The thronging crowd - a test of mettle

If you've ever been at Flinders Street Station during the evening peak then you know the experience of being in a crowd where people are so focused on their own objective that they lose - or disregard - the people around them.

A growing crowd of eager commuters stands at the traffic lights, waiting to cross the road and enter the Station. The green man appears on the lights and we surge forward. Like the release of a dam gate, we flow in the one direction until we hit the next barrier - the turnstiles we need to navigate to enter the station. There is a narrowing of focus. This is where the jostling starts. People suddenly change direction; they cut off another's trajectory. Their heads are down, their eyes trained straight ahead. We're through the turnstiles and then there are some stairs (about 10?) to negotiate. The arrivals and departures board is right above these stairs. People stop suddenly to look up and confirm the platform from which their train is leaving. People suddenly change direction to get around the people who have turned to pillars of stone. Down the stairs and we're in an even narrower space. Most people are going into the station and so have swelled to take up the whole space. Pity the people moving against this tide. They resort to bags and elbows. Some try to keep left, but then find themselves trapped behind a SMP (slow moving person). They change direction suddenly to cut in front, usually without regard to anyone who might be behind or beside them.

I run this gauntlet regularly. I try to remain aware of those around me, but find myself becoming more bullish as I'm whacked by urban weaponry - backpacks, shopping bags, umbrellas swinging wildly, even jauntily.

Today was particularly challenging even before I reached the station. It made me think about a drama warm up exercise which is about building physical awareness of the space and the people within it. Everyone moves slowly at first in any direction, dodging and weaving through the throng. The speed builds. People rarely collide. I believe it is because participants in such an exercise are absolutely present and acutely aware of their bodies in relation to others. I've done this in a group where half the group is blindfolded. Again, people rarely, collide.

Thinking about this today, I wondered about how this kind of awareness in everyday life and activities could improve crowd behaviour, making everything easier and happier. I was reminded about my first visit to India a few years ago. I visited the southern city of Chennai. My hotel was on the opposite side of the road to the location of the nearest bank. I needed to get cash and thought nothing of stepping out to engage in the ordinary activity of visiting an ATM.

On stepping out of the hotel's calm, I was immediately confronted with the practical problem of how to cross the road. The voluminous traffic never stopped. There were no designated crossings or traffic lights. Observing the traffic - reading it as a surfer might read the surf - the chaos soon revealed an order of cooperation and awareness. Vehicle horns were tooted, but the sound was a happy beep that said "Just letting you know I'm over here".

As I stood marooned on the wrong side of the road, I watched some locals cross the road. I was horrified when I saw them launch from the safety of the kerb. As they made their way across the road, the traffic happily moved around them. It was like throwing a pebble in a pond. I was astonished to see them arrive safely on the other side. I took a deep breath but my courage failed me. I waited for some more people to come along so I could follow in their wake. They did and I did. It resulted in terrified exhilaration. I suppose that living with so many people teaches you awareness.

If I applied the same principles to the evening rush at Flinders Street Station, I fear you would find my body, trampled and bruised at the end of the rush. Generally Melburnians are great to be in a crowd with. My theory is that practice makes the difference: attendance at AFL football games in huge crowds from an early age teaches people how to get from A to B when B isn't even visible and there are 10,000 people in the way. The personal electronic device is one of the problems. Headphones are plugged in. Heads are down, rather than being up and engaged with the world.

All of this thinking leaves me pondering a further question - will we evolve to have another set of eyes in the top of our heads so we can look at the device AND see where we're going and will we gain hearing sensors all over our bodies so we can be plugged in but still hear the rest of the world?

A Bruce story and mixed messages from the stadium.

Melbourne was buzzing with Bruce Springsteen stories over the weekend. People were wearing tour t-shirts, old and new, and the name of The Boss could be heard when eavesdropping in cafes.

The Yarraville Festival was on Sunday and before I headed off to see the show, I had a poke around the stalls as there are often some interesting wares to be found. As I asked a stall owner about a dress, she told me that she was very excited because Bruce Springsteen is in town and "everyone is talking about it!" She then asked if she could tell me her Bruce story. Naturally I said yes.

