement to all train/bus operators:

"Due to a train malfunction, there is a projected xx minute delay in the red line underground. No SB trains are running at this point. We are working to clear the train now. Under no circumstances should customers leave the train at this point. Make every effort to make them confortable and get this information to them.

The next update will be in 10 minutes. Shuttles are in place between affected stations and all running trains are being sent over the top between Fullerton and Roosevelt."

Then if the problem could not be solved in a reasonable time frame then stopped trains could be reversed/switched to get the people off the train and to a station where they could be removed and put onto waiting shuttles.

Now, this would take an incredible amount of coordination(something the CTA is incedibly deficient in )and probably would not be put into effect since there is no way that they could hire lots of new people at sickly exorbitant salaries to perform the work that someone already should be doing...but hey that's just the pessimist in me.

KevinB

Rusty,
What is wrong with dispatching people to the scene specifically to address passengers and to give information to the control center. This frees up people on the ground to focus on fixing the problem instead of trying to do both? Must you shoot down everything before it is implemented? By doing that it makes everyone take you less serious as you seem to complain about everything.

I don't see what dispatching extra personnel to a scene is bad... People have complained here in the past about entering at stations only to find out about massive delays after paying. These people could hopefully eliminate things like this as well as help people to board shuttle buses or alternative means of getting to their destination. 1 station attendant will not be able to do this for everyone.

The idea is good no matter what the kooks on here say. But, we have to see implementation so we'll have to wait and see.

Hmmm... So everyone who's complained that CTA isn't sending out alerts fast enough is fine with waiting until a team can reach the site before an alert is put out? (Never mind that most incidents will be over before a team can even get there.)

When "real time" has to include the time it takes for a team to travel to the scene, in my book, that's no longer "real time". And last-minute observers are hardly going to be able to ascertain what's going on, except in their one little post.

If the disemination of information depends on these teams rather than a central clearinghouse (like the control center), then real-time information for the public is taking another move backward rather than forward.

The flow of information in the plan described here is backwards. Information abotu the incident should flow to the control center from those who are involved in the incident, not some team that arrives later. The team that arrives later needs to be getting accurate information FROM the control center, not be charged with sending what will amount to 3rd-party observer information TO the control center.

Yes, having customer service agents in addition to the ones already there dispatched can help with crowd control on-scene, but they need to be working under the direction of the control center. If their job is to simply relay observations to the control center, they're a waste of money, and real-time information via alerts and the website will suffer even further.

The problem has been defined. The solution is a solution to something, but it's not a solution to the problem that's been defined.

Where are you getting the information that they are only relaying information back to the control center instead of relaying it FROM the control center to the people at the scene?

I don't see that anywhere.

"dispatch two teams of employees by van with all the latest info to strategic locations anytime a MAJOR, unplanned service outage occurs."

Rusty it sounds these teams are going to be activated only when there is a major service disruption like the blue line fiasco's. Not when a train is shut down for 15 minutes. It seems like they will have plenty of time to get to the scene. And yes, we would all like "real time" information but central control needs time to digest the information sent to them and figure what is important to send to CTA users.

When the train first stops of course the CTA is going to send an alert saying some kind of difficulty is happening along the line, further information will be sent as available. Then the teams will be able to get there and gather extra information to help the control center.

As of right now we have to wait for information anyway because the only people regularly assigned to stations or trains are one service attendant and one conductor and just two person are not going to be able to gather the information and help control the crowds properly.

The people that are first sent to the scene in the situations are technical people whose job is not worry about the public's information but to fix the problem with the train. We will now have someone there to help with the crowds and gather information.

While it is fine to have skeptism about most things the CTA does, to out right blast everything they do just makes you look like you have some kind of vendetta with Huberman.

"If the disemination of information depends on these teams rather than a central clearinghouse (like the control center), then real-time information for the public is taking another move backward rather than forward. "

Well, unless I'm reading you wrong (which I probably am), your best case scenario would involve CTA agents already on the scene who can assess ANY kind of delay (derailment, fire, suicide, minor mechanical, major mechanical, etc.) and figure out in minutes how long the time to repair the situation will take, or at the very least tell you if it will take 15 minutes more more to fix. While I too have complained about CTA employees who seem to be doing nothing, requiring that someone who can assess every situation be at every station to provide "real time" assessments is kinda asking too much. The "minor" stuff (mechanical inconveniences) I guess they could figure out, but a team deployed to the site seems to be necessary at some point. I don't fault this plan as a step backwards, but at the very least, the people on the scene should be able to gauge whether it's a major thing or a minor thing and give us a rough idea of how long it's take to fix it. And if mean calling in the "The L Team" (not to be confused with "The A Team", then they should let us know that as well. And I don't think a central clearinghouse could accurately assess the situation from 10 miles away. Some things you need a person on hand to assess.

And, oh yeah, Kevin B..

