Maori Wardens

After the incident last week where the teenage girl got her arm caught in a carriage door, Mark Lambert, who appeared on TVNZ's Close Up stated one of the measures Veolia Transport were taking to assist the safety of passengers was that there would be Maori Wardens riding on the trains during peak hours to help move passengers away from doors.

I can confirm I've started seeing them in the evening. Their job appears to be to politely ask passengers standing near the door to move down the aisles leaving the entry and exit points clear.

The issue I have with this is that this has always been the protocol, and for the most part people already do this. But unfortunately over-crowding on peak hour trains means the aisles are already full leaving no standing room other than by the doors. At one stop I hear a Warden announcing "Please move away from the doors if you can... if you can't, don't worry", which translates to "I know you can't move, this carriage is full to over-flowing but I have to be seen to be doing the job I'm getting paid for, so I'm announcing this anyway!"

I often have to stand if I don't get to the train a bit early and can definitely say, if there is an option to move down the aisle, I'll always take it for the very simple reason that it's a more comfortable place to stand. If you end up stuck by the doors, often you can't reach any handles and people really get crammed into this space making it normal to get a face full of another passengers hair ...or bad breath... the list goes on but you get the idea.

The Maori Wardens obviously aren't doing any harm and it can't hurt to prompt the few passengers who have recently started riding the trains and don't know the etiquette yet, but really it's a minor gesture and does not solve the over-crowding problem.