What to do when the ticket vending machines aren't working?

So the other day we went to catch SunRail. When we got to the station none of the ticket-vending machines was working.

OK, today we’re not knocking the vending machines. They are machines and sometimes technology doesn’t work.

The train was coming in a few minutes and we didn’t know what to do. But along came the friendly platform Ambassador. We explained the situation and she said not to worry.

She gave us a handy-dandy SunRail pre-addressed envelope to show the conductor that we tried to pay, and for us to mail in with a check to pay our fare.

Good thinking, SunRail!

In case you were wondering – 36 people have used the envelopes to mail in checks. Shows you what kind of great folks ride SunRail!

See you on The Rail!

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Open letter to SunRail's new CEO

Dear Ms. Nicola Liquori,

Congratulations on your new role as SunRail CEO. We wish you every success!

Some riders were dismayed that you don’t have a passenger-rail background. We appreciate their concern, but we’re not overly worried because strong leadership can be as important as detailed technical knowledge and experience. Gen. Dwight Eisenhower led Allied forces to victory in World War II even though he never personally commanded soldiers on a battlefield.

The areas of focus that you detailed at the September Technical Advisory Committee meeting make sense. However, we were disappointed that customer satisfaction was not listed among your priorities.

SunRail ridership continues to sag because customer satisfaction is not -- and has not been -- a top priority.

Specifically, we call your attention to the train schedule. SunRail is almost completely useless unless you’re going to a traditional Monday through Friday 9 to 5 job.

What about the caregivers at Orlando Health (ORMC) and Florida Hospital? They don’t work a traditional schedule limited to weekdays.

How about the thousands of people who work at Orlando International Airport and in the hospitality and tourism industry? That’s a pool of thousands of prospective riders who want to use SunRail, but they can’t because of the train’s awful schedule.

We’ve been waiting two years for a real leader. We hope that’s you.

Please pay attention to what current riders -- and would-be riders -- are saying (especially the hospital caregivers). Don’t be misled by SunRail’s high-priced consultants. If they knew what they were talking about SunRail’s problems would have been solved long ago.

No service on weekends and holidays; no late-night service, 2 ½-hour service gaps during off-peak hours just don’t cut it. Those deficiencies are huge customer dis-satisfiers. You don’t need a Madison Avenue marketing guru to figure that out.

The schedule needs to be fixed now, not in five years. Waiting any longer will guarantee SunRail’s failure.

Fix SunRail’s schedule, extend service to DeLand, and your success will be guaranteed.

Sincerely

SunRail riders

How much does SunRail care about rider convenience?

Open letter to SunRail Project Manager Tawny Olore

Dear Ms. Olore,

Were SunRail stations designed for the comfort of real people, or for the convenience of engineers? Certainly rider convenience and safety were not the paramount concerns.

Tawny Olore

One of the worst examples of the passenger-UNfriendly design can be found in the SunRail station at Church Street in downtown Orlando -- ironically the busiest station during the morning and evening commuter rush hours.

Let’s not even talk about the station’s confusing configuration where the northbound platform is at Church Street and the southbound platform is a block away at South Street. Let’s instead focus our attention today on the fact that riders can’t use cash to buy a ticket on the southbound platform.

Show up on the southbound platform hoping to catch a train to Orlando Health or Orlando International Airport and all you have is cash in your pocket and you’re out of luck because both ticket vending machines only accept credit or debit cards. There isn’t even a sign telling you that you can buy a ticket with cash on the northbound platform.

Maybe there’s no sign because getting to the northbound platform poses a huge problem. Following the pedestrian crossing signs you have to walk the equivalent of four (4) city blocks, cross busy South Street and active railroad tracks to use the cash machine.

Southbound machines

As a SunRail official you don’t have to buy a ticket, but for your convenience you can click here to see a video of the path riders with cash have to follow. (By the way, it’s nearly a 10-minute walk to and from the cash machine.)

You’re an experienced engineer, we’re not. But common sense says the easiest solution is to add a cash ticket machine to the southbound platform. We’ve raised this issue before with your public relations staff, and they give us fluff instead of real concern about the safety and convenience of southbound riders who need to buy tickets with cash.

Please don’t study this to death. We showed you the problem, we’re counting on you to act with all deliberate speed and address this situation by installing a cash machine on the southbound platform at Church Street.

Sincerely,

SunRail riders

SunRail's ticketing system sucks

Enough’s enough with SunRail’s unreliable ticket-vending machine system.

Xerox is the vendor with the contract to install and maintain the machines. Quite frankly, the ticketing system hasn't worked since Day 1.

It’s not as though SunRail just launched the other day. SunRail has been running revenue operations since mid-May 2014 when riders were required to buy tickets. We’ve been in SunRail stations where 3 of the 4 vending machines were out of order. In addition, the ticketing problems have fouled up back-office operations that make it difficult for SunRail to accurately count and analyze ridership trends.

On Friday, Jan. 2, the machines had all kinds of problems when riders surged into stations to ride SunRail at the end of the Christmas holiday season. In some cases SunRail trains left stations while people were still in line trying to buy tickets.

