The Argus campaign to get Southern to restore a good rail service on the Brighton to London line

The Argus is campaigning for good standards for Brighton, Hove and Sussex commuters, who have been hit by a continued stream of bad service on the railways.

The campaign was first launched in February 2009 in response to a new timetable implemented by Southern. This caused horrendous delays which dogged Sussex commuters, adding hours to their journeys every day.

After hundreds of commuters responded to our appeal on Facebook, Twitter, by email, text and letter, Southern made changes to the timetable which eased the problems.

After the First Capital Connect Brighton to Bedford line became overcome with problems, the campaign was relaunched and still continues.

But to make the campaign as effective as possible, we need your help.

How you can take part

Sign our petition

Submit your details below to support our petition urging Southern to get its services on track. We are launching this because of the huge response we've already ahd. Please take the time to do this even if you've already participated in other ways, as we now want to draw the reaction into one place.

Twitter

We want you to become part of our army of citizen journalists reporting on the rail mayhem.

Not only will you be helping highlight the day to day effects of the timetable, but by using Twitter to post instant updates, you can also help other commuters plan their journeys to take into account the delays.

If you're already on Twitter, simply post rail related updates with the hashtag #bricom, which we will then re-tweet, or post again at our specially set up BrightonCommute Twitter profile. We're a family newspaper, so please keep it clean.

If you're not already tweeting, then follow this simple guide to getting going:

Sign up for an account on Twitter. All you need is an email address to get started. Once you're in, just post your updates, or tweets, into the top box, and press update. It's as simple as that. Make sure you include #bricom in any commuter related tweets, whether it's service updates or just venting your frustration.

To join the Brighton Commute project, you will either need a web-enabled phone, or to set up any mobile phone so you can text updates directly to Twitter.

To do this, go to the Settings link at the top right, and then select the Devices tab. Enter your mobile phone number as instructed (using +44), wait for Twitter to send you a text, then enter the code it's sent you into the box. Now you can text directly to Twitter, and it shouldn't cost you more than a standard text.

To see what everyone is saying about the Brighton commute, visit BrightonCommute and click on Follow. All our commuting tweets will now appear on your Twitter homepage.

If you're interested in all Brighton news, then follow our BrightonArgus Twitter news feed. You'll also find lots of other people interested in Brighton following us, who you might want to follow yourself.

Facebook

If you don't want to join us on Twitter, you can get involved on Facebook. Join the Save Our Service group, and write about your experiences of horror commutes since the changes on the group's Wall. Please feel free to post pictures and videos too.

Text, Email, Comment or Write

You don't have to get online to tell us how miserable your journey is. Text us updates by starting your text SUPIC to 80360, email news@theargus.co.uk, leave a comment here, or fill in the form in Friday's Argus or Argus Lite and post to us at Argus House, Crowhurst Road, Brighton BN1 8AR.

Save Our Service - how it started