The Krishnarajapuram Railway Station Story
Earlier last month, something unusual happened.
Yes, it involves Krishnarajapuram railway station, my parents, me and the dual cab apps — Ola and Uber. Here’s the story:
My parents were staying with me in Bengaluru and after a few months of stay, they planned to travel to Chennai. They booked train tickets to Chennai. As the dutiful son, my role everytime my parents travelled, to and from Bangalore, was to book cab to and from the Railway station.
Coming back to this day, the day of travel was Monday. On Sunday, my father kept saying that the train was scheduled to leave at 6:30 pm the next day. Isn’t a train in the morning — I thought to myself but didn’t speak out. Another mistake. Maybe they have a new train at 6 30 pm. This meant I will be booking a cab for them the next day at 4 30ish. Sunday night, I go to bed.
The next day I get woken up at 5:40 am by my father who just had a realisation that the departure time was 6:30 am and not 6:30 pm!
They were supposed to be at Majestic station by 6:30 am. The time was already 5:45 am. I checked the train route and found that it will stop at Krishnarajapuram at 6:53 which can be reached from my home in 40 mins. My parents started frantically packing and getting ready to reach the Krishnarajapuram Railway station (KJM). Frenetic activity began in my home and with that the lazy Monday sprung into panic and a minute - by - minute roller coaster ride of anxiety, frustration and worry.
Now I had to book a cab. First I opened Ola app and it was busy (Hasn’t Ola become tooo busy nowadays?) I got frustrated and opened Uber in my wife’s mobile and tried booking a cab. Now this time Ola came through and so did Uber. So, here I am, standing with two mobiles in each of my hand opened to two different cabs apps, with two cabs coming towards my home.
And I need to choose now. Both showed similar times of arrival — around 5 mins. I had to take a quick decision to choose Ola or Uber and I somehow chose Uber (did i make the correct choice?). The cab came at around 6:10 am and if they reach KJM station by 6:45/6:50 they can make the train on time.
I accompanied my parents to the cab, came back home and tracked the Uber cab’s route. The cab was on its way and my anxiety was coming down. Around 6:45 am, I opened the app believing that they would have reached. The cab was so near the station.
Alright, they are going to get the train. All is well, all is well. 🙂🙂🙂
Lo and behold, sometimes life doesn’t turn out the way you want it to. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Following’s a breakdown of what happened after:
Imagine me tracking the cab ride in Uber hoping and praying that they reach the station before 6:50 AM.
6:45 AM: They are near the station, but the cab is still moving?? 🤔
6:46 AM: Wait the cab is not stopping and going beyond the station. Why are they still moving? why is the cab getting away from the station? 😳
6: 47 AM: DID THEY JUST REFUSE TO GET DOWN AND ASK THE DRIVER TO DROP THEM EXACTLY AT THE RAILWAY STATION GATE 😣
6: 48 AM: Called my parents and talked to the driver in my broken Hindi. My parents were talking in the background in Tamil fuming about getting late. My guess was true — My parents had refused to get down at the point mentioned by the driver which was just across the road of the station. They said they couldn’t see the station and hence asked the driver to drop exactly at the gate of the station. 😡
They were new to the city, to the station. Probably i should have gone and dropped them. 😔
6: 49 AM: The cab is now stuck in traffic trying to take a U turn and drop them exactly at the railway station gate 🙁
6: 50 AM: More waiting. I lose patience and call my parents again and talk to (severe understatement) them for not getting down across the railway station like the cab driver had asked them to 😷
6: 53 AM: The train would have arrived by now; they were stuck in cab a little far from the station in cab 😑
7: 05 AM: Finally they reach the station. But the train has departed. 🙃
After all this bungling, long story short, they booked another train and did manage to reach Chennai on the same day.
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Probably I should have gone with them and helped them board the train; I should have chosen OLA, the driver name seemed like a Tamil name; They should have gotten down and crossed the road — After all the finger pointing and beating yourself down and more ‘could have been’s and ‘should haves’, I started thinking objectively -
How can design address this issue?
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Here’s one solution I thought of — Ola/ Uber can provide a feature where they can show language spoken by the driver upfront; if the driver had spoken Tamil and had clearly communicated to my parents that this is probably the best way to quickly enter the station, may be my parents could have gotten down and reached the station on time and got the train. May be Uber with its features to provide more info about the driver does provide language info about the driver? But it’s not surfaced at the level where it would make the choice of cab easier.
Probably there are many such people like my parents who would benefit from choosing a cab/ a ride where they can communicate with the cab driver in a language of their choice. If airlines can provide information about which of their air hostess speak what languages, can cabs too provide them and provide them upfront so it’s easy to make a choice to ride on cab?
Have you faced such issues with respect to language in your daily life? How did you handle them? Are there other ways in which design can be helpful in this problem that I faced? How can such nuances of language barrier be crossed in the app world and otherwise? Do share them in the comments.
Updates:
- This incident also raises questions about signages and way finding systems near Indian railway stations as pointed by one of the commenters.
- Though not directly related to what I faced, Uber has been making strides when it comes to accessibility in their cab ride experience.
Want to read more about Uber design? Check out these links:
