“Telephone” on the El

Remember the old Telephone (or Operator) game?

This isn’t about being a captive audience of oblivious public yakkers. Rather, it’s about an opportunity (?) to consider people’s perceptions. Public transit is so often my lab.

Yesterday it took me almost three hours to get to work. During my trip (mostly on the el), our operator diligently kept us updated—and he gets high marks for his efforts. As we traveled, a problem had developed with signals and switching, resulting in increasing delays. A point he noted often, with apologies.

Eventually we didn’t move at all, sitting in one spot for over half an hour. At that place, he notified us that he had to be off the train to check on a passenger who was feeling ill (he couldn’t walk through the cars, as they were packed). The cell phones came out as people reported the delay to their workplaces.

A woman nearby called someone to explain, and I didn’t pay a whole lot of attention to her, except to wonder that she focused on a) the sick passenger as a reason for the delay, and b) to complain about the lack of funding to the CTA: if they would go back to the operator/conductor duo, the operator could stay on the train while the conductor investigated a problem or emergency. Fair enough. Several weeks ago, the last car(s) of a subway train derailed, and while the operator was off the train to investigate, people in the rear cars, fearing the increasing smoke, chose to evacuate. The operator, while off the train, couldn’t give emergency instructions to passengers, which made the situation worse (he couldn’t do much about it). Definitely a problem with a one-operator train.

This wasn’t the case yesterday.

The operator returned shortly and reported that the passenger was feeling better. And we were still waiting for signals/switches.

After that excursion, we sat for another 10 minutes or so, and then the operator announced that he would be off the train again, to open the windows that could be opened—cars were becoming stuffy, I assumed. Out came the cell phones again, and this time I paid more attention to the woman. She repeated her rant about staffing the trains for safety, but I realized she also repeated an earlier comment about “the driver, or whatever they’re called.” She reiterated the sick passenger issue (no longer an issue) and went on about the windows. Only the barest mention of the signals/switches.

The operator reboarded, and we sat some more. Finally he announced that he’d been told to reverse direction, to return to the previous station, and he would have to be off the train to get it ready to go that way (it meant that he had to go to the opposite end of the train to operate it from the cab at that end). A couple of guys didn’t know the train could go the other direction. Hmm.

The woman, back on her phone, reported that the operator kept getting off the train, dealing with several sick passengers and whatever (with yet another rant about the CTA’s staffing).

Were we in the same situation at all?

I heard a number of other people relay less (though still) erroneous information, and it’s impossible to know all the reasons—perhaps the people on the receiving end weighted some information more importantly and messages were tailored to their anticipated reception.

People take in information differently; some are oriented towards visuals, some do better with oral information, while others plug into written instruction. Not something the CTA can fix in emergencies, even with its best efforts. Still, I’m greatly concerned as I consider how the best reporting efforts may be in vain, in the increasingly anxious world we inhabit.