Train chaos is derailing our lives

Unreliable service affects everyone

HERE are some of the comments contained in the Cape Chamber of Commerce and Industry’s commuter survey, reflecting difficulties businesses, institutions and commuters in the city are facing as a result of the unreliable train service:

I am an educator. Students are late every day. I feel for them as they are missing lectures. Students see my lateness as being unreliable. Additionally, lateness of students affects teaching and learning. It reduces the teaching time. This leads to lower throughput rates.

Some of our workers come up to two hours late for work, others get home at night four hours after their usual time!

All higher education institutions have an 80% attendance policy. Students with attendance under 80% are not allowed to sit the final exam. As students are often extremely late, they either stay home or arrive very late and miss early classes as a result. This affects their attend- ance and resulted in students having to repeat a year, or they simply drop out.

Staff cannot with surety say when they will arrive at work, if at all. This puts unwarranted pressure on their colleagues. Considering whether staff have their own transport or whether they make use of public transport has become a deciding/crucial factor in the appointment decision-making process.

Staff are only paid for hours worked so they are out of pocket every week.

I do not own a business but I work for one, so the commuting problems are a threat to my livelihood because I risk getting fired.

Staff are late and traumatised. Service delivery is impacting on hours.

We run a labour-intensive business and unreliable transport causes staff to be late so they lose wages and the business loses productivity which threatens our viability.

I have staff who’re scheduled to start work at 8am, arriving between 9am and noon every day. This makes it difficult to plan the teams for different jobs each day as we don’t know who will show up and when. It resulted in me having to issue warnings for attendance/poor time keeping to force staff to use alternative transport but it’s unfair since Metrorail should be the ones to take responsibility.

I regularly have to delay meetings and work start times to wait for my staff to arrive and have to cut short my work day so that staff can leave earlier.

I am penalised financially for arriving late every day.

Employee turnover and productivity are affected creating constraints on the business and decreasing morale.The risk of dismissal and job security also became a concern.

Although I understand bosses, we can't expect them to be understanding for long.

Staff arrive late, we must pay overtime, jobs can’t be done on time, clients get angry, cancel contracts. Staff ’s jobs are at risk.

Staff members arrive late in the mornings and get home very late at night when the services are disrupted. This poses a constant problem and danger to staff. A constant concern and stressful worry as to their welfare and safety.

We run training and the cost is between R40k and R160k lost per day. If staff or delegates are late we have to cancel and reschedule.

On a daily basis, we're unsure how many staff will arrive at work and even if they will. The company carries the cost of unproductive time. It can’t “open” on time due to staff arrival. Affects productivity and reputation.

We’ve had students deregistering, meaning that we have to pay them their registration money back because they simply cannot make it to their classes on time and end up falling behind on school work.

Up to 50 staff members are short about R100 in wages weekly.

The actual cost apart from time and wages is the lost productivity at a time when there are are reduced opportunities.

Our academic staff are late and always have to find substitutes.

Customers leaving and heading to competitors, simply because we don’t have enough hands on deck.

Half our staff commute on train and due to delays these people are being paid for time they were not at work.

I lose on average five hours a day. If I calculate that in average income lost we aver- age about R180 000 per month. This is a small unit with eight staff.

Trains delayed means workers are delayed, need to leave earlier to get home at a reasonable time. No security on certain stations and trains, leaving workers vulnerable to criminals, etc.

Our business basically makes money by selling time of our skilled staff. We therefore need them at work and not on train platforms or trains.

Great inconvenience to staff but also to all road users as extra cars and buses and taxis use already over-congested roads wasting petrol, time, etc.

We hold numerous disciplinary meetings on lateness and poor attendance.