Greater Anglia New Passenger Information Screens

F Great Eastern · 10 Jan 2020

Do we know if the data feeds supplying these screens are the same live raw feeds powering other systems, or are they coming into somewhere, being 'post processed' by Greater Anglia to 'improve the information' and then going out to the screens.

Some of the information being shown on them about delays etc doesn't appear to be from the feeds that are powering other systems.

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greaterwest · 12 Jan 2020

For what it's worth, I was at Cambridge yesterday and the main thing that irritates me about these screens is how the animations needlessly keep re-playing in some kind of loop. It would be fine if the 2nd/3rd train looped around at the bottom, but what actually happens is once the third train has looped, the screen blanks itself and re-animates every other element too. This shouldn't happen unless that information actually changes.

I'm also surprised that altered platform numbers don't blink like they do on other screens.

Other than that, they seemed relatively fine, and a welcome competition to the Infotec-dominated market.

jon0844 · 12 Jan 2020

Definitely good to have competition, but I think there's a need for a lot more development work on the UX.

All that is happening now is Infotec look vastly superior and can use rival systems to say why 'you get what you pay for'.

F Great Eastern · 12 Jan 2020

Design was apparently by:
https://www.tdc.london/projects/kings-cross

jon0844 · 13 Jan 2020

F Great Eastern said:
Design was apparently by:
https://www.tdc.london/projects/kings-cross

Interesting. Especially the date of 2008!

arb · 13 Jan 2020

It appears that the new screens don't have any special mode for severe disruption. I arrived at Cambridge at 8:55pm this evening, where there's been overhead wire problems since about 6pm. The departure boards in the concourse were all showing only the first significantly delayed services, from between 6pm and 7pm. I wandered out onto the platforms and found the northbound 21:02 CrossCountry and 21:08 Great Northern both ready to leave, but passengers with no way of knowing other than the departure screens on the platform by the relevant train.

trebor79 · 13 Jan 2020

arb said:
It appears that the new screens don't have any special mode for severe disruption. I arrived at Cambridge at 8:55pm this evening, where there's been overhead wire problems since about 6pm. The departure boards in the concourse were all showing only the first significantly delayed services, from between 6pm and 7pm. I wandered out onto the platforms and found the northbound 21:02 CrossCountry and 21:08 Great Northern both ready to leave, but passengers with no way of knowing other than the departure screens on the platform by the relevant train.

Wow, that's pretty poor.
I've also been impacted by this, but in a slightly different way.
Arrived at Cambridge on a heavily delayed GN service to Kings Cross. Meant to be non stop after Cambridge, but I could see as we joined another unit that it was advertised as the following stopper (it was close to the stoppers departure time).
I assumed the express had been caped and the stock running the stopper.
Highly irritated to see on RTT that it did on fact run non-stop. No idea what happened to the stopper - I suspect caped with the express using the path, I eventually got on a TL.
In the event the express lost further time as it had lost its path, so there was only about 20 minutes in it, but still irritating that the information provision is so utterly abysmal.
I mean they might as well just use a flapper board running off punched cards to the published timetable of the kit can't account for variations to plan.

greaterwest · 13 Jan 2020

arb said:
It appears that the new screens don't have any special mode for severe disruption. I arrived at Cambridge at 8:55pm this evening, where there's been overhead wire problems since about 6pm. The departure boards in the concourse were all showing only the first significantly delayed services, from between 6pm and 7pm. I wandered out onto the platforms and found the northbound 21:02 CrossCountry and 21:08 Great Northern both ready to leave, but passengers with no way of knowing other than the departure screens on the platform by the relevant train.

That sounds like the Customer Information System, rather than the screens. "Disruption mode" means trains will be hidden from screens unless they are "known to be running" (i.e. not "delayed"). That's up to Greater Anglia to manage.

This mode is hardware-agnostic, I don't often see TOCs use the disruption mode feature any more as it just causes more confusion amongst passengers and staff (app vs station screen confusion).

F Great Eastern · 13 Jan 2020

greaterwest said:
That sounds like the Customer Information System, rather than the screens. "Disruption mode" means trains will be hidden from screens unless they are "known to be running" (i.e. not "delayed"). That's up to Greater Anglia to manage.

This mode is hardware-agnostic, I don't often see TOCs use the disruption mode feature any more as it just causes more confusion amongst passengers and staff (app vs station screen confusion).

These screens don't work in the same way as the Infotec ones and their disruption mode and the solution provided by the supplier is a full customer information system , replacing Javelin. The new system also has a text to speech functionality for audio announcements.

