Provision of Real-Time Information

We found that the three companies were approaching the provision of updates via social media about unplanned disruption to the network in two very different ways. These can be classified as either proactive or reactive. FirstAberdeen proactively pushed out updates about known issues on the bus network even before there had been a request for information from the travelling public. First Glasgow had a more reactive strategy and were only providing information when passengers encountered a delay on the network and queried FirstGlasgow via Twitter. FirstGlasgow do not specifically report on unplanned disruption, but rather leave it to the travelling public to find out if the bus service they are using will be delayed. First South East and Central Scotland uses a balance between these two approaches by making frequent use of the retweet function to push information from other transport agencies as it becomes known.

The scale of the operation was a big factor influencing whether unplanned disruption information should be provided or not. The FirstAberdeen bus network is much smaller than the others, meaning there are fewer disruptions to the network and when these do emerge, information about them can be published via the Twitter feed. Conversely, FirstGlasgow has a much larger operation (in terms of number of services and passenger journeys per day) so those managing the feed do not deem it practical to alert passengers to every unplanned disruption known on the network. The Edinburgh company does inform passengers about unplanned disruptions to the bus network but they do so less frequently than in Aberdeen. This indicates that the size of the operator is a factor in defining their approach to sharing information about unplanned disruption. A gradual role out of information being provided therefore appears to be the preferred solution so when the operation is larger in size, the transport network could be broken down into smaller, more focussed associated social media feeds based on particular areas or individual routes. This also reduces the amount of irrelevant tweets any followers would see, which would otherwise potentially reduce the utility of the Twitter feed.

The availability of information within the companies at each of the locations is also a factor influencing the dissemination of disruption information. As there is only a single depot in Aberdeen, the network controller is situated immediately downstairs from the Twitter operator in the marketing office. This facilitated more opportunities for dialogue between the network controller and Twitter operator to easily share new information as it became known. The proximity of the marketing team to the network controller is a key factor influencing this flow of information. In contrast, FirstGlasgow operate six depots across the city but the marketing team, who are operating the Twitter feed, are situated in an entirely different location to the network controller. Although they could easily telephone them if a passenger had queried an issue, they did not have the same immediate access to real-time updates about the network, as they did not work in the same space. A member of the marketing team at FirstGlasgow stated their desire to have access to the same stream of information that is available to the network controller. First South East and Central Scotland had a timed-release strategy that required the network operators to report information about unplanned disruption at a specific time of day. This helped to streamline the reporting of disruptions but did not provide a continually open channel of such information.

The argument within the operators for not proactively pushing all updates on unplanned disruption is that it does not reflect well on the company to publicise deficiencies in the service. One of the marketing team at FirstGlasgow explained that there is a debate inside the company about just how much information on service problems should be pushed out onto Twitter. The strategy of withholding such information unless a problem is queried is sympathetic to a marketing perspective that wishes to portray the company in the best possible light. However, this lack of transparency leaves passengers uninformed about potential issues on the network until they encounter them when attempting to travel.

The ability of the transport operators to respond to the queries via social media is also limited by the work hours of the staff members operating the accounts. The standard work hours of 9am to 5pm are not necessarily peak times when unplanned disruption are likely to occur on the bus network. It is during the peak travel times from 7am to 9am and 4pm to 6pm when commuters are either going to or travelling from work that the service is potentially most useful. There was some flexibility in this as workers could be at their desks earlier at all three of the companies. There is a daily routine of the Twitter operators ‘signing on’ to post first thing in the morning to let passengers know they are open to answer any further tweets. This was often complemented with a ‘signing off’ at the end of the day to make passengers aware that their tweets will no longer be answered for the day. The response to queries outside of the standard work hours was approached cautiously as it could potentially provoke an expectation from the customers that the Twitter service had extended availability.

FirstGlasgow and FirstAberdeen both employ a team of staff to help maintain their respective Twitter accounts, while only a single person is responsible for the South East and Central Scotland account (see Identity Management section for further discussion on the implications of managing this situation). The teams were not staffed for posting to the account outside their standard work hours and as the task was shared, no one took responsibility for doing so. However, the single person at South East and Central Scotland did post outside of work hours and took much greater ownership over the identity. The Twitter operator here had a belief that in order for the account to be most useful, it needed to be maintained on a continual basis. The timeliness, accuracy and personalisation of the response are key factors in how effective the real-time travel information is that is delivered (Papangelis et al. 2013).

Identity Management

The transport operators had very different strategies at each company for managing their Twitter identity and the persona that is communicated to the passengers through this. Each company emphasises engagement with the people behind the operator’s Twitter feed who communicate with their passengers rather than merely acting as an emotionless corporate identity. However, the identity of the people behind the feeds is entirely constructed by the marketing teams to fit how they wish to portray their company’s brand. All of the feeds made use of three-letter names to be used as a signature for their tweets. Whilst it is unsurprising that these names were aliases, the ownership of the aliases was managed in very different ways.

FirstGlasgow had four different people who took turns to manage the Twitter feed. These people had marketing roles within the organisation, except one who was an on-street inspector checking passengers held a valid ticket for their journey. Each person had their own alias and a persona to match. The (three-letter) persona names were Eva, Jim, Kim and Abi. The staff took ownership of these names as a public facing persona they could use to communicate with their passengers. The public in turn became attached to these different personalities with favourites even being judged through a competition at one stage. The feedback this generated from passengers helps illustrate this sense of attachment:

@FirstinGlasgow: Vote for your fav twitterer & you could win some chocs. 20 winners will be chosen by the winning twitterer. #yummmm

PassengerX: @FirstinGlasgow Has to be Eva. Helpful, informative, does what she says she says she’s going to do. Oh, and a wee bit of a sense of humour.

PassengerY: @FirstinGlasgow to Eva you are a wee gem listening to all our grumps x

The different personas were assigned roles for the types of service they provide. For example, the Jim persona was used to specifically offer technical information about the bus service to passengers. The person behind the Jim persona stated he had received feedback from customers who believed he was a software ‘bot’ rather than an actual person. The reason for this was the manner in which the Jim persona communicated by relaying factual information rather than conversing using a friendly tone. This resulted in the person behind Jim changing how he communicated in order to provide more light-hearted messages intended to help engage with the passengers. The team maintaining the FirstGlasgow account used the web interface for Twitter with updates mostly being posted from a desktop computer. Some members of the team used their personal mobile devices to keep track of the feed – but did not post to it when they were not at work.