The escalator at my local metro station has been out of action for over 3 months now and the lift has also been out of action since last year. Apparently the escalator was fixed in October then broke again. I filed a couple of complaints to GVB, the operating company for the Amsterdam metro. Today I got a call from customer service. "Yes we know it's been broken for ages" "you can check the status on the website" etc... I asked why so long. They say the parts are coming from over seas. 1/n
It's not like it's a space rocket, or a massive oversized transformer or something. There really is no excuse other than bad management for failing to maintain public transport infrastructure in an accessible state. This is not an area where just in time, or lean provisioning works. Spare parts have to be held in stock. So that lifts and escalators can be fixed in a timely manner. Anything else is just bad management. I'm not happy. And have asked that my complaint be pushed further
3/3
@quixoticgeek My work has MAJOR supply chain issues on lift parts at the moment. Apparently Estates have gone to the manufacturer who say they don't have the parts, so it's like there isn't stock and getting stock is bottlenecked somewhere. It's not clear how much is Covid interruption, Brexshit or things like Ukraine war interrupting stuff (some of our stuff was supposed to come from Ukraine in 2022...). Especially with lifts older than a certain age. Not all lifts in X place will be identical.
@NatalyaD with public infrastructure like this. If they can't find parts for what they have in a timely manner. Then they should consider installing a new lift or escalator with a better support process behind it.
@quixoticgeek I agree but I think the issue is that in some situations every lift is a unique bespoke item due to stuff like the lift shaft shape/size/capacity and so on. It's rarely a "build from scratch" job but bodging onto older infra and not always being able to change it all, or worse, grandfathering old stuff which means they'll avoid change (losing grandfathered crap regs). We don't invest in infra properly at all.
@quixoticgeek Faversham station's lifts have probably been out of action since before you moved to the Netherlands. There's incompetence, lack of funds, and darker forces at play against accessibility
What I don't get is why they don't have spare parts in stock. There are currently ten broken lifts across the metro network currently. A broken lift can mean that someone with a mobility issues can't travel. There are some routes for which there are easy alternatives, but often it will be more expensive, and much slower.
But even without spares. Where the hell are they getting the parts from? You can ship most things anywhere oh the planet within about a month.
2/n