I've seen stations with both in and the Infotec ones have been correct whereas these new ones have had the problems that the other posters have explained. I believe these screens don't use the same raw feeds, since the old screens always used to be in line with other systems where I often find the new ones don't. When Ipswich had a mixture of both systems for a short while this was very noticeable.

I suspect that whereas the old system was using raw feeds, this new system may see the data coming in, tweaked or modified in some way and then going out to the screens. Certainly when procuring this system, Greater Anglia stated that one of the major benefits was that they were not restricted to the raw data and they could customise it. They may well be taking all the data in, storing it somewhere, doing some post processing and then spitting it out differently rather than the more simple nature done previously. That would account for the lag these screens have as well.

The problem is that I've noticed when services are delayed, they stay on the new screens until they arrive, which is a problem as it may mean that services which are actually running don't show, because slots on the boards are already taken up. However sometimes at Cambridge they've re-ordered by expected times, which is also weird.

All these screens have shown is that Infotec's experience in the industry over a couple of decades or so is extremely valuable, since they have solutions for these kind of problems and have come across them before, that's what experience gets you.

MikeWM · 14 Jan 2020

arb said:
It appears that the new screens don't have any special mode for severe disruption. I arrived at Cambridge at 8:55pm this evening, where there's been overhead wire problems since about 6pm. The departure boards in the concourse were all showing only the first significantly delayed services, from between 6pm and 7pm. I wandered out onto the platforms and found the northbound 21:02 CrossCountry and 21:08 Great Northern both ready to leave, but passengers with no way of knowing other than the departure screens on the platform by the relevant train.

Good job you did - according to RTT nothing else left going North until the 2255 GA.

Which shows how important accurate and useful information is during major disruption. So far these new screens aren't passing that test :-/

greaterwest · 14 Jan 2020

F Great Eastern said:
These screens don't work in the same way as the Infotec ones and their disruption mode and the solution provided by the supplier is a full customer information system , replacing Javelin. The new system also has a text to speech functionality for audio announcements.

Interesting, I assumed they work with the existing system. Thanks for the explanation.

Shame they are the only other manufacturer still actively marketing displays, Ferrograph and Data Display (Daktronics now) no longer bother and few TOCs use their hardware nowadays.

Scotrail314209 · 14 Jan 2020

greaterwest said:
I've not seen any similar complaints about the ScotRail ones, and I think they have only rolled them out to a few ScotRail stations so far.

Saltcoats got them first, calling points and summary. Most other stations just have the summary board

trebor79 · 15 Jan 2020

Another issue I've just observed at Ely. If more than three screens are required to display all the calling points of a train, none of the calling points beyond screen 3 ever get displayed, even though the system shows screen 1/4, 2/4, 3/4. This is because after screen 3 has been shown, the stupid animation loops start from the beginning again and it flicks back to 1/4.

This system really is junk. Needs the back end blown away and started again from scratch.

superjohn · 15 Jan 2020

F Great Eastern said:
Do we know if the data feeds supplying these screens are the same live raw feeds powering other systems, or are they coming into somewhere, being 'post processed' by Greater Anglia to 'improve the information' and then going out to the screens.

It would appear that their data is either coming from a different source or being ‘translated’ somewhere along the way. Following the observation on another thread that they display 3/4 car class 755’s as being 4/5 cars, I noticed that the older style LED screens still in place at Lowestoft still report them correctly.

MikeWM · 15 Jan 2020

Very odd at Ely this morning. Around 0945 the usual departure platforms were all permuted for some reason - the 0949 to Norwich, usually on 1, was on 2. The 0951 to Liverpool, usually on 3, was on 1. And the 0948 to London, usually on 2, was on 3.

- The departures screen in the ticket hall correctly had the 0949 modified as being on platform 2. But it also wrongly had the 0948 listed as being on 2.
- The main platform screens for each of platforms 1, 2 and 3 were each showing the usual departures from those platforms, not reflecting any of the modifications - so all three were wrong.
- *But* the new small screens at the North end of platforms 2/3 were showing the correct, modified departures from those two platforms!

Shouldn't they all be running off the same data source??

leytongabriel · 15 Jan 2020

Four months after the start of the Meridian Water shuttles and we still don't have a platform 12 screen in the tunnel at Stratford to let us know if the next Lea Valley service is from there or it is just about to depart from platform 11, the stairs to which are not quite adjacent. And yes I did write in .....

superjohn · 16 Jan 2020

I was surprised to see an old school CRT screen still in place and operational at Woodbridge this afternoon.

