Train Service Outage December 19th

Throughout most of the afternoon on Saturday December 19th, 2009, all train service north of the Arts Center was shut down. During the service outage, little if any information was effectively communicated to riders.

I did receive automated service notifications from MARTA via their notification service on their web site. The notification service allows you to register to receive messages sent to email or your mobile device.

It's a nice use of technology. But the quality of information content remains woefully lacking.

I simply received notifications of "delays" expected due to a "problem" at Arts Center. This information greatly downplayed the actual disruption.

As of this writing, no further information has been posted on the MARTA web site.

Suggestion:
For significant disruptions of service, a detailed explanation should be immediately posted to the web site and the notification alerts should reference the URL for further information.

Communication with customers is improving by MARTA. And the technology is already there. But MARTA still has not figured out how to use it effectively.