Bad Transport Websites; Missing Train Schedules

I am writing a piece on Metro Manila for an online travel guide. It's pretty interesting, because I learned more about the broken services in our city.

For instance, yesterday I discovered that we do not have a website for our international airport (which our friend Urbano dela Cruz found out a year ago).

Today, I discovered how lousy our government websites really are.

But before we launch into this, let's first do some comparisons. In California, Australia, UK and other countries with rail systems, they post trip information (schedules, fares, contact numbers) in their websites. They also publish maps indicating the stops.
The picture above is of BART (Bay Area Rapit Transit) that serves San Francisco and the Bay Area in California. Let's compare:

• BART has a terminal right in the middle of the airport. Our light rail does not.
  
• BART's website, if you look closely, contains a tool for finding schedules and destinations on the upper left corner of the site, which, in usability, is a prominent location. This makes the information easily findable.
• The main buttons on BART's website are: Stations & Schedules, Tickets, Rider Guide, News, and About BART. PNR's cluttered website has: (top navigation) Services, Projects, News, Search; and a secondary navigation bar on the left, containing: About Us, PNR Officials, Directory (where the station information is hidden away), Government Links, Jobs, Feedback and Mail.
  

Even without lessons from other countries, it is common sense in any sane public service to anticipate what information and assistance the public will need, and that this information be easily accessible or findable, especially in a medium like the web.

Our 4 Rail Systems

We essentially have 4 rail systems: LRT1, LRT2, MRT3 (servicing the metropolis) and the Philippine National Railways (PNR), which traverses most of Luzon. If memory serves me right, Asia's first extensive rail system was built right here in the Philippines, to carry produce like sugar cane, rice, copra and tobacco (the first tracks resulted from a decree by the King of Spain in 1875, according to the PNR website). This linked Pangasinan, Tarlac, Pampanga, Bulacan, Manila and all the way to Legazpi in Bicol. (The first light rail in Asia was supposed to be the ones operated by Meralco in Escolta).

I remember in the 1970s that the train in our town (San Fernando, Pampanga) still brought passengers to as far as Legazpi. What happened after that? Why did our rail system fall into disrepair?

Finding Useful Train Information

I am not yet sure about the answer to the questions above. What I would like to talk about here is the difficulty of finding useful information for passengers. Ironically, I can get more info about the schedules of BART in San Francisco than our schedules at PNR or MRT3.

Web Usability of our Train Websites

The PNR website is ugly, unfriendly to Firefox or Safari (I could not even click the tabs), and largely full of useless information. Instead of giving schedules and terminals, for example, it gives out the names of its officials and its Vision and Mission. Who cares? We just want to get from A to B!


Actually, PNR does give out a list of telephone numbers for something called MLS, which appear to be stations -- but how will travellers know that this information is hidden under a button called MLS that is in turn hidden in a button called directory?

LRT1, LRT2 and MRT3 are a testament to the lack of communication, careful planning and smooth transition among our government officials and agencies. While the officials and agencies squabble, these three light rail systems do not have a unified ticketing. Nor do they have a unified website.

LRT1 and LRT2 reside on the same website, because they are operated by the Light Rail Transit Authority (LRTA). LRTA's website is a bit more neat in design than PNR's. It also had schedules for LRT1 and LRT2.

However, if you try a web search for "LRT2 schedules" alone, the top results do not point to the correct website.

MRT3 has a website, built no less than in Drupal, but contains no schedule. It does have a funny button named "How to Ride".
Ironically, our train schedules and destinations aren't that complicated, compared to those in other countries. Why can't PNR and MRT3 publish them?

These signs of neglect indicate a lack of commitment to providing really good service to the public, signs that may be seen in other websites like that of the South Luzon Expressway (SLEX).

Realizations from the SLEX Website

My travel piece also had a guide on SLEX and NLEX. Since SLEX is under repair, I wanted to advice travellers when the road works are expected to end. After some googling, I found the website of the South Luzon Tollways Corp (SLTC) which operates SLEX.

There were many announcements, press releases and much ballyhoo about the expansion project... but no expected completion date. This surely is a symptom of lack of commitment to complete projects on schedule!

After more googling, I finally found the expected completion date (late 2008) at Manila Standard's website.

The Design IQ of MRT

The lowest design IQ in the universe must be concentrated in the management offices of MRT (aka, LRT-3 or the EDSA light rail). A visit to MRT especially in rush hour is a lesson on how Bad Design can cause you more stress:

• Trains break down, forcing huge human traffic jams.
  
• Long queues at the ticket booths, winding all the way down the stairs and spill out into EDSA. People here can wait as long as 30 minutes or more.
  
