I have the dubious pleasure of working in Canary Wharf at the moment, which means I have to endure the Jubilee line from Waterloo station every day. Anyone who has done this trip will, I am sure, share the dreaded moment when you arrive on your overground train and make your way to the Jubilee line, not knowing what the state of the trains will be.

Some mornings you can get to the platform easily, some mornings they have closed most of the barriers and you have to jostle for position in the ticket hall, and some mornings you have to queue on the escalator. Either way, you know that when you actually get to the platform there will be huddles of people near each door waiting for the next, already packed, train to come in so a couple can squeeze on. Some days I have waited for 6 trains to go past before my turn in the sardine can.

In true commuter style, I have discovered a number of alternative routes to be used when the conditions get bad. Most of the time the route is longer, but as long as you are on the move, it seems better.

Now wouldn’t it be good if I knew the state of the trains beforehand – this way I could make my route decision before getting stuck.

Whilst thinking about this I came across what seemed like the answer to my problems on the TfL website. I found I could enter my regular journey details and they would text me in the morning at certain time telling me of any delays. Great – I could finally make my decision. I chose my time and registered for the service, which was nice and simple to do.

Now, they only send a text when there is a problem. So the alloted time passed without incident on the first day and I proceeded to a packed but usable train. Working well so far. Next day was the same. This was good, no more decision making.

On the third day, cracks started to appear in this previously helpful service. My phone beeped as my train was drawing into Waterloo – a text from TfL! It informed me that there were major delays on the Jubilee line. That was it, decision made – I would go the long way. Then, seconds after receiving the text, the guard on the train came on the intercom – ‘We are pleased to announce that there are no delays any of the London Underground lines’.

Oh dear. Who was I to believe? I decided that TfL would know best and went the long way round. Arriving smugly at work I announced that I had avoided the queues. A colleague looked surprised and said he had been there at the same time and had no problems. Hmmm.

The same scenario has since happened a few times, sometimes the guard has been right, sometimes the text has been right. So the system has been rendered useless for giving out information.

Wouldn’t it be nice if you could have a mobile site where you could check the train times in real time and get information on the train frequency and maybe even a photo of the platform to prove it! These are the sort of areas where mobile phone technology comes into its own – where you need information on the move to enable you to make decisions.

Until this arrives, I continue making a random decision, based mainly on the weather and whether I fancy a walk across the bridge with a coffee or not.