And they learn that on the two day course.
This job could be done by a four-year old;
They just leave us freezing in the cold.
What you smell is what you get:
Burger King and [pee]and sweat.
You roast to death in the boiling heat,
With tourist treading on your feet,
And chewing gum on every seat,
So don’t tell me to ‘Mind the gap’:
I want my [bloody] money back!”
From parody song “London Underground” by Amateur Transplants
How many angry blogs have been written
about public transport? It seems like a
topic with unlimited possibilities for anger.
There’s the way perfectly healthy people fight for seats in the priority
section, the crazy rush-hour train experience in big cities, and etiquette
controversies surrounding the use of phones, passengers putting on make-up and
so on. But recently on the London
Underground there is a controversy before you even get on the train.
It is about walking on the station
escalators. Up to this point, the
etiquette in Britain has been to encourage people who wished to stand to move
to the right side of the escalator, and for others to walk past them on the
left side of the escalator.
Common sense surely shows that walking up
escalators is more annoying than useful.
Do you really have to barge past me, wildly swinging elbows, a
briefcase and an umbrella, just to get to the top 5 seconds earlier? If you’re that keen on mountaineering,
couldn’t you instead climb a mountain, or at least the stairs?
In fact, research now shows that you’re not
even getting to the top five seconds faster.
Especially if it is a long escalator, you are actually getting there
more slowly. Or at least on average most
people will get to the top more slowly.
When London Underground experimented with an escalator on a crowded
platform, they found that making everyone stand greatly improved
efficiency. The number of passengers
able to use the escalator in one hour rose from 12,745 to 16,220. One reason is that for long escalators, most
people want to stand. But splitting the
escalator into two sections reduces standing room by half. This results in longer queues and more
difficulty getting on the escalator at the bottom.
So given this research showing the clear
benefits of having everyone stand, London commuters must have been quick to
embrace the changes, right?
Nope.
As you can tell by reading the lyrics to the song “London Underground”
at the top of the page, people don’t necessarily have any great respect for the
hard workers in the Underground.
Aggressive commuters, used to barging past elderly passengers felt
cheated. A spokesperson for the Underground
said, “Passengers just don’t like having these things changed.”
The Underground staff were scared that if
they wore their uniform and blocked the left “walking lane”, they might be physically
attacked. So instead, the station
employed people to stand at the bottom of the escalator with a loudspeaker
encouraging commuters not to walk. They
also had staff members disguised as commuters standing in the left lane to
block anyone who tried to walk. There was
still some initial difficulty and resistance.
Staff saw one commuter pushing a standing child out of the way so that
he could keep walking to the top. What
kind of person would do that? Did he
think he was fighting his way to the top of Mount Everest?
The next time you ride an escalator on the
Underground, I’d like you to take a good look around. There’s more going on than you might have
realised.
Vocabulary:
To make a mountain out of a mole-hill – to
make a big issue out of a small matter; to overreact
“Please mind the doors.” – “Please be
careful of the doors.”; a phrase often broadcast to commuters on the London
Underground
To tread – to step
To barge (past) – to aggressively or
forcefully move (past)
To be keen on – to like or enjoy
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