• And after the long ticket lines -- you have to line up for bag inspection, causing another 30 minute wait.
• More time lost inside the station as you wait for a train to arrive.
• All this time, no one is announcing if a train will be coming or what time.
• And when the train finally arrives, there's no room to squeeze in, which makes you wonder why the train bothered to stop.
  

What Works

In other train stations (like in Bangkok, Australia, Europe and even in our own LRT-2 -- note, I include LRT-2, or the Aurora line), riding the train is a smooth and stress-free experience. We list things that work in these stations.

Ticket Machines

The good stations use automated vending machines to dispense tickets. There is often a window with a human, but only to give out change, special tickets, or information.

Wide Passageways and Cars

The other train stations have very wide passageways so human traffic flows more freely and crowds do not accumulate. The cars also have wider bodies, designed for lots of commuters to move around in. Not so in MRT, where cars are small and cramped. This is why people in MRT are always packed like a Brother Mike service.

Lots of Information and Maps for Passengers

Station names are prominent and announced clearly by a recorded message. If you're on the street and you don't know anything about the area, you will see prominent signs indicating a train station. Schedules are published on video screens and even announced through a PA system so people don't wander about, wondering whether a train will ever come. Plus, they have maps showing the train stations and the vicinity. If there are different train lines, the map gives useful info on how to get to the other lines. (Instead of bombarding us with too many ads, why won't MRT ask these advertisers to sponsor maps of the MRT?)

Special Passes

Special passes help decongest human traffic in the ticket booths and give a more convenient option for customers. In the countries described above, you could purchase special tickets or "passes" -- a day-long pass allows you to ride all day long. A weekly pass lets you use your ticket for 7 days, and so on. Like prepaid cards, you can easily recharge these special tickets.

What Ails the MRT?

I used to wonder why problems plague the MRT. After some years of observing, I have figured out some design flaws in their system(s).
The main stations and terminals (North EDSA, Quezon Ave, Makati, Taft) have bad real estate designs:

• Narrow passageways and waiting areas. At North EDSA station, which receives almost all of people from the North, there is only one narrow stairway, a slow and hot elevator and 2-4 ticket windows. Same is true with Quezon Ave. Since there is too much human traffic in the first two northern stations of MRT, people often try to go as far as the GMA-Kamuning station or do a "round trip". All these are symptoms of the trouble that MRT is experiencing, and still, nothing is being done to alleviate the bottlenecks!
  
• Slow ticket dispensing. All tickets in MRT are dispensed by humans, and most of the time they fumble as they count change. Why not activate those vending machines that I saw rotting in the corners of the station?
• MRT has stored value cards -- the closest we can get to special passes from other countries. But such is the ineptitude of MRT management that they still run out of stored value cards! I suspect that MRT "runs out" only because... they are waiting for those silly Samsung ads to be printed on them!
  
• Useless and slow bag security checks. In Ayala, there are many turnstiles to accommodate traffic, but inept management introduced a choke point -- a baggage check with two guards intercepting everyone entering the turnstiles. Imagine how many office workers are pouring into the station, only to be choked by two guards. I believe that baggage checks are useless deterrents to terrorist attacks (any sufficiently motivated criminal or terrorist will think of a way to outsmart these inattentive guards, anyway. What if they instead let everyone enter the waiting area, and then the guards could conduct random checks in the train waiting area?
  
• Several times, I have been stuck inside the Shaw station's waiting area (longest was for one hour), waiting for a train that never arrived. I felt helpless and duped, since they could have advised us in the first place that there was a problem. No one told us what was happening. To top it all the place was hot, because the architects never paid attention to ventilation design. People were about to riot. In contrast, Bangkok's SkyTrain stations are all open to let the breeze cool the area naturally.
  

When we are voiceless and misinformed (most of us Pinoys are), we tend to be more tolerant of bad service design. Thanks to the LRT-2 (the Aurora line) we are given a taste of a better alternative. You should try getting a ride at the LRT-2

It's been how many years now since we started encountering these MRT problems? Things do not seem to be improving. The only innovation I have seen so far was the introduction of a cordoned area for women, children and senior citizens. But this is not a solution to the root problems. This is merely cosmetic. Things will worsen if MRT management does not examine more closely what's happening.

I don't think the solutions will be difficult to find. If someone like me who knows nothing about crowd control and train systems can make these observations, what more these experts at MRT? Or do they really know what they're doing over there?

Links:

• MRT described in Urban Rail: http://www.urbanrail.net/as/mani/manila.htm
• Wikipedia entry: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manila_Light_Rail_Transit_System