Metro Trains not tweeting service disruptions anymore

“Sadly, now they appear to be turning their Twitter feed into a propaganda arm of their publicity department, rather than providing the vital information the travelling public need,” [said Daniel Bowen of the Public Transport Users Association].

via theage.com.au

Imagine you’re in charge of one of Melbourne’s most hated companies. Rightly or wrongly, you’re copping abuse all the time about all kinds of different things.

Some bright spark in the operations area decides to start a Twitter account. It provides timely updates about service difficulties, changed timetables and extra services for special events. In other words, all the things that a traveller would find useful. In fact, over ten thousand people find it to be useful, and rather liked the service. It was the one bright spot in an otherwise bleak and uncommunicative organisation.

So - here you are, running this organisation. What do you do? Of course! Stop issuing useful service updates through the Twitter feed and hand it over to the PR department; Metro’s land of fluff and uselessness.

Great idea. People are going to love it.