During the Wednesday evening rush hour at London Waterloo station, a man threatening to jump from a bridge onto the tracks led to emergency services blocking all lines through Wimbledon. South West Trains' social media head, Allison Dunn, took to Twitter to manage the chaos, sending over 150 tweets—double the usual number—to keep commuters informed.
Dunn, based in the network control centre at Waterloo, monitors five screens displaying train locations, fault logs, and CCTV footage. She uses Tweetdeck to search for mentions of key stations, enabling her to respond quickly to passenger concerns. In one instance, a passenger's tweet alerted her to a problem at Winchester before the guard had reported it.
Customer information manager Adam Piddington admitted initial scepticism about social media, but changed his view after seeing its power. He noted that early hostility from passengers was challenging, but staff who were already tweeting unofficially helped the company adapt to a conversational yet professional tone.
Dunn, who describes herself as a 'glass-half-full' person, says she tries to empathise with frustrated passengers. 'You really do have to put yourself in their shoes and feel their pain,' she said, adding that honesty is key when service is disrupted.
