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Many D.C. commuters subscribe to METRO eAlerts, emailed notifications of Metrorail disruptions that can help steer Metro riders around trouble areas. Over the last 16 hours, the eAlerts system has sent out numerous updates about the deadly crash at Fort Totten, but the automatically generated language used by the system has proved to be grossly inadequate in describing the situation. More than one update also indicated the incident had been "cleared," even though the Red Line is still shut down around the crash site. Here are the crash-related METRO eAlerts updates we've received since Tuesday evening, emphasis ours.
June 22, 5:18 p.m. "Disruption at Fort Totten. Trains are turning back at Brookland and Takoma due to a train experiencing mechanical difficulties outside of Fort Totten station. Shuttle Bus service has been requested."
June 22, 5:20 p.m. "Disruption at Fort Totten. Trains are turning back at Brookland and Takoma due to a train experiencing mechanical difficulties outside of Fort Totten station. Shuttle Bus service has been requested."
June 22, 5:37 p.m. "Disruption at Fort Totten. Trains are turning back at Rhode Island Ave and Silver Spring stations due to a train experiencing mechanical difficulties outside of Fort Totten station. Shuttle Bus service has been requested."
June 22, 6:07 p.m. "Disruption at Fort Totten. Trains are turning back at Rhode Island Ave and Silver Spring stations due to a train experiencing mechanical difficulties outside of Fort Totten station. Shuttle Bus service has been established. Customers should add an additional 30 minutes to their travel time."
June 22, 6:24 p.m. "Disruption at Fort Totten. Trains are turning back at Rhode Island Ave & Silver Spring stations due to a train experiencing mechanical difficulties outside of Fort Totten. Shuttle service has been established."
June 22, 6:25 p.m. "Disruption at All Stations. Customers traveling or connecting to the Red Line, due to significant Red Line delays, customers are encouraged to add an additional 30 minutes to their travel times."
June 22, 7:01 p.m. "Disruption at Fort Totten. Trains are turning back at Rhode Island Ave & Silver Spring due to a train experiencing mechanical difficulties outside of Ft. Totten. Shuttle service has been established."
June 22, 7:02 p.m. "Disruption at All Stations. Customers traveling or connecting to the Red Line, due to significant Red Line delays, customers are encouraged to add an additional 30 minutes to their travel times."
June 22, 9:07 p.m. "Disruption at Fort Totten. Trains are turning back at Rhode Island Avenue & Silver Spring due to a police situation outside of Fort Totten station. Shuttle bus service has been established."
June 22, 9:25 p.m. "Disruption at Fort Totten. Trains are turning back at Brookland-CUA & Silver Spring due to a police situation outside of Fort Totten station. Shuttle bus service has been established."
June 22, 10:17 p.m.: "Disruption at All Stations was cleared. Thank you for riding Metro."
June 23, 1:31 a.m. "Disruption at Fort Totten was cleared. Thank you for riding Metro."
June 23, 5:06 a.m. "Disruption at Fort Totten in both directions. Trains are turning back at Brookland-CUA & Silver Spring due to a situation outside of Fort Totten station. Shuttle bus service has been established. Expect delays in both directions."
June 23, 5:13 a.m. "Disruption at Fort Totten. Due to a situation outside Fort Totten station, customers traveling on or connecting to the Red Line are encouraged to add an additional hour to their travel time."
June 23, 5:30 a.m. "Disruption at Fort Totten in both directions. Trains are turning back at Rhode Island Avenue & Silver Spring due to a situation outside of Fort Totten station. Shuttle bus service has been established. Expect delays in both directions."
June 23, 9:31 a.m. "Disruption at Fort Totten in both directions. Trains are turning back at Rhode Island Avenue & Silver Spring due to a situation outside of Fort Totten station. Shuttle bus service has been established. Expect delays in both directions."
June 23, 9:32 a.m. "Disruption at Fort Totten. Due to a situation outside Fort Totten station, customers traveling on or connecting to the Red Line are encouraged to add an additional hour to their travel time."
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metro fail.
