TrinSF's dashboard

Scott Fleckenstein replied on July 29, 2008 15:48 to the idea "Company name search could be improved by searching URL shortname" in Get Satisfaction:

Bradley, it's not dead at all, just in a long line of priorities.

Unfortunately, it keeps getting bumped back. I assure you it is on the list though.

I apologize for not being able to actually fix it, but I hope you can bear with us.

Bradley Froehle replied on July 29, 2008 02:42 to the idea "Company name search could be improved by searching URL shortname" in Get Satisfaction:

Did this feature die? A search for "muni" doesn't seem to return "San Francisco Municipal Railway" @ http://getsatisfaction.com/muni ...?

TrinSF's reply to "Why such bad communication?" was just promoted to the most useful! Thor Muller and 2 other people think it's one of the best replies.

The problem with the visual messaging system in the stations (which also has the announcements) is that it's very badly outdated, but funding limitations have prevented replacing it. However, replacing it is on the radar for Caltrain, so to speak, so that's going to come -- though it may take a while. In the meantime, unfortunately, the current system doesn't allow for easy reprogramming of messages to individual stations. There also is no way to check on the sound or message quality at the stations from the location where the messages originate. Because of that, the staff making the recordings have no way of telling what sort of sound quality a particular message has.

So, short answer, right now, there's not a way to easily update those signs and announcements. In time, with funding, there will be much better real time messaging.

John Markos O'Neill replied on March 03, 2008 17:06 to the question "Why such bad communication?" in Caltrain:

95% of the time, Caltrain is on time, and everything runs smoothly. It's that other 5% of the time that's the problem.

For example, the other day I went to Hayward Park at 4:45 PM to pick up train 263 -- I take locals because my bicycle never gets bumped, and I have a wireless modem. After I had waited for several minutes, a notice appeared on the message board that said that train 257 (which doesn't stop at Hayward Park) was 10-15 minutes late. Then, a few minutes later, a notice appeared that train 261 was 15 minutes late.

Train 263 finally arrived twenty minutes late. Between South San Francisco and Bayshore, we waited for about 40 minutes for trains to pass us, because we were on single track into San Francisco. The conductors eventually explained that there had been a fatality and a derailment on Caltrain on the same day. Once I knew this information, it was a lot easier to understand the delays.

When there's a major problem, like a fatality or a derailment, Caltrain needs to do a better job of informing its customers of what's happening. Hundreds of people were made late by an hour or more, and they were frustrated by the lack of information. If Caltrain had told its customers the reason for the delay, most of us would have taken the news quite well.

TrinSF started following the idea "How about a table set up at the next Transit camp for brochures and flyers." in TransitCamp.

TrinSF replied on February 27, 2008 22:42 to the idea "How about a table set up at the next Transit camp for brochures and flyers." in TransitCamp:

I thought there was one! Margaret gave me a bunch of Caltrain brochures to take back rather than recycle, which suggests they had been laid out someplace. Definitely, if there isn't one, there should be next time.

Bradley Froehle replied on February 27, 2008 04:18 to the question "How do we raise awareness of our local transit system?" in TransitCamp:

To some extent, the overhead electric cables in San Francisco already do this if you know to look!

(Incidentally, I got a ride in a car the other day from somebody who relied on following a specific overhead line to find their way).

Leslie Chicoine marked one of TrinSF's replies in Get Satisfaction as useful. TrinSF replied to the idea "Company name search could be improved by searching URL shortname".

Leslie Chicoine replied on February 27, 2008 02:33 to the idea "Company name search could be improved by searching URL shortname" in Get Satisfaction:

Yes, I also noticed today that searching for 'joann" won't find "jo-ann fabrics". I'll add the spacing issue to our bug tracker.

Thor Muller replied on February 26, 2008 22:21 to the problem "Company name search can't handle missing punctuation" in Get Satisfaction:

Good catch! In addition to general tuning of our search feature, we're discussing a synonyms feature for company/product names so that we can be smarter about alternative names.

Lane Becker marked one of TrinSF's replies in Get Satisfaction as useful. TrinSF replied to the idea "Company name search could be improved by searching URL shortname".

TrinSF replied on February 26, 2008 22:05 to the problem "Company name search can't handle missing punctuation" in Get Satisfaction:

Not including spaces also causes same problem -- company search for getsatisfaction does not find Get Satisfaction. Pesky!

TrinSF started following the problem "Company name search can't handle missing punctuation" in Get Satisfaction.

TrinSF replied on February 26, 2008 22:00 to the idea "Company name search could be improved by searching URL shortname" in Get Satisfaction:

Perhaps relatedly, if I search company "getsatisfaction" the search returns no results, but "get satisfaction" does, of course. Since I'd normally use the URL name (as above) for companies, I thought I'd piggyback on Bradley's original idea.

Leslie Chicoine marked one of TrinSF's replies in Caltrain as useful. TrinSF replied to the question "How on earth can you prevent people from commuting with their bicycles in the morning when you have a hundred empty regular seats".

Amy Muller marked one of TrinSF's replies in Caltrain as useful. TrinSF replied to the question "Why such bad communication?". Amy Muller and 2 other people think it's one of the best replies.

Leslie Chicoine marked one of TrinSF's replies in TransitCamp as useful. TrinSF replied to the question "How do we raise awareness of our local transit system?".

miriam marked one of TrinSF's replies in TransitCamp as useful. TrinSF replied to the question "How do we raise awareness of our local transit system?".

TrinSF replied on February 25, 2008 03:23 to the question "How do we raise awareness of our local transit system?" in TransitCamp:

I really liked the idea of having NextBus or NextBus style displays in public places like offices, but also in malls, shopping centers, schools, government buildings.

TrinSF replied on February 24, 2008 10:31 to the question "How on earth can you prevent people from commuting with their bicycles in the morning when you have a hundred empty regular seats" in Caltrain:

Hi! If you haven't looked at it yet, I urge you to check out the Caltrain FAQ on this subject. Right now, there aren't enough bike cars to add more to every trainset. Additionally, Caltrain's current cars aren't meant to be coupled and uncoupled on the fly, so the configuration of a trainset cannot be changed during the course of a day. The few extra bike cars there are have to be rotated around as cars go in and out of service for repairs.

There are a couple of possible solutions that would help you avoid being bumped because bike capacity has been reached. You could have a folding bike instead -- you can take them into any car -- or you could make use of the bike storage options at one end or another of your trip. There have been more bike storage options added recently, because those aren't limited by the long lead times to afford more bike cars.