Again a manual input. Sometimes someone needs to remind the control room to take it off again!
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Do Information Designers Ever Use The Railway?
- Thread starter Deepgreen
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Again a manual input. Sometimes someone needs to remind the control room to take it off again!
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Railcar
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Ah, good old 'someone'. If a passenger speaks to platform staff, would the platform staff be able to phone the control room?
Dr Hoo
Established Member
Well, up to a point. Clearly if a train is due imminently or is actually at a platform the screens need to show the relevant information.
However, if a platform is not going to be used for a while there is no harm in warning of, er, slippery platforms or upcoming engineering works, timetable changes and so on. Many previous threads have identified that a lot of people don’t read ‘posters’ any more.
(Posted as a former station manager.)
Would be odd, but yes I suppose they could.
Railcar
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If a platform is not going to be used for a while, then there are unlikely to be passengers there to look at the screen anyway.
Cycling non-train information in between train information, and the irritation it causes, is WHY people don't read 'posters' any more.
There is no reason why separate 'information' screens should not be in colour if they need to attract attention. As long as such colour screens are placed where they cannot be confused with signals by drivers, why not?
Nova1
Member
WMR do this. I often sit at Stratford-Upon-Avon after college waiting for my train, and watch thoroughly confused tourists stare at the platform screen trying to work out of the chiltern train on platform 1 is their train to Birmingham, and then the display changes to some random crap like "JOIN OUR CUSTOMER PANEL FOR 2021!!!!!" or "Wear a face covering!!!" or just some generic message about engineering works that are months off.
webbfan
Member
Was involved in the design of a reservation system once, whenever something involved communication to passengers considered a conversation with someone not long before where she complained that could never find her seat. Ticket said seat 24A (or similar), so she went to coach A to find seat 24.
Not stupid, just didn't read all details on the ticket - especially coach id - and made an assumption.
It's not always the information designer, it can be that they are just doing what they've been asked to do or are working to an environment that already exists.
Not stupid, just didn't read all details on the ticket - especially coach id - and made an assumption.
It's not always the information designer, it can be that they are just doing what they've been asked to do or are working to an environment that already exists.
rower40
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Agreed - but it's not a "One size fits all" solution. At some (most?) stations where ECS moves form passenger services, there's a long layover for the driver to change ends. Also, the doors aren't opened until the guard has boarded and prepared the train. I've lost count of the number of times I've been on a platform waiting for the doors on an arrived ECS train to be opened. TD and passenger display systems all show it as class 1 or 2 (possibly with the class 5 headcode in the other berth in the platform) but it's still not ready to board.
I was in London recently and we were talking about how bad the boards are at St Pancras, for example if you want to travel to Luton or Bedford it's not easy to work out where you should be looking. I can understand Eurostar departures being separate, but everything else should really be shown clearly in chronological format, as at almost any other major station.
We compared it to Kings Cross, which is so much better, however the 'next fastest train' board had errors, with some destinations showing no train for several hours (e.g. Biggleswade, Sandy); before anyone says 'those trains go from St Pancras', many similar destinations did show trains from St Pancras, but not all.
And then at Euston the following day, the departure screen in the ticket office cycled so fast between the pages it was almost unusable.
We compared it to Kings Cross, which is so much better, however the 'next fastest train' board had errors, with some destinations showing no train for several hours (e.g. Biggleswade, Sandy); before anyone says 'those trains go from St Pancras', many similar destinations did show trains from St Pancras, but not all.
And then at Euston the following day, the departure screen in the ticket office cycled so fast between the pages it was almost unusable.
Dr Hoo
Established Member
I know what you mean about the ‘main board’ but the ‘pillar’ displays all round St Pancras do use an ‘inclusive’ sequential format.
Deafdoggie
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I appreciate it's niche,but I like the words and sounds matching. I find it like subtitles. With both sound and vision much better chance of knowing what's going on. As long, of course, as it's relevant. All too often in disruption there is no screen text at all, just when it's needed the most!
The one that drives me mad these days is when a train is delayed or cancelled at City Thameslink, it announces the 'next fastest direct service' (which is horrible English) to places like Farringdon or Blackfriars which clearly are only one stop away and unlikely to be anyone's destination. The cacophony of announcements is particularly intrusive in below ground stations
Johnny Lewis
Member
I have read this thread and almost shouted "yes, yes! yes!" at every comment. Automated announcements are absolutely the bugbear of the railway's existence and should be eliminated at all costs!
(of course that won't happen...)
As a starting point though, they should be switched off during periods of disruption, because they end up being meaningless and unhelpful.
I happened to be at York station on Saturday evening from around 17.00, and there was unfortunately a person hit by a train between Doncaster and Retford (I presume a fatality but not confirmed).
So of course, Digital Doris went into meltdown, with continual, repeated, and ultimately pointless, announcements about delayed trains for which there was no firm knowledge of when they might arrive or depart.
Some examples:
"May I have your attention please at Platform 9. We are sorry to announce that the 17.35 LNER Azuma service to Edinburgh is delayed. This is due to a person being hit by a train. Please listen for further announcements." The further announcement was merely to repeat exactly the same message. This particular train was sat somewhere on the approach to Doncaster and eventually arrived at York 3 hours late.
The 17.33 to London King's Cross arrived on time into platform 5, but was then delayed departing. The information screen merely said "Exptd xxxx", with the expected time simply increasing by 1 minute, every minute. Eventually, the train was cancelled, but only after a good 90 minutes or so, and as far as I could see, all the passengers were still sat on the train up to that point. Periodically, Digital Doris would say "We are sorry that the 17.33 LNER Azuma service is delayed by approximately xx minutes. This is due to a person being hit by a train. LNER are sorry..." etc. - but of course in the end the train was cancelled, so actually her announcement was incorrect and misleading.
"May I have your attention please at Platform 9. We are sorry to announce that the 17.56 LNER Azuma service to Newcastle is delayed. This is due to a person being hit by a train. Please listen for further announcements." The further announcement was merely to repeat exactly the same message.
This particular train was sat at Newark Northgate and eventually a decision was taken to cancel it at that point.
The 17.58 to London King's Cross - a scheduled non-stop service from York, was one of the few trains that WAS able to continue south from York, as presumably it was an Azuma capable of running on diesel, so could be diverted via Lincoln. What was particularly (un)helpful