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How easy would it be to retrofit a voice announcement system into existing buses?

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175mph

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Having traveled on some of Hull's new buses and noticed the voice announcement feature for announcing all the stops on a route, ie "Next stop, Asda" and of course, knowing that the buses in London include this feature, it made me wonder how easy a feature it would be to retrofit into buses without such technology? I know it could be quite expensive, but how easy would it be to retrofit into a typical bus?
 
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K4016td

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I guess its not very hard. Matter of installing few off the shelf components.

But in my opinion voice annoucnements should be only retrofitted as an element of much broader dynamic passenger information system that should include route displays on the buses, GPS on-line tracking, automated destination change on the displays, contactless payment introduction and many other things.
 
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Hophead

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Can't be that difficult - Brighton and Hove completed the task 3 or 4 years ago, and Metrobus have done the same more recently. They both had next-stop displays, so some of the infrastructure was probably already in place.
 

Deerfold

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Putting the system is easy. Keeping the data accurate and up to date tends to be the tricky bit.

Transdev Keighley's announcing buses sound great until you realise that the stop names they announce are often not the sames as the ones on the stops or on online timetables (sometimes all 3 are different). TfL had an exercise lasting 2 years checking all 19000 of their stops before installing their system.
 

satisnek

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Am I right in saying that Doris lives in the ticket machine, so it's simply a case of whether the vehicle has a speaker system or not? (I'm thinking specifically of Trent Barton here.)
 

cainebj

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Usually the next stop announcement system is driven from the destination boards.
With Hanover Displays I believe you need a HTC unit fitted that is controlled by the standard destination controller, so you really have the simplicity of installing the unit, installing speakers throughout the bus linked to the HTC, then installing your next stop information screens, again connected to the HTC.
With a Mobitec you can't use the commonly fitted ICU400 or ICU402 controllers, and instead would have to purchase an ICU602 and if the bus is fitted with a 5 port communications connector it would need replaced with an 8 port connector to allow the interior next stop screens to be added.

Equipment wise they're simple to install, albeit not cheap to purchase. The more time consuming parts are setting the routes up to GPS co-ordinates with their relevant voice announcements, and recording the voice announcements. It is possible to purchase text to speech software to create the announcements but it's more common for companies to hire a voice actor/actress and have them recorded in a studio - a time consuming task!
 

satisnek

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Usually the next stop announcement system is driven from the destination boards.
With Hanover Displays I believe you need a HTC unit fitted that is controlled by the standard destination controller, so you really have the simplicity of installing the unit, installing speakers throughout the bus linked to the HTC, then installing your next stop information screens, again connected to the HTC.
With a Mobitec you can't use the commonly fitted ICU400 or ICU402 controllers, and instead would have to purchase an ICU602 and if the bus is fitted with a 5 port communications connector it would need replaced with an 8 port connector to allow the interior next stop screens to be added.

Equipment wise they're simple to install, albeit not cheap to purchase. The more time consuming parts are setting the routes up to GPS co-ordinates with their relevant voice announcements, and recording the voice announcements. It is possible to purchase text to speech software to create the announcements but it's more common for companies to hire a voice actor/actress and have them recorded in a studio - a time consuming task!
Thanks for the comprehensive reply - so some buses have two separate GPS systems because ticket machines also display real-time route information to the driver?

The reason for my query is because the V3 (Derby-Burton) had next stop announcements when it was under the 'Villager' brand but the non-route-branded Solo SRs usually used today don't have speakers. However, if a different vehicle is substituted, Doris is back - and she can remember everything perfectly!
 
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