BART Out of Service -- Better Late Than Never

"What does the worker gain from his toil?" (Ecclesiastes 3:9)

Last week, BART had a lot of unhappy customers. Earlier the week, there were delays that people complained about. Then on Wednesday evening, during the heaviest commute time, BART was completely out of service for more than an hour. All the trains (approximately 60?) in service at the time had to be parked at the closest stations.

Officials of BART blamed mistakes made by their own employees for the Wednesday meltdown. Up to 35,000 passengers were stranded from 5:27 p.m. until service was restored at 6:38 p.m. Apparently, an software update caused the entire computerized system to crash. Why did they upgrade the software? Because they were attempting to prevent software problems that had caused minor delays on both Monday and Tuesday!

It is scary to know that all the trains disappeared from the monitor screen and BART did not know where the trains were. You are telling me the entire BART system was shut down because someone update the software during the business hours? What happen to the weekend only (and after midnight only) upgrade that companies do to minimize impact on customers? What were they thinking? Why can't they wait?

Okay, before our own impulses get kicked in, let's be thankful that nobody was hurt or killed. It could be worse.

Copyright © 2006 Winnis Chiang, Parenting ABC