There were also four of the new screens installed. Two were blank, another was displaying a „we are working to get this screen operating“ message with a clock that was incorrect by more than six hours and the fourth was working and displaying train information. The pair on platform two already had a pigeon nest on top, it’s probably nice and warm up there!

freddie1729 · 20 Jan 2020

At Cambridge, there seems to be a lot of unused space. This is where the train splitting information usually is. For a service to Brighton, you might have to wait ages to see the station you're going to.

This service really didn't need to be spread over two screens. This is on Platform 1 at the far end.

pbANiJ12HzHJyDhTcZlsBTC1d6YtfK0HWIlewEC2Qt-vq6iSgD77n6Lq8XTYoS0oSrsTOjW2zrrw_4C1GbS6UA5ZppPO_PawXJoubdeOjZLmBw2kqBEbbL9TP-sk0_jwp5Yfwod0xRQWpOOwkMzdOxuPvL2CsC9LBy2sYjjhk0mSf0YJzg1ZRpNYtjgPvEICYNXMeMtcXmOq2PeMMhRUgizLVpGDGAyi1Y-QsKYJAFgM_qJWnzvKp9oXHlwS8B6_c7xbzaHFPTQCgrGa_86ljlWHzKEo69F-xp46SNsLILza3hiOQEC7lj6dFVdpuztmkwVcK_-MpFQ8D3_cYe1UhnWDtkVHUqQNdaA6ZiWQTe2hGjz5gS7JmAkrzY7DEkcqc-GSHf0Te9CBxYNwH37IdcUx-SLUZL_BjYMGG8kC1Hmg-AMhp3_FaZE-pS_GORksiRM6IJ46LCBUDY4pc83sy-rnUmAgl74I2nK6m_IK2fs4Lq-6agsrD8eIBc4seA-um7HmcFlKx16C0BCOxDRWfEtga1qJmsgVHuXxhxTToIS3SIO-gSggOd0E_A5inu9qt8anIejl_VILPqvIqaDf94jlrGHKTHYOGPusJ03vsuwO5WymQMg9B0AZkIyO4obLQnEx4vgzZfAwi-l4myL6KuXjQCrz00TyZHdllfqUiA1-wktGlJjcIyw=w433-h577-no

This one nearer the station entrance managed to fit in all the stops:

dMQPZ0Fn5MBhPyCM2Tq7Gca3rBCLweDUVC8715ZRwfBeg-IqV9ptylLYGNvtPHvt04S6I0gkQzTTdJqfg20V3YaUF97iL6YC9zBsEHIAqpKUzCa0A3I0qOqsZtHVj5gghm6IhhyT8n5TRwRAfTEIzHvlXUAW5Lk-olxyD5fmZ4491i5Vuq3Lt2ogwPJCy3YjdcRe5eOLxNtJQ5VpiQx0IZaB-1bJiVYE6Qo81HBsxAiPKwU7ogTaC1gxV8QArwl56gXxqm9qPTh9AnZHNSNTPYsXdLZIexmZC1EU8_GV2UmrwmRQzDDNb5BOMBHdaKNVybRyzpqZ4oPPC2QOoAhpYJSs2HyhYC9aKd8FS7PriH_zI3c8eD3hnYKLS2nKk4D0YbezPeZsB4lHffjj0rBJz_hw4TH-Or0uGVLfVyAFRnhi6eOqKIs4Ps2p0Enzd4G40jdBnyLZq4QOZoWacshw62EiXdV-B4WJryV-ZoACwE5rhkUWtOq3NI4m5ctcSZPHwDjgG0f1PNmKYOUw3NZPXCtjRwGejFMwi83cLPdENZ-qRGweZYnfQOfGaXKGTnjoxvuAerpimuuKWktbr7xvPS5QtN7z0LRW2BQO7JOtD4iwbPMUk7TdvIm4VCwg0n8hNlcjW6NUiZz4IgMpc-d2Txq5zGhCB55OSy9SQT-n2JRIqkOhKRNVZwo=w433-h577-no

Scotrail314209 · 20 Jan 2020

For some reason, Scotrail ones don’t seem to have this issue and work near perfectly. Of course there is always the issue of them crashing, but that happens every so often.

What went wrong here?

F Great Eastern · 22 Jan 2020

Apparently that dreadful text to speech system roll out will gather pace next month. Apparently the benefit is it can say anything they want not just what the live feed says.

trebor79 · 22 Jan 2020

F Great Eastern said:
Apparently that dreadful text to speech system roll out will gather pace next month. Apparently the benefit is it can say anything they want not just what the live feed says.

