A network of evil
Nov. 17th, 2005 06:34 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ladyofastolatI think I have uncovered a plot to take over the country, by slowly and steadily driving its people mad.
I had to go to Guildford today, and decided to go via the Southsea hovercraft. It was a nice quick crossing, and there was a bus waiting when I got off, ready to take me to the station. It arrived at the station two minutes before the London train was due to leave. Sounds good so far? Well, very cunningly, the station bus stop was just far enough away that it took about two and a half minutes to get from the bus to the platform, ensuring that people arrived just in time to see the train pulling out of the station.
It was worse on the way home. London trains - i.e. the most busy and popular service in that station - get in at .02 and .32 past each hour, but the shuttle bus leaves the station at .00 and .30. Hovercrafts also leave at .00 and .30, and the bus only takes about five minutes, so the people getting off the London train have to wait 28 minutes for a bus that proceeds to miss the hovercraft by five minutes, and then wait a further 25 minutes to get the boat. 58 minutes to do a five minute journey.
Now, this degree of bad timetabling cannot be mere chance or incompetence. The only explanation is that it is design. Someone out there is deliberately ensuring that journeys take twice as long as they ought to, and that people spend their journeys in a state of stress and annoyance, which then has a knock-on effect on their relationships, their work... and the state of the country in general.
Whoever it is who's going it, they're clever. There's some very fine tuning at work here, to ensure that all connections are missed by mere minutes, and no longer. Missing by mere minutes is the key. It ensures that everyone spends all their journey in an agony of hope, and then has to endure the despair of seeing their connection speed away just as they arrive.
I think the same evil agency is at work on traffic light sequences, too. I've long since thought that the people who program traffic lights are evil, and I imagine them rolling around with evil laughter when thet watch CCTV footage of busy junctions brought to a stand-still by their cunning manipulation of the sequences.
And, I have to confess, I want to have that job! I think it would be a really fun challenge to design a public transport network designed to cause maximum stress and delay. I amused myself for the rest of the journey by designing one *evil laugh.*
I had to go to Guildford today, and decided to go via the Southsea hovercraft. It was a nice quick crossing, and there was a bus waiting when I got off, ready to take me to the station. It arrived at the station two minutes before the London train was due to leave. Sounds good so far? Well, very cunningly, the station bus stop was just far enough away that it took about two and a half minutes to get from the bus to the platform, ensuring that people arrived just in time to see the train pulling out of the station.
It was worse on the way home. London trains - i.e. the most busy and popular service in that station - get in at .02 and .32 past each hour, but the shuttle bus leaves the station at .00 and .30. Hovercrafts also leave at .00 and .30, and the bus only takes about five minutes, so the people getting off the London train have to wait 28 minutes for a bus that proceeds to miss the hovercraft by five minutes, and then wait a further 25 minutes to get the boat. 58 minutes to do a five minute journey.
Now, this degree of bad timetabling cannot be mere chance or incompetence. The only explanation is that it is design. Someone out there is deliberately ensuring that journeys take twice as long as they ought to, and that people spend their journeys in a state of stress and annoyance, which then has a knock-on effect on their relationships, their work... and the state of the country in general.
Whoever it is who's going it, they're clever. There's some very fine tuning at work here, to ensure that all connections are missed by mere minutes, and no longer. Missing by mere minutes is the key. It ensures that everyone spends all their journey in an agony of hope, and then has to endure the despair of seeing their connection speed away just as they arrive.
I think the same evil agency is at work on traffic light sequences, too. I've long since thought that the people who program traffic lights are evil, and I imagine them rolling around with evil laughter when thet watch CCTV footage of busy junctions brought to a stand-still by their cunning manipulation of the sequences.
And, I have to confess, I want to have that job! I think it would be a really fun challenge to design a public transport network designed to cause maximum stress and delay. I amused myself for the rest of the journey by designing one *evil laugh.*
