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?