Noticed that recently, it isn't just a readout of what's on the screen.
Ely platform 3 screen was duplicating the platform 2 screen for a while today.
System also struggles to cope with platform alterations, staff continually having to tell people to disregard the automatic announcements saying 3 for Norwich and 2 for London when they had been swapped.
It also went a bit hyperactive and announced the Norwich train 5 or 6 times in a row without a break.
They should just switch the thing off!

gingerheid · 23 Jan 2020

I like the two external monitors at Ipswich, almost beside each other and showing the same information... about 1 step behind where you can read the other boards from anyway.

The really is a wider information system problem as well though. On Sunday there was to be a 2236 Bury St Edmunds to Ipswich. Realtime trains showed the train to form it hadn't arrived at the station and hadn't then moved on to the siding. The train clearly wasn't going to run. The board said it would and the help point staff insisted it would too. After it hadn't run (and had disappeared from the board) the help point staff said they'd no idea what happened but asked us to wait 10m to see if it turned up :rolleyes:

.

noodlepoodle · 23 Jan 2020

The screens at Bishops Stortford have a little diagram at the bottom showing where first class is. Great, except for two things:

First class is being removed on the WAML.
The screens have no idea when trains are running in reverse formation.

A decent number of 379s have ended up with first class at the country end, making the whole thing fairly pointless. It would be better if they just didn’t show the layout at all and just stuck to showing what the following service is.

F Great Eastern · 23 Jan 2020

The Infotec screens and ATOS Anne announcements I believe took a clean feed from what's going on.

With this new system it's fairly obvious that some post processing is going on which is how Greater Anglia are able to add custom stuff which isn't in the feed that powers national rail enquires and other sources.
!
You'll note ScotRail are back to Infotec as supplier of choice. Someone there clearly decided the drawbacks of the new system were not worth it. Wonder if it was Abellio themselves or another stakeholder.

jon0844 · 23 Jan 2020

noodlepoodle said:
The screens at Bishops Stortford have a little diagram at the bottom showing where first class is. Great, except for two things:

First class is being removed on the WAML.

The screens have no idea when trains are running in reverse formation.

A decent number of 379s have ended up with first class at the country end, making the whole thing fairly pointless. It would be better if they just didn’t show the layout at all and just stuck to showing what the following service is.

The information on a reverse formation is available, so it should be possible to convey the correct information.

Another #fail in my book. It's becoming a rather big book!

trebor79 · 23 Jan 2020

They clearly aren't picking up reverse train formations, they quite often show 755s with the toilet and cycle area at the opposite end from reality.

MikeWM · 23 Jan 2020

F Great Eastern said:
Apparently that dreadful text to speech system roll out will gather pace next month. Apparently the benefit is it can say anything they want not just what the live feed says.

They seem to have removed the 'repeat' announcement that used to play just before the train arrived. Now all we seem to get is the 'usual' one that plays three minutes before the estimated arrival time. At least this week, at least at Ely. Which isn't terribly helpful if you're arriving at the station just before your train, and/or platform alterations happen at the last minute, which is hardly uncommon at Ely.

On the plus side, at least this new system doesn't say the highly dubious phrase 'platform X *is* the yyyy service to z', which annoyed me immensely with the previous system (the number of times I've mumbled under my breath 'no it isn't, it is a platform!' is rather too many...)

MikeWM · 23 Jan 2020

noodlepoodle said:
The screens at Bishops Stortford have a little diagram at the bottom showing where first class is.

Not been to BIS for a little while. Per my post #41 earlier in this thread, have they managed to put a visible departures board on platform 1 yet, or do you still have to cross the bridge or pass through the ticket gates in order to see information about anything other than the next departure from that platform?

gingerheid · 23 Jan 2020

Hmm...

Tottenham Hale. Front 12 carriages are for King's Lynn, and rear 8 for Cambridge.

Is that longer or shorter than a eurostar?

F Great Eastern · 23 Jan 2020

gingerheid said:
Hmm...

Tottenham Hale. Front 12 carriages are for King's Lynn, and rear 8 for Cambridge.

Is that longer or shorter than a eurostar?

Guess it means that the front is for Kings Lynn and the back 8 are for Cambridge, but the programming to allow this to be shown has not been properly tested or is a fudge/hack until they get it working correctly.

Infotec wouldn't be seen dead churning out units with such bugs.

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