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Thread: Cityrail - thanks for fucking up your website too

  1. #1
    Content Generator AllWalker's avatar
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    Default Cityrail - thanks for fucking up your website too

    For those of you who don't know, Cityrail is the state-owned organisation responsible for the train services linking the suburbs of Sydney and the surrounding cities. For those of you who don't give a shit about Australia's public transport system, empathise with me on the level that government incompetence is universal.

    Cityrail has always pissed me off. The tickets are overpriced and always go up in price, Central station attracts only the highest quality weirdos and the speakers in the carriages can convey only two sounds - static and feedback. But those in charge are more than just incapapble, sometimes they are downright malicious.

    Trackwork. Okay, I get it, railways need servicing. But why the fuck is the servicing scheduled on the following occasions, every year without fail:
    *Mother's Day - because no one ever travels on Mother's Day, everyone is at home with their mothers, right? Proof that those in charge are basement-dwelling creeps
    *Father's Day - well, at least they are encouraging gender equality
    *Every bloody fucking long weekend - are you kidding me? Every form of transportation, from highways to footpaths, becomes congested each long weekend. Why the fuck would you shut down train services during these times?

    When trackwork occurs, they run buses between stations. Assuming that the bus even goes from the station you want to your destination, prepare to slap on an extra hour. Great.

    But now they have really outdone themselves in the "are they evil or just plain stupid?" department. Their website, specifically their timetables, have undergone an improvement a change. Used to be you'd pick a day, pick a line and direction, and it would bring up a list of all services running. Very simple, very easy to read, clearly shows you all your options.

    But now? Oh no, not anymore.

    Now they have given you more options, options that don't work! And are mandatory! Instead of a timetable, it asks you to enter in the specific time you want to leave or arrive, and then gives you all services running at that time give or take a few hours. Except it doesn't work on my computer, and it doesn't work on my sister's phone. No matter what time you enter, it brings up the trains leaving between 4am and 8am. Oh, but it let's you choose which day you want! Just as long as you are travelling between these times, it is perfect!

    Now, maybe the problem is at my end. I do use older browsers, and phones suck at browsing (BOCTAOE). But if you think about it, a timetable is, in it's most simple form, organised text, at it's most complex, a simple java application. How is it that I can use websites like xtranormal with no problems, but not use this stupid piece of government shit at all?

    Oh, it's worth noting that the new format and interface is an exact copy of another website, tripplanner, which factors in bus and ferry routes as well as trains. So thank you Cityrail for:
    *taking something simple and usable and replacing it with impossible complexity,
    *giving us two websites that do the exact same thing,
    *scratch that last one - giving us a watered-down and unusable copy of an existing website

    Go back to playing with toy trains, you twisted and unfortunate examples of the worst stereotypes bureaucrats can possess. Even though nothing will keep me from my mother come Mother's Day, doesn't mean you have to make it difficult for me.
    Something tells me we haven't seen the last of foreshadowing.

  2. #2
    The Apostabulous Inner Stickler's avatar
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    Those bastards. Let's start a campaign.


    ALLWALKER FOR TRAIN COMMISSIONER!
    I don't think so, therefore I'm probably not.

  3. #3
    The Queen Zuul's avatar
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    That whole timetable issue looks like an example of somebody trying to solve a problem that doesn't exist. Somebody found a nifty new toy that they didn't know how to actually use and set up a bunch of retardation to "help" people in a way they didn't want. They did something similar once to the bus system where I used to live.
    So now they are just dirt-covered English people in fur pelts with credit cards.

  4. #4
    The Apostabulous Inner Stickler's avatar
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    Could you send an angry email or two to the site master?

  5. #5
    Jesus F'ing Christ Glazer's avatar
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    I see that the trip to Atlanta to see how MARTA is run has paid off. Glad we could be of service.
    Welcome to Mellophant.

    We started with nothing and we still have most of it left.

  6. #6
    I be an retarded Zombies! At the Window!'s avatar
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    Quote Originally posted by Inner Stickler View post
    Could you send an angry email or two to the site master?
    If the CityRail website is anything like the Adelaide Metro one, then sending an email to the webmaster accomplishes two things - jack and shit.

    You get a canned response about "We take our customer feedback seriously" and IF you get a human response after that, it's generally along the lines of "Our technical people don't man this email line and we're not going to forward your complaint on to them. Deal"

    They did something similar to the Adelaide Metro site. We had a nice tool on the front page - type in the route number or suburb you want to travel to. Most people in Adelaide know the route they want to travel on. But they took that tool and hid it down under 2 or 3 layers of menu clicking and instead put in a "Trip planner" that has you fill out what time you want to leave and where you want to travel from and where you want to travel to and how you want to get there and would you like fries with that?

    A tool like that is useful, but why they couldn't leave the little one-line box with "please enter the route number you want here" somewhere on the front page just boggles my mind.
    Aka: Sierra Indigo

  7. #7
    Content Generator AllWalker's avatar
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    Quote Originally posted by Zombies! At the Window! View post
    If the CityRail website is anything like the Adelaide Metro one, then sending an email to the webmaster accomplishes two things - jack and shit.

    You get a canned response about "We take our customer feedback seriously" and IF you get a human response after that, it's generally along the lines of "Our technical people don't man this email line and we're not going to forward your complaint on to them. Deal"

    They did something similar to the Adelaide Metro site. We had a nice tool on the front page - type in the route number or suburb you want to travel to. Most people in Adelaide know the route they want to travel on. But they took that tool and hid it down under 2 or 3 layers of menu clicking and instead put in a "Trip planner" that has you fill out what time you want to leave and where you want to travel from and where you want to travel to and how you want to get there and would you like fries with that?

    A tool like that is useful, but why they couldn't leave the little one-line box with "please enter the route number you want here" somewhere on the front page just boggles my mind.
    I owe them an apology. They are not incompetent, they are able to implement these sorts of policies across the nation.

    And we thank them for it.
    Something tells me we haven't seen the last of foreshadowing.

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