Dear Yarra Trams.
You say you have a customer focus but yet you allow advertising all over your trams including windows that block your passengers view to the outside, that is people not being able to see where they may be going or where they are. What an utter disgrace your non see through window policy is.
At the height of the COVID crisis in Victoria, you said your trams were being deep cleaned every night and we have since learnt they were not by the dodgy contractors you employ, who probably underpay staff. Care about performing well at your job? Not on the pittance the tram cleaners are paid by the contractors you employ. Why can't you just directly employ tram cleaners with a supervisor. Properly employed and paid staff have a great interest in doing their job well.
I think every Myki old style travel card reader is cracking up. Why aren't they being replaced by modern and faster Myki readers?
The old articulated trams, B Class I think, have great cooling and heating but so often it is not working. I have tweeted a couple of times about non working air conditioning on these trams, but I have stopped as I don't want to be known as a serial complainer.
Still on the older B Class and Z Class trams, they are looking much smarter and pleasant after their renovations, but they have a light tint on the windows and the pull down blinds have gone. Light tinting is hopeless and you have no escape from the sunshine coming in the window. That is not passenger focus. You have taken away from our travel experience.
Yarra Trams spokespeople mouth all the words but do they ever travel by tram? Does anyone who makes such decisions travel by tram? I can't see any tram passenger say, get rid of these sun blinds and give the windows a light tint. I can imagine sums being done between the options of tinting windows as against maintaining blinds.
I catch trains less often, but I have caught quite a lot of Metro Trains recently and I have little complaint but this. I have no memory of what the stickers say, maybe about COVID or train cleaning but on trains stickers have been plastered on train windows right at eye level, obscuring the outside view. As with trams, does anyone who uses trains have input into where stickers are placed?
Let's return to Yarra Trams and these photos of how trams are sometimes presented. They are dirty from carbon run off from their pantographs. They need to be cleaned pronto.
This photo by Andrew Purvis.
And this one by Matthew Jennings.
There may be tram cleaning specifications set by our state government and I expect Yarra Trams would meet the KPI. But....