Post by Hans-Joachim ZierkeTrenitalia is a completely overstaffed organization
It's about 20 years I'm hearing that, but I wonder on the reality of
such statement (I mean, in many areas, like e.g. Lombardy around Milan
and in general around large cities there is clear demand for more
trains, and in other areas demand could be encouraged with a more
frequent service ... how could this demand [running more trains] be
satisfied with less staff ?) and also I wonder on the tuning of such
statement (would you cut on travelling staff, or would you cut on office
staff, and plethoric incompetent managers ?).
As a passenger, who knows nothing of how a railway should be run, but a
keen train traveller, I can give you my impressions :
- if the trade unions say that it is safer to have two persons driving
a train, as a passenger concerned for safety I tend to trust them
- what I believe to have seen as a bad trend are cuts in maintenance
(I must say I travel more on Milan urban transport - where this
drop is clearly apparent - than on Trenitalia, but there are often
delays attributed to technical problem ... last yesterday when the
Milan-Bologna trains were diverted on the old line because of
"technical problems in Piacenza")
- what everybody has definitely seen is a bad trend in outsourcing
things like cleaning, with the result trains and stations are dirtier
(I have copy of an article about cleaning of Porta Garibaldi station
where they play the usual game of "scaricabarile" (unload-the-barrel)
where every part says it responsibility of some other part.
- what everybody has seen is a compartimentalization of the FS holding
in a lot of autonomous branches (RFI for the rails, Grandi Stazioni
for bigger stations, Centostazioni for middle size stations,
some part of Trenitalia for long distance "profit" trains, n other
parts of Trenitalia for regional trains in the n regions)
- what everybody has seen is a mess of different fares, and the
closure of station "services" like toilets, waiting rooms, and
ticket sales ... with the result that stations have become degraded,
and that ... buying a ticket has become very difficult ... not a wise
move to encourage passengers to travel (examples below).
- what is worse, is that one has seen investments and things done,
but slowly, badly and in expensive way.
I quoted a while ago the new line Udine-Tarvisio, apparently
underused. I can quote the uncountable time to build the Passante in
Milan. I can quote the Milan-Rome high speed line, which seems to
have worsened the service on local and regional services which should
have become better moving long distance trains on the new line). I
can quote the refurbishment of Milano Centrale transformed into a
place with no waiting rooms, no seats, no free toilets, and a zig-zag
of tapis roulant through an empty shopping mall and no clear
indications (example below). There has been a campaign recently on
Corriere della Sera about this, and Grandi Stazioni have been
compelled to reply ... one of the things I discovered was that the
architect who made the project is the same who did it for Roma
Termini (where they did a good job) but in Milan he was not involved
in the direction of works.
I have in front of me yesterday's Corriere della Sera economy
section, where it says that the cost per km of the done high speed
lines in Italy is 32 Meuro, while in Spain and France is 9-10 Meuro.
For lines under constructions the figures are 45 Meuro/km vs
15-13. Why ?
As an example, at Milano Centrale there are no longer any escalator
going straight up from road level to platform level. There is this
zig zag of ramps on either side. Now, at the bottom of the ramps
there are very useful signs
<- platform 1-24 platform 1-24 ->
Another ordinary life example. Yesterday I went to my mother home town,
a 15000 inhabitants place 50 km of Milan.
The station of such town (which has 2-4 trains per hour) has :
- a ticket office which is open from 6:00 to 12:00 only, and has
a degraded appearance, covered with signposts with various
announcements
- toilets (which through the glass look clean and in order) which
bear a notice "due to vandalism these toilets will be closed from
21:00 to 6:00" ... however at 16:45 they were closed
- a ticket vending machine which sells only regional tickets (what
should the inhabitants of the place do if they go to Brescia to
catch an Intercity or to Milan to catch an Eurostar ?)
- there was a piece of paper attached on the machine saying "it does
not accept credit cards, it does not accept debit cards, it does
not accept coins, it does not give change but a voucher to be
cashed at the ticket office" (another notice at the ticket office
said "vouchers can be cashed only before 10:00").
I saw a girl attempting to make a ticket ... she assumed she could
at least use a banknote. But the machine screen said instead "only
cards allowed" and below "these cards allowed" and the logo of a chip
card with FS logo that I've never seen anywhere else.
- ah, about regional tickets, I saw also a notice that said that
tickets for trains serving across two regions (which are no
longer called "inter-regional" but just regional) will no longer
be computed with the national fare, but adding up the two portions
of regional fares (where each region has its own). The notice said
something as a consequence that season card holders travellling on
express trains (but are there any left ?) will be considered as
without ticket.
Post by Hans-Joachim ZierkeLooking better than Trenitalia should be easy for a competently managed
private operator.
I would subscribe that (also and especially) if you drop the word
"private". After all most managers of the present compartments,
subsidiaries or subholdings come from the private, or claim to follow
rules of private management.
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