Rube Goldberg contraption

Even when the machines actually work, they’re incredibly slow. Who designed these machines? Rube Goldberg? (Millennials, please Google)

Xerox has a million excuses and says they’ve sent squads of techs to resolve the issues. That’s too little, too late. If Xerox can’t deliver, then they shouldn’t have bid on the job.

The ticket-vending machine problems leave many SunRail riders -- and would-be-riders -- with a bad taste in their mouths. Those riders don’t complain about Xerox. They complain about SunRail. 

We think Xerox's top executives should attend the Jan. 9 meeting of the Central Florida Commuter Rail Commission to take heat directly from our elected officials.

It’s time to cut the crap.

SunRail says it’s withholding payment to Xerox, and certainly lawsuits are probably in order. But none of that helps the riders who have been inconvenienced by the ticket-machine problems.

Fortunately, we’ve got a solution. Every time a rider tries to buy a ticket and the machine is too slow, or it won’t work, the rider should board the train without a ticket and tell the conductor what happened. The conductor should record the number of riders who couldn’t buy a ticket. Then Xerox should be charged $7.50 -- the full price of a round trip ticket from DeBary to Sand Lake Road.

Will some scamsters game the system? We’re sure they will. But you know whose problem that will be? Xerox. Get the ticket-vending machine system fixed and Xerox won’t have to pay the fares anymore.

The ticket-vending machine problems aren’t an inconvenience. They’re an embarrassment. We’re tired of it.

See you on The Rail.

Not perfect, but not bad

When you ride The Rail early in the morning the last thing you want to hear is that your train got canceled. But that's what happened this morning when SunRail's first southbound run was canceled for "mechanical" issues.

That's really frustrating, but when you're dealing with machines, sometimes things are going to break and sometimes those problems are unavoidable. Considering that people count on the train to get to work SunRail deserves the benefit of the doubt that they wouldn't cancel a train for trivial reasons.

But here's the good news. As soon as SunRail realized the problem this morning, they tweeted the information, and we even saw the early morning news shows reporting the cancellation. This was a fantastically better showing than the nightmare SunFail a month ago.

And here's the second good piece of news, SunRail did not allow one problem to ruin the entire morning. We were on hand at the Sand Lake Road station to see the second train of the morning arrive on time. Everything was back on schedule.

Way to go SunRail!

SunRail ticket vending machines, Chapter 2

We still don’t understand SunRail’s rationale for the placement of ticket vending machines that accept cash. It’s not like everybody has plastic, and considering some of the recent credit-card security problems it might not be wise to use credit cards on public vending machines. There are two platforms – northbound and southbound -- at every SunRail station. But SunRail only puts a cash machine on one platform (they claim financial reasons for this). So if the cash machine isn’t on the platform where you’re waiting you must cross to the other side – using the pedestrian crossing, of course -- to buy your ticket.

At almost all the stations the northbound and southbound platforms are directly opposite each other. The one exception is at Church Street in downtown Orlando. There platforms are a block away from each other with a busy street – South Street – between them. The cash machine is on the northbound platform, and get this, a rider on Monday told us that machine has been out of order for several day. So if you arrive at the southbound platform to buy a ticket with cash as the train is approaching you’re going to be SOL.  Thanks SunRail bosses, nice planning.

Why do SunRail stations only have 1 cash machine?

Here is another one of those questions we get all the time from fellow riders. How come there is only a ticket machine on one SunRail platform that takes cash. 

We know one woman – a first time rider – who only had cash when she came to the station and didn’t realize the cash machine was on the other platform. So we put the question to a SunRail spokesman. Here’s his response:

“There is only one cash machine at every station due to the additional maintenance and costs associated with operating a cash machine (i.e. people try to jam bills into the receptacle, it requires an armored service to empty the machines, and a place to store and count the cash, etc.). More and more CRT properties (including Tri-Rail) are moving toward this system of fare collection. If there are more stations northbound, the cash machine is on the NB platform. If there are more stations SB, the cash machine is located on the SB platform. Rationale is, you are more likely to serve the most passengers where additional destinations are on the line.” 

This is SunRail customer service?

What follows is a note sent to us by a loyal SunRailRider. We’ll call her Alice from Altamonte Springs.

I miss the Ambassadors, too ... or, at least, I miss the good ones. When I started at Altamonte Station, we had a really good one who knew his stuff and was helpful. He disappeared. I don't know what happened. It could be he left because he knew it was just a "temp job" and he was offered something better. If so, I sure don't blame him. TEMP JOBS don't inspire loyalty.

Now I see folks with problems depending on the rest of us who may be able to help. We do our best. We are usually successful ... but is this the image SunRail wants to project? Well, I guess it's less expensive.

Further, when the equipment on the platform doesn't work and someone needs to get where they need to go, what are they supposed to do? Who can they talk to? How can they let you know they've made a good faith effort to purchase a ticket? Are all the rest of us supposed to line up behind him or her to assure you that we've witnessed his/her efforts? Not good.

Since you guys developed this scenario for your customers, I can only assume you have an answer. I'm eager to hear it so I can share it with these unfortunates and they can get to their destination. I personally have seen folks who could not purchase tickets or, if they had SunRail cards, the cards didn’t work (they didn’t have "auto load" which, as near as I can tell, is the ONLY failsafe measure to keep one's SunRail card going".)

So SunRail bosses, what's the answer?