I see it as being honest. Using a generic term as a catch all provides some information without specifics. I can't understand how this can be seen as dishonest.
OK, perhaps not dishonest, but hiding things? Depends what is being hidden, though. As noted I have no objection to using "operating incident" for this kind of thing...
SPAD, Stop short, wrong side release etc and probably various other operational incidents.
Which is what I highlighted. The information is there if someone wants it. The minutiae is often given out on social media. We are a long way for that to be translated down to on-board systems (I've seen some small examples being tested)
I guess this is maybe more a DOO thing? On a guarded train (another thing in favour of guards, I guess) a manual announcement can be used to provide a decent level of information.
Following on from a point you made in the other thread. We both agree that bad information is, well, bad and wrong information shouldn't be given out. Using a generic catch all prevents wrong information being given out. I've been in a few situations where I've been announcing one set of information only to be told by a passenger that it was something totally different. Providing a generic can be seen as better because passengers get used to them and do plan accordingly. I'd rather make a generic announcement than make a wrong one.
It is certainly true that wrong information is far worse than no (or less precise) information.
I'm not sure how telling passengers there has been a failure of the flow indicators and single line working is in place and we are delayed due to awaiting a pilotman would be helpful in any way.
I have heard something like this before from a guard:
"Ladies and gentlemen, we apologise for the slow running. This is because a signal failure means trains are being hand-signalled between here and Tring. Once past Tring we would expect things to improve. At the moment we expect this will cause approximately half an hour's delay to your service. I will give you more information as soon as I have it"
With commuters, yet further information might work. For instance, most regular south WCML commuters know what Ledburn Junction is, and are well aware of the implications of a failure there, or how much delay will result if a LM fast service stays on the slows. In that sort of case, if known, it can be useful for people to be aware if there is an intention that the train will run all the way to Euston on the slows (in which case the delay is likely to be at least 20 minutes) or if it will instead move to the fasts a bit further south.
Neil, whilst those are extreme examples what are you expecting the announcement to be for an "operational Incident" Should we announce that the unit in front has slid through the station due to low adhesion ? Do you really believe that telling passengers the train in front has Spadded is the TOC working with passengers ?
That, again, seems valid as an operating incident (sadly the "leaves on the line" stuff was discredited years ago despite being completely valid). The thing I was mainly calling out was a post upthread calling a suicide an "operating incident".
Is there a specific incident that you wish to be told of that brings passenger and TOC together ?
As mentioned above, any incident that was really not the railway's fault but is likely to cause very severe delay - trees down (Network Rail like showing photos of the trees, which breed understanding when you see how big they are), suicides (though with careful phrasing - "passenger hit by a train" works for me as it gets the point across without being graphic), level crossing incidents ("a vehicle hit by a train at a level crossing", perhaps), bridge strikes etc.
Basically the kind of incidents where, unless I think it was appallingly handled in some way, I don't generally claim Delay Repay even though it is technically possible as it is a "non fault" system.
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Another point (that could go either way, really)... I find airports are poor at giving useful information ("the late arrival of the inbound aircraft" and such, though that is slightly useful as it tends to identify there won't likely be further delay as a faulty aircraft is fixed). However on board the level of detail is often very high.
That has two sides to it, though - I was on an easyJet aircraft not so long ago which had an APU failure. We had:
"We have a small engine in the tail which is used for the air conditioning and to start the main engines. This isn't working properly at the moment so the engineers will have to come and check it out and see if we can have it repaired".
45 minutes or so later...
"Ladies and gentlemen, unfortunately we have not been able to complete a repair, however we will be using a ground start unit to start the engines so we can proceed with the flight. We apologise..."
This would seem reasonably useful (and it did give me a decent idea of the likely length of delay and that a cancellation was unlikely) but it seriously panicked a passenger in the row in front of me who didn't realise that flying without the APU wasn't a dangerous thing (the A320 series have ram-air turbines for the case of a dual engine failure, and even that is rare). She required a bit of placating from the cabin crew and didn't look at all comfortable throughout the flight.
Hmm. I suppose hand-signalling could equally bother some passengers...