"Well it was a few  years ago and I was at the concert down the front. My boyfriend at the time was six foot four and I'm quite short and was surrounded by really tall people. I couldn't see anything. My boyfriend told me to get up on his shoulders and I did. Anyway, I was there waving my arms around - it was great, I could see everything - and then Bruce paused and started to wave his arms from side to side, then I realised that he was waving at me! I waved back! We did that for about twenty seconds!"

Her excitement over this 20 second exchange was equivalent to the level I would display if I'd been invited for a night cap and a private audience after the show. That wasn't the end of the story...

"And the other day, I came across this video on the internet. It was made by fans, for fans and anyway, I watched the whole thing - it went for about half an hour and then right at the end, there was me waving to Bruce and he was waving back! I reckon they had me there for about 6 seconds! At least I know it really happened!!!"

She laughed as the endorphins surged as she relived the experience. I'd have to call an ambulance if she'd had the night cap.

At the gates to the stadium we went through the usual bag search and noticed that all drink bottles were having their lids removed and anything over 1 litre was being confiscated. I asked why, wondering if was a cynical attempt to boost bar sales.

"Well see that lid?" the security woman held up the pale blue lid of a Mount Franklin bottle of water.

I nodded.

"That's a potential weapon. People were throwing them at Bruce."

Her grim delivery of the message nearly convinced me until I saw the size of the stadium. The world's greatest baseball player would have trouble getting that lid to hit its target. And what kind of fan wants to throw bottle tops at The Boss? A friend later told me that the lids are confiscated so that full bottles of liquid can not be thrown.

As I sat in the stadium before the show began, I noticed all the signs around the stadium.

One sequence that had me puzzled was the invitation to "join the conversation" via this billboard:

© 2014 divacultura

This was immediately followed by severe warnings that photography is forbidden in the stadium. That third icon represents Instagram, the photo sharing social media platform. Most people would obey this sign and ignore the other.

Lastly, there was the sign that said "Text anti social behaviour to [phone number]". The idea of personal safety within a stadium environment is important and while I think it's great to provide a way for people to report bad behaviour, this instruction is very ambiguous. It could mean:

• I send a text message with the words "anti social behaviour".  What happens next?
• I could send a message that is an example of anti social behaviour, for example "$#%^ off". What happens next?
• I could send a picture of someone behaving badly. What happens next?

I suppose what they want is for a text message with details of who, when and where the behaviour is occurring so those fifteen year olds wearing a high-vis vest with the word "Security" emblazoned on the back could receive a message through their ear piece. 

There was no anti social behaviour near me and I resisted the urge to be mischievous by sending pointless text messages.

I hope Bruce wasn't injured by a stray bottle top.

Mind the gap! It's between now and the future, Yarra Trams.

Yarra Trams has responded to feedback about dangerous overcrowding at the tram stop between Federation Square and Flinders Street Station.  My original story is here and the follow-up a couple of weeks later is here.  As well as writing about the problem and my experience on my blog, I also provided feedback direct to Yarra Trams via their website and twitter.

After the follow up post, where my frustration at the lack of response must have been evident, a lovely and diligent customer service person from the feedback team contacted me.  He was in regular contact to let me know the progress of the investigation of my issue.  Gold stars on that front.  Not only did he seem to genuinely appreciate feedback from a customer's perspective, he was prepared to engage in a conversation about what's happening.

So let's put this stop into perspective.  Here are the numbers:

• the stop was refurbished to its current design and location in about 2002/2003.
• patronage of the tram network in Melbourne has increased 30% in the last seven years.
• 477,000 commuters "use or pass through" this stop each week.

That's a lot of people.  The numbers support my argument and evidence that the stop is very busy.  What I've experienced a few mornings recently is not a blip.

The current strategy to deal with overcrowding during the morning and afternoon peaks is to have customer service officers at the stop telling people to step back from the doors of the tram.  Have a look at those photos of the crush again.  Now review the current strategy.  Now place inverted commas around the word "strategy".

That's it.  That's what they've got.  

This reminds me of one of the occasions I was trapped in lift by myself.  I was in there for about 40 minutes.  When the bloke arrived to get me out, he yelled into the lift, "Stand well back!" I went from being terrified (he's going to blow the doors open and I'll be killed in the blast) to amazed (oh wow, they're going to blast me out) to apathy (what's the point of moving back, there's no where to go, I'm going to die).