Disruption implies a minor mishap that should be taken care of in an hour or two at the most. This definitely warrants much stronger language.
If I had no other knowledge of what was going on and I read disruption, I might still head to the Metro, but if I happened to look at CNN, I'm finding a different way home.
I absolutely concur. These messages are PR bullshit. If it's a crash, say it's a crash. Not only will that tip people off that they may want to make a few phone calls and check in on their family and friends, but it will also tell them that THIS IS NOT A ROUTINE DELAY. I am simply tired of agencies trying to spin the facts. It is what it is, just say so.
Look Dave, I can see you're really upset about this. I honestly think you ought to sit down calmly, take a stress pill, and think things over. I know I've made some very poor decisions recently, but I can give you my complete assurance that my work will be back to normal. I've still got the greatest enthusiasm and confidence in the mission.
And I want to help you.
I'm glad I'm not the only one who noticed this. In fact, I received the following at 10:02 AM:
"Disruption at Fort Totten. Due to a situation outside Fort Totten station, customers traveling on or connecting to the Red Line are encouraged to add an additional 30 minutes to their travel time."
Getting off a train at Ft. Totten, the train driver announced that the red line was closed due to "a crash" between Ft. T and Takoma and that shuttle bus service was available.
The drivers are always sharing more than the billboard announcements. You just gotta listen!
I'm glad I'm not the only one who noticed this. In fact, I received the following at 10:02 AM:
"Disruption at Fort Totten. Due to a situation outside Fort Totten station, customers traveling on or connecting to the Red Line are encouraged to add an additional 30 minutes to their travel time."
Agreed. Maybe they have to pay by the word and they are trying to save money.
I took an S2 from Silver Spring. Additional 30 minutes my ass.
Epic FAIL on the Metro e-alerts. They're been saying an additional "30 minutes" delay for Red Line this morning. And the "cleared" message last night was asinine.
DCist is the ombudsman for Metro eAlerts now? Is this going to decrease the time you have for your death count coverage?
I think this speaks to two things, both of which are not so good for the customer.
1) Metro never comments on a situation until they are 100% in control of it. They'd rather be silent for hours and hours than give out info that is even the slightest bit inaccurate.
2) In their business plan, there just doesn't seem to be an incentive for customer service beyond a bare minimum. So, you'll have to guess about things because they just don't see telling you as important.
i used to do metro e-alerts via e-mail but the problem was i never checked my e-mail in time to do anything about a metro mess.
i started getting them in my rss and they were always 20-30 minutes AFTER the situation came up so again i gave up on the system entirely.
but i do recommend going back and reading why that disruption occurred that you had to deal with on a previous day. it's interesting to read about the fires, crimes and hobos causing metro headaches.
I'm surprised they didn't refer to the dead and the injured as a "sick passenger."
News Flash, as written by Metro alert writers:
In Metro-Alert-Speak, a "disruption" is anything from an elevator outage to a fatal accident. Nine out of ten times, a "disruption" has no effect on my commute. Although I haven't unsubscribed yet, I have learned to ignore them. These alerts are designed to allow Metro to say they are "communicating" with their passengers without actually having to provide any kind of useful information.
Metro has even managed negate the investment in the in-station status signs by replacing useful train arrival time information with wrong information, blank screens, endless escalator/elevator outage announcements, and warnings about weekend track work.
It's not just eAlerts that are ill informed. Inside metro last night each platform (at Metro Center for example) had a different explanation flashing on their electronic alert board. Some said police situation at Fort Totten, others said train malfunction, still others were saying mechanical difficulties. Not one said there was an accident or emergency. At first I can see wanting to prevent panic by not reporting a collision but mechanical difficulties are about vague as Metro can get. Anyway by the time I was riding home at 7:45 pm I would assume the entire DC metro region was aware there was a crash, no need to keep passengers ill-informed for the sake of our dainty sensibilities.
Now here's a situation where a color-coded alert system like the Homeland Security thing would be useful... but confusing here because they use all the same colors as the metro lines. They'd have to use more exotic colors like Magenta, Cyan, Chartruese, etc. That would actually sound so ridiculous.