ARCHIVED - Dogs and suitcases among 2,300 items left behind by absent-minded Alicante TRAM passengers
ARCHIVED ARTICLE -
TRAM d'Alacant staff on the Costa Blanca collected on average six 'forgotten' possessions every day in 2022
Most of us occasionally leave the house without our wallet or handbag, and when under pressure on public transport, it's easy to see how these items could be left behind.
However, the scale of 'forgetfulness' is quite staggering when it comes to possessions left behind on TRAM d'Alacant services, with dogs and surfboards among the most bizarre items found by staff last year.
In 2022, Ferrocarrils de la Generalitat Valenciana (FGV) collected a total of 2,297 objects lost or absent-mindedly left behind by TRAM d'Alacant users.
This equates to an average of six items every single day, including pets, purses, bicycles, crutches, laptops, suitcases, baby carriages, motorbike helmets, X-rays, prescriptions and medical reports.
These items are kept for at least a month at the station where they are found and another month in the lost property warehouse at Luceros station.
After this period of time, if the owners have not claimed them, they are handed over to the Alicante Local Police.
The objects that appear most frequently on trains and trams in Alicante and its metropolitan area are, in order, wallets and purses, rucksacks, documentation (ID cards, passports, driving licences, health cards...), mobile phones, keys, glasses, handbags, folders and umbrellas.
The months in which most items were lost were October (390), March (335), September (326), November (318), December (309), June (300), April (286), May (285), February (285), August (239), January (213) and July (207).
Thanks to the protocols established by FGV for the management and custody of lost objects, 875 of these items were recovered by their owners (31.6%).
The remaining percentage was handed over to the Alicante Local Police or, in the case of objects in an evident state of wear and tear or deterioration, transferred to a green or recycling point.
Official documents (ID cards, passports, etc.) are handed over to the police as soon as possible to try to locate their owner and bank cards are destroyed in order not to be manipulated, "avoiding unnecessary risks", according to FGV in a statement.
In the case of pets, owners are quickly aware of their mistake, and are reunited with their furry friends.
"The rest of the objects that make it possible to locate their owner are followed up and small investigations are carried out by the Customer Service staff in order to hand them over," added FGV.
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