""Due to a train malfunction, there is a projected xx minute delay in the red line underground. No SB trains are running at this point. We are working to clear the train now. Under no circumstances should customers leave the train at this point. Make every effort to make them confortable and get this information to them."

This is exactly what I've been saying. Just tell us how long! A rough idea, in minutes, of how long it might take. People have places to be and that "We should be moving shortly" is lame ass. While there are probably a myriad of things that can go wrong with an el train, there has to be a general series of malfunctions that happen all the time, breakdowns that they can calculate how long it will take to rectify. Don't leave us hangin'

sorry if someone posted this before, but I just saw this and thought it was interesting. Carol's blog was noted as a blog of note on blogger: http://blogsofnote.blogspot.com/

To clarify, the team wouldn't be dispatched unless the control center knows about something happening. The problem is the control center is set-up to communicate internally. It's not part of their skill set to be able to translate and summarize as needed for public infomation to be sent out.

That's where a PIO in the control center comes in. They monitor the internal communication, translate, edit, summarize, and then make it available to the public. That job should be well on it's way before a team could make it to the site of any problem.

A team dispatched to the scene wouldn't be there to gather information. That job is already being done, and all relevant information is already going through the control center. A bunch of new observers isn't going to enhance that aspect one bit.

The team arriving by van could, however, be the outreach arm of the PIO in the control center. They wouldn't be there to gather information. They would be there to disseminate information.

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Those teams will help get out the latest information via the new Emergency Alerts program, set to launch in early 2009.
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That's why it's a backwards plan. They should be there to disseminate the information the PIO in the control center is putting out. They will not be sending anything out via the Emergency Alerts program, only relaying what's already there.

But the problem that needs to be solved first is: "The challenge is at the control center to get the information out to riders. We have to translate our jargon to useable information," to quote Huberman.

There already are customer service agents out in the field at the rail stations. But they're not getting the right information from the control center. Sending more people out there without giving them the right information (jargon translated, along with a big-picture summary), it doesn't matter how many more customer service agents you send out there.

The necessary information is already gathered, but it needs to be translated. It needs to be translated BEFORE a team heads to the field. Updates need to continue to be gathered at the control center, translated by the PIO, and then sent out to the teams in the field.

So the information flow needs to be from the control center to the customer service people in the field. There doesn't need to be a new team of employees out there to send duplicate and/or erroneous information back to the control center. It simply can't work that way.

I suspect that the problem here is one of reporting. After the main post, Kevin has said, "I never said there would not be a central person at the control center getting info to these teams." However I find it odd that he'd have omitted the key point, while talking about the teams send to disseminate the information as if they would be the ones responsible for creating the information for the alerts.

The key has to be the PIO in the control center. The key cannot be the teams dispatched to the field, and arriving long after the event has begun. By the time they even get there, an alert -- or even multiple alerts -- should have been issued.

I don't know why Rusty has such a bug up his ass about having a PIO in the CTA control center.
Many years of observing government has led me to the conclusion that a PIO's first order of business is covering the ass of their employer!
And since Huberman was a cop for about a dozen years, I'm sure he would appoint someone like Monique Bond, who is most famous for her almost instantaneous reports of a shooting by a cop to be justified.
Classic CYA!

I encourage you all to apply for any CTA job postings, so that your obviously vast experience and intelligence regarding mass transit can be put to use, rather than be wasted on this message board.

Yours truly,
FakeRonHuberman

As soon as there's a job listing for a Monitor of CTA Gestalt and Paradigms, I'm on it!

Does the CTA have the budget to hire the A-Team and dispatch their van ?

I'm there if there is a "CTA Rabble Rowser" and the pay is $150K a year or greater.

As someone once told me, Kevin, you are like a grain of sand in an oyster, you irritate and pearls are produced :)

I'd take it as a challenge to irritate Ron and Carole until the CTA was the pearl of the transportation systems in the US (or the world) and not just some cut rate 3rd world sort of place to farm out Daley refuse.

As a side note to fake Ron Huberman...I'm sure that the CTA has such great ideas that they can't afford to listen to anyone else, as we all know, they've done such a sterling job so far...

KevinB

I have a question.

The CTA made a big deal about promoting its new e-mail alerts system. I signed up that afternoon. Received a confirmation that I was signed up.

And then...... nothing.

Did anyone else sign up and get the alerts? Am I the only one who didn't get an alert? Or is the CTA not ready to start the email alerts? Isn't it the same service Pace has had for a year?

The sign-up page for the alerts says they are sent out on Thursdays for the weekend summary and Fridays for the weekday summary. So I'm sure you'll get an email come this Thursday and/or Friday (depending on what you signed up for). I got my emails last week on the appointed days.

I signed up Wednesday and so did a co-worker. Neither of us received anything.

Maybe it's our company email that is filtering out what it thinks is bulk email. I'll see what happens this week.