Commuters: Better service frequency
Transit: Do you want Wi-Fi on all the busses and trains?
Commuters: We want more busses and trains
Transit: You want RGB accent lights at the stations?
Commuters: Just don’t make me wait an hour at that station
Transit: How about colour LCD screens displaying the next stop?
Commuters: Spend that money on more vehicles!
Transit: We could have a McDonald’s right at the platform!
Commuters: Fuck it we’ll just drive.
Free WiFi access in stations and trains is actually proven to reduce the complaints about train delays. So yes, this is quite on point 😎
This is the way I see it. If free Wi-Fi calms you when there’s a delay, you were never going to be bothered that much by it. The only time that would work is if you were probably not doing anything time sensitive. If a train delay made me late for the med school entrance exam or something I actually cannot afford to be late for, I’m probably not being consoled by free Wi-Fi, in fact, I’d see it as an insult because I’d realize they could have spent that money improving the actual system and maybe this delay never would have happened.
A study can pretty easily conclude this because most people mad at delays aren’t actually being seriously detrimented by delays, they’re just inconvenienced. But the biggest problem with delays is not the inconvenience.