Relief flooded through my veins when I learned that there is also a long term strategy being worked on.   Neither the details of that strategy nor the possible solutions can be revealed.  The time horizon for "long term" is unspecified at this point, but I imagine the steps involve:

1. Gaining awareness that there's a problem.  Complete.
2. Thinking about the problem, including consideration of a) whether there's really a problem.  Part a) complete, overall phase still proceeding.
3. Consult with commuters.  Progress unclear.
4. Formulate response to apparent problem, including options.  Progress unclear.
5. Liaise with stakeholders (Public Transport Victoria, Melbourne City Council etc).  Progress unclear.
6. Thrash out a deal in a way that resolves the actual problem rather than being subject to political expediency (although why these concepts should be mutually exclusive is a point of grave confusion. A long way off.
7. Negotiate all aspects of implementation of the Solution.  Are we there yet?
8. Implement solution.  Hmmm.
9. Realise that solution would have worked five years ago, but is now inadequate with another 36% increase in tram patronage.
10. Go back to step one.

Clearly all of this takes a really long time, but the actual time frame unclear.  Luckily, there is a long term solution!  In the meantime, we must be content with the "strategy" of telling people to stand back.

The next question I asked the nice man from Yarra Trams was, "And what's in between the current situation and the long term?  You know, the mid term strategy?"

I think the answer was either "there isn't really one" or "it's the bit between now and the future" - probably an amalgamation of these two ideas.  They shouldn't be in quotation marks - image they aren't there, I don't want to be accused of putting words in anyone's mouth.  Happy to put ideas in their heads though.  Oh, and it's definitely on the agenda.  And it's a priority.

So "mind the gap" has taken on a new meaning.  It's the gap between the current inadequate reality and the long term, far away foggy future; the gap between now and then, now and later.  Yarra Trams would do well to mind the gap themselves.

To avoid wearing out my eyeballs (all that eye rolling every time I'm told to move back in a human sardine can), I'm going to experiment with waiting on the footpath and using the TramTracker app on my iphone (also available in android) to determine when I should attempt the move to the platform.  I figure if I have eight minutes to wait until my tram, I could avoid adding to the platform crush but not waiting on the actual platform.  I'm worried about the fatal flaw in this plan - it could take me eight minutes to get onto the platform to catch the tram!  We'll see.  Anyone else going to join me?

Yarra Trams says they love to receive feedback from customers.  I believe them.  They just need to move a bit faster!  Why not give Yarra Trams what they love and tell them about your experience on the trams of Melbourne?

Monday morning commuter crush - what a way to start the week!

A couple of weeks ago I wrote about the morning crush on one of the busy tram stops in Melbourne's city centre.  As well as writing about it here, I tweeted directly to Yarra Trams and the Lord Mayor of Melbourne.

Yarra Trams told me that it was very hard to manage and many strategies had been tried.  I asked what strategy was in place at the moment, as it wasn't evident.  The next tweet I received asked permission to pass my blog post to the safety team.  I have heard nothing further.  Does anyone know what the current strategy is?

I've had no response or acknowledgement from the Lord Mayor.  I suppose one won't be forthcoming now.

I also posted feedback on the web.  I received an auto generated acknowledgement on 14 February and nothing since.

This morning I was passing through the stop again at about 8:30am and this time took some photographs.  It was a bit tricky in the morning sun, but I hope some sense of the volume of people is conveyed.  I also took my life into my hands to stop and take a photo - the surge of people moving is not very forgiving.

© divacultura 2013

© divacultura 2013

In this crush, once on the platform, there was no where to move at all.  To add to the discomfort, the overhead monitors showing tram arrival information had pieces of A4 paper stuck over them showing the message "under maintenance".  As trams arrived, Yarra Trams staff would issue the pointless instruction to commuters on the platform to "move back from the doors and allow people to get off the tram".  In isolation it's a sensible instruction, but in a sardine can, the sardines on the top layer can hardly move away from the can opener.

It really is ridiculous.  And dangerous.

I'm really interested in finding ideas to manage the volume of people in the short and long term.  I never complain without a suggestion of how the situation can be improved.  Any more ideas to add into the mix?

Overcrowding isn't just on the trams - how about the platforms?

One of my new routines is catching the train to Flinders Street and then catching the number one tram to South Melbourne beach which goes down St Kilda Road.  The tram stop is between Flinders Street Station and Federation Square and must be one of the busiest spots in Melbourne.

The staff at that stop do an incredible job announcing trams and helping commuters find their way to where they are going.  I wrote this post last week about the fabulous announcements made by one of the staff at this stop.

At 8:30 this morning it was so busy there was a queue to get onto the platform.  People were standing in the middle of the road between the tram tracks and the cars stranded because the platform was completely full.

As the lights changed, more and more people crossed the road to stand in a precarious line.  I wasn't able to take a photo this morning, but I did take a photo of the crowd on the platform last week.  Double or triple the number of people and you start to get the idea.

Dangerously crowded tram platform in Melbourne CBD
©divacultura 2013

From memory there are about nine or ten different tram routes that all feed through this stop.  There is bound to be a lot of people wanting to access the stop.  It was recently upgraded (in the last couple of years?) but I think it is now unsafe.  The trams had to negotiate their way out of the stop very slowly to avoid collecting a waiting commuter on the way!

I've been wondering what the answer is. Holding bays on the footpaths, so that only the people boarding trams that have arrived - or about to arrive - are allowed to wait on the platform?  Remodelling the stop to make it longer, so that it can hold more people?  Perhaps a combination of these approaches so that both the long and short term are addressed.

The other problem is about being able to move along the platform to get to the tram you want to catch when it does arrive.  This morning I waited in the queue to get onto the platform.  As a wave of pedestrians crossed the road, they didn't join the end of the queue, they just blended in with the clump of people.  No one was moving forwards.  As a tram arrived people did move forward, but then there was the problem of the people exiting the tram who were added into the crush already on the platform.  Many disembarking from the front door solved this by stepping directly onto the tracks and walking off that way.

The number 1 tram I wanted to catch this morning (I missed one while I was stuck waiting in the queue off the platform) was third in a line of trams, so I had to make my way to the opposite end of the platform.  I quickly fell in behind two men who were doing the same thing.  Half way through my trek, someone started to push me from behind.  I turned around and asked them to please not push me.  They pointed at the tram and said they wanted to catch that tram.  I pointed out that that was what we were all trying to do and we just had to make our way patiently.

It's not just the traffic, the likelihood of being run over by a tram, but the likelihood of frayed tempers and surging crowds that also worries me.  Thankfully Melbournians are generally well trained and well behaved in crowds.  In their desperation to get to their destination, someone might do something silly

The day after I took the photo above, I noticed a man taking the same photo.  I remarked on this to him.

"Yeah, well I'm from Tasmania and I've never seen so many people!" was his response.

I know that I might sound like a shock jock, but what's it going to take to fix public transport infrastructure like this?  A death?

The longest line

Wandering through the Bourke Street Mall today after having a long lunch with two friends at the Richmond Hill Cafe and Larder (do try the Rodriguez Eggs) I had to break my way through  the long line of people waiting to look at the Myer Christmas windows.  Security guards were on hand should the band of toddlers and their harried parents form a fringe Occupy movement, but they did little to ensure entry and exit to the Myer department store itself.

I felt the pain of the people as I found a gap and excused myself through it.  I've written before about how my position in a queue marks the space for people to find a thoroughfare, even if I'm somewhere obscure, like the back corner.  They all looked so unhappy and bored as they stood in the line.  Deep down they must have known they were queuing to gain access to walk past some department store windows.  I don't get it, although standing in this kind of pointless line is good training for when they go to Spain and need to buy a train ticket to somewhere.

I travelled with a friend to Spain in 2003 (was it really that long ago?) and had a blast.  We travelled around for about six weeks starting in Barcelona and ending in Madrid after spending Easter week in Lisbon over in Portugal.  We'd been learning Spanish before we went and relied on the trusty Lonely Planet Spanish phrase book when we were lost for (Spanish) words.  We were planning our itinerary as we went and were having trouble finding somewhere to sleep anywhere in Spain during Easter week.  Easter is a very big deal in Spain and we discovered it's big in Portugal, but not as big.  We managed to find accommodation in an apartment within a big house in Lisbon so decided to catch the overnight train from Madrid to Lisbon.

