Team 8

Assignment 1

1.Attitudes of the communities being addressed

There are two sets of passengers with different attitudes:

a).Anxious fliers: Those concerned with safety, relaxation and cleanliness.

b) Travel lovers: Those who consider themselves as relaxed, casual and interested in travel experience.

2.Who should communicate these and how?

The Government in the form of Ministry of Tourism and Railway department should communicate these messages. Cleanliness should be on high priority of Indian Railways. Considering the passengers who turn up in millions at the stations and on trains every day, maintaining an acceptable level of cleanliness is a never ending challenge. Steps to improve cleanliness in stations should be taken. Indian Railway is decreasing manual efforts by deploying more and more mechanization. Around 350 stations have been brought under mechanized cleaning and progressively more stations will be taken for cleaning efforts. Conducting intensive checking at all important stations at different levels for ensuring proper cleanliness. The senior management should be responsible in maintaining a strict vigil in this endeavor to ensure that there is no slackness at any level. Clean Train Stations (CTSs) should be nominated to ensure thorough cleaning of passing through trains between 6 am to 9 pm. .Apart from this for ensuring better hygienic conditions in trains, On Board House Keeping Services (OBHS) have been deployed in important trains for proper upkeep of running trains.

They can communicate the same through advertisements in family oriented TV shows and ads at various other places at railway stations.

3.Strategies for developing the messages

Effective persuasive strategy to develop a message involves four essential strategies: framing your arguments, balancing emotional and logical appeals, reinforcing your position, and anticipating objections. One of the most commonly used methods for framing a persuasive argument is the AIDA model, in which you open your message by getting the audience’s attention; build interest with facts, details, and additional benefits; increase desire by providing more evidence and answering possible objection; and motivate a specific action.

Persuasive business messages combine emotional appeals and logical appeals. To reinforce your position, look for ways to add convincing evidence, quotations from expert, or other support material.

Most common types of these messages are (1) persuasive requests for action, in which you ask the recipient to make a decision or engage in some activity; (2) persuasive presentation of ideas, in which

you are not necessarily looking for a decision or action but rather would like the audience to consider a different way of looking at a particular topic; and (3) persuasive claims and request for adjustments, in which you believe that you have not received fair treatment and would like the recipient to give your case fresh consideration.

Repetition of persuasive messages in various places in the railway station or in the form of advertisements in the TVs can have a beneficial effect in transferring the information to a long term memory.

Participation: Active audience participation is a key for the message to be conveyed. Developing advertisements to place the viewers in that position can make them feel the need of cleanliness better.

A one sided message must be preferred as most of the travelers are not highly educated .Also the message of cleanliness can be well communicated through a one sided rather two sided message.

Also the message order plays a crucial part while using the above. It should succumb to the recency effect and the intent of the message must be put forth clearly.

4.Suggestions for Trains

Intensive mechanised cleaning of coaches in the coaching depots through professional agencies should be carried out. Heavy duty machines such as high pressure jet cleaners, floor scrubbers ,vacuum suction cleaners etc. are deployed for the purpose. On Board House Keeping Scheme (OBHS) should be prescribed in all Rajdhani, Shatabdi, Duronto & other important long distance Mail/Express trains for frequent cleaning of coach toilets ,doorways, aisles & passenger compartments during the run of the trains.

5.Suggestions for tracks & platforms

The Ministry of Tourism has to visualize an India that will attract a visitor, to begin with, for its cleanliness and hygiene. Towards this end, the Ministry should decide to evolve a comprehensive strategy to effect cleanliness, specific to tourist destinations under the initiative ‘Campaign Clean India’, which would employ a balanced approach towards persuasion, education, sensitization, training, demonstration and regulation for achieving its goal.

Commitment for character building and discipline for excellent team work are important to achieve the desired results. Proper Ads should be frequently played on the TVs at the platforms so that cleaning the platform merely becomes a habit. There is a need for clean water supply to prevent vector-borne diseases caused by mixing of drainage with drinking water. Proper infrastructure should be constructed and kept clean, especially the toilets should be made available and maintained. Garbage should be looked at as an asset and as a business model for recycling of paper. Mind-set

needs to be changed as it was a social problem. On Board House Keeping Service’(OBHS) and ‘Clean Train Stations’(CTS) to clean up the platforms and tracks is important.

Medical Officers/Commercial Officers who are in charge of the station cleanliness and chief Health Inspectors (CHIs) would visit well maintained public places like Airports, Five-star Hotels and Corporate Hospitals to observe and learn from their upkeep practices.

The station CCTV infrastructure will be deployed not just to monitor security but also to check that the cleaning staff is doing their jobs and fines to be leived by the railway authorities in the right way if any citizen is observed to dirty the premises.

6.Suggestions for Railway offices

Railway Fraternity also should strive for cleanliness especially within the station premises. Officers working with the public transporter could adopt one railway station each in order to ensure proper cleanliness on the premises.

Advocating ban of cooking and shifting out of commercial stalls, including eateries, from the platforms and offices to keep railway stations clean and safe should be done.

Successful implementation of the zero-budget waste-management system at different places within the premises to help the railways deal with the solid waste including leftover food and non-degradable plastics. In view of the high density of passenger traffic, maintenance of cleanliness at stations is a major challenge for Indian Railways. However, Indian Railways accord very high priority for ensuring proper standards of cleanliness at stations.

The steps taken to improve cleanliness at railway stations are as under:

More and more mechanical cleaning gadgets are being introduced and better types of cleaning agents are being used to achieve improved standard of cleanliness. Contracts are given for supply of machines like scrubbers, high pressure jet cleaners, mops, etc. Railways are also providing washable aprons (Ballast less track) on platform lines at railway stations with jet cleaning arrangements.

Periodic contracts for rag picking and garbage disposal are awarded. More and more toilets are brought under the purview of ‘Pay & Use’ toilets, including deluxe

toilets. At present, more than 850 stations are provided with normal ‘Pay & Use’ toilets and more than 30 stations are provided with Deluxe ‘Pay & Use’ toilets on Indian Railways.

Cleanliness awareness campaigns are also launched for education of the rail users to ensure a satisfactory level of cleanliness at railway stations.

Powers have been delegated to Divisional Railway Managers (DRMs) for purchasing of tools and plants required for carrying out various sanitation related activities, awarding of pest control contracts, specialized contracts for mechanized cleaning and one time cleaning.

The Station Superintendents/Station Managers are provided with adequate cash imprest exclusively for cleaning of approach to station.

A monitoring and reporting system has been developed and the action taken by Zonal Railways for improvement in cleanliness is reported on weekly and monthly basis for Board’s appraisal.

Inspections are conducted at various levels viz. General Managers, DRMs, Service Improvement Groups and at other Officers level to check the standard of cleanliness at various stations. During these inspections, deficiencies are noticed in various areas such as drainage, availability of dustbin, sewerage, water supply, washable apron and garbage disposal. Steps are taken to wipe out the deficiencies so noticed.