Connex, wherefore art thou?

About three years ago, Connex assumed full control of Melbourne’s suburban rail operations, and so far they don’t seem to be doing a particularly good job. I haven’t criticised them significantly in the past, because I’ve been well-accustomed to poorly-run public transport since I started using the system as a child. It’s what I’ve come to expect. Recently, however, I’ve realised that the failings of past management don’t excuse Connex’s current failings; if anything, Connex should have learned from their mistakes.

First are the overt, quantifiable failings: The Victorian Department of Infrastructure’s last quarterly bulletin shows evidence of a steady decline in the level of service and customer satisfaction over recent months. To give you an idea of the current level of service, let’s take a look at the monthly bulletin for May this year. The report shows only 92.5% of their scheduled services running on-time.

The DOI defines on-time trains as those “[arriving] at their destination not more than 59 seconds before or not later than five minutes and 59 seconds after the scheduled time in the timetable”. I’m going to assume they actually meant that an on-time train cannot be more than 59 seconds early or five minutes and 59 seconds late, since the actual wording suggests that all trains qualify as ‘on-time’ (correct me if I’m wrong, but I would have thought a train can’t be simultaneously early and late)!

In all my years of using public transport, I’ve seen plenty of buses running early but I’m yet to see an early train. This suggests to me that almost one in every thirteen trains are at least six minutes late. I don’t know about you, but that falls a fair bit below my expectations.

Then there are the problems which don’t show up directly in monthly reports: a ridiculous ticket sales policy and severe overcrowding, to name two. I’ll address these two briefly to give you an idea of what I mean.

Melbourne’s suburban rail network is currently divided into two zones. I travel mostly within only one of these zones, so I usually carry a monthly ticket. However, when I do want to travel into the other zone, I require an extension ticket to allow this.

The first part of the problem here is that ticket machines will refuse to produce a ticket for zone 2 if you are in zone 1, and vice versa. This is not a stocking issue, as the tickets stored inside the machines are generic, and only obtain their identity when they are requested by a customer.

The second part of this problem is that staff aren’t authorised to be much more useful than the machines. The stated policy is that to buy a ticket for another zone, you must first prove that you have a valid monthly or yearly ticket for the zone in which you are making the purchase.

Now, I don’t know for sure whether this is some half-arsed attempt at reducing fare evasion, or simply another way to double-dip into customers’ pockets by forcing them to buy dual-zone tickets, but either way, I find the policy downright insulting. It often prevents buying tickets in advance, makes it difficult to travel between zones without shelling out extra money for a service you’re not getting, and sends a clear message that they don’t trust their customers.

The second problem is simply that Connex aren’t providing enough services during peak periods, so trains are overcrowded to the point that some people waiting on platforms literally can not fit in the train when it finally arrives.

That said, I don’t think all the blame lies with Connex. It’s also largely the Department of Infrastructure’s fault for implementing a privatisation model that clearly doesn’t work. They need to enforce higher levels of service if they expect them to be a reality. They need to charge steeper fines for consistently late trains. They need to crack down on senseless policies that serve only to hinder customers. The obvious rebuttal here is that being too strict on commercial providers will make them unprofitable, and they’ll withdraw their operations. But if this is truly the case, then the solution seems pretty obvious to me: the government should buy the rail network back.

It seems to me that one of the major responsibilities of government is to allocate money to services that are not commercially viable, but are important enough to operate anyway. If the Department of Infrastructure can not find a private provider that can offer a quality service at a reasonable price, then surely the train network falls under this category.

All this leaves me with a single unanswered question: why are Connex still running our trains?

Friends of the Family

With Linux distributor Linspire’s recent announcement of its new arrangement with Microsoft, I thought it would be a good time to take a step back and consider what these deals mean for Linux and the free software community in general.

First, though, a refresher. The following companies have already signed up with Microsoft’s protection program. If I’ve forgotten anyone, please let me know.

You may have noticed that I’ve taken the liberty of updating the Linspire logo to better fit its peers.

Now, these three companies, by agreeing to pay protection money to Microsoft, are essentially legitimising its — as yet completely unfounded — claims that Linux and various other free software violates its IP rights. While (as I understand) these deals pose no legal threat, that’s far from the point.

Microsoft have already clearly stated that they don’t intend to sue anyone over the use or distribution of Linux. Admittedly this isn’t a promise not to sue in future, but in combination with their refusal to date to substantiate their claims in any way, I think it’s safe to say the whole thing is no more than FUD.

What’s the big deal, then, you ask? Well, the problem is that FUD works. Microsoft are (or at least should be) terrified of Linux and other free software offerings winning even more of the desktop and server markets. Free options are only getting better, and in recent years Microsoft have been hard-pressed to produce anything even remotely innovative.

Their only viable option now seems to be to scare companies and end users away from using Linux, and pretending that the open source community has somehow wronged them is a good step in that direction. Saying they don’t yet have any plans to start suing people — but not ruling out the possibility — is another. This wouldn’t be as much of a problem if the insignificance of their claims was more widely understood. In the unlikely event that Microsoft could produce a single valid patent genuinely violated by Linux, the ever-vigilant kernel maintainers could write around the problem in mere hours. This is why Microsoft don’t want to name specific patents; they know their claims are bunk. What they want is to maintain a general feeling of suspicion of the world outside Microsoft to keep people from venturing too far from the flock.

So what role do these protection deals play in all this? Well, from where I’m standing, they appear to be serving a dual purpose: maintain the FUD, and keep the tributes coming in. These tributes aren’t just because Microsoft are greedy. Oh, don’t get me wrong: Microsoft are greedy, but I dare say it’s even more important for them to remind each of their new so-called “partners” that they are — for lack of a better term — Microsoft’s bitch. And who knows: if enough companies show the same pathetic submission, then a lot of otherwise sensible people might start believing Microsoft’s claims!

Personally, I’m still hoping the heavy use of inverted commas around the word “better” in Linspire CEO Kevin Carmony’s letter on the topic is a cryptic indication that this is all actually an elaborate hoax. But if that’s the case, then really, Kevin: surely you know even joking about this can’t be good for business!

The Post

I briefly considered entitling this “Obligatory Introductory Post or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Blog”. Fortunately I had the presence of mind to bounce the thought off Google, first. Apparently there are around 16,400 other people who had the same brilliant, unique idea as I.

But that hardly matters; whatever the title, you can consider this my official declaration that I have indeed given in to public demand, and will now proceed to blog in earnest.

I currently have a backlog of roughly ten topics that demand attention (a large part of the reason I’ve finally penetrated the blogosphere). I’ll begin to address these over the coming days.