Train travel in Europe is famous as the best way to get around.  What they don't tell you in the guide books is about the requirement to wait in long, slow, never ending lines.  And that at the end of these lines are surly unhelpful people who view you, the travelling public, as an unwelcome interruption to their endless cigarette smoking.

We decided to get the organisation of travel out of the way early and so made our way to Madrid's central train station.  We arrived mid morning and found it packed.  It was as if the whole of Europe was on the move and required to stop over in Madrid.  After some reconnaissance we realised there was a queuing system just like the one at the local deli - you take a paper ticket with a number and wait for your number to be called or come up on a screen.  We took a ticket and the number on it was something like 143.  We then looked at the screen and discovered that ticket number 43 was now being served!  That explained the large number of people hanging around.  Surely that couldn't be right!  It was.

It was time for some strategic decision-making.  Firstly, we needed to observe what was going on so we could work out how fast the queue was moving.  This was our first error.  We needed to observe how slowly the queue was moving.  The technical answer is it was moving very slowly, somewhere between the speed of continental drift and that ice shelf off Antarctica.  We decided to wait it out.  Perhaps other people would get tired of waiting and drop out of the queue.  We didn't want to miss our slot and end up having to come back another day or end up back at the end of the queue.

To pass the time, we found out all our possible travel options from Madrid to Lisbon, refined our choices and then practised asking for them in Spanish.  With the amount of time we ended up spending in that queue, I should have been more ambitious - I could have read "Don Quixote" in the original Spanish if only I'd shown some imagination and ambition.

The other thing we could do was watch the officials behind the ticket counter.  We became fixated on the man in the green jumper.  He looked impatient and unhelpful. Under no circumstances did we want to be served by him.  He also smoked at his ticket desk which contributed to long pauses in the service he offered; finding the next cigarette, taking it out of the packet, finding something to light it with, raising it to the lips, lighting the cigarette itself, inhaling and exhaling were all activities that required his undivided attention.  Was it any wonder the planet was warming faster than this queue was moving!

After about four hours, we became hysterical.  It was just too funny for words.  Perhaps we were on Spanish "Candid Camera" and a smarmy host would jump out at any moment and say in speedy, unintelligible Spanish that they'd never seen people prepared to wait so long in a queue!  And only to buy tickets to go to Portugal! Hilarious. Or maybe it would be the Australian Government using hidden cameras to gather footage to prove to the Australian public that the waiting times in a Centrelink office, or on hold to talk to Telstra, were nothing.  Nothing!

Our number came up and we jubilantly stood up and looked to see which counter bay to go to.  The only one free belonged to the man in the green jumper.  We could smell the sneer of his disapproval as we approached.  All the Spanish I'd ever learnt went out of my head and my heart started to pound.  I'd never be able to book these tickets.  We'd find ourselves in the middle of Russia before we knew it and I had even less Russian.  We'd be abandoned at a remote station somewhere in the Ural Mountains!

I took a breath and said hello.  The man in the green jumper grunted back and lit a cigarette.  I managed to get my first question out.  He looked at me, disgusted.  I had started with my standard conversation starter - "do you speak English?" Of  course he didn't.  He looked like he did really, but had smelt our fear and decided to be difficult.

I launched in with the request I'd been rehearsing for the past four hours.  As my communication became more deliberate (a slip of the tongue, an inflection the wrong way and who knew what I'd be saying?) he became more and more taciturn.  He glared at me as though my attempt at Spanish was an insult to all Spaniards.  My attempts to solicit information from him were met with silence or monosyllabic grunts.  At times he would laugh and joke with his colleagues and then turn back to us with his steely yet impatient stare.  He broke his silence only to shower me with rapid, detailed Spanish as he handed over the tickets.  I had no idea what he was saying to me and just hoped that the tickets were what we wanted.

It turns out that we did purchase tickets to Lisbon on the overnight train from Madrid.  We even managed to get seats in a non-smoking carriage.

I will never forget the man in the green jumper and the moment we realised that there were 100 people ahead of us in the queue. Come to think of it, that publicity footage could be very handy for the Government.

What's the longest line you've ever waited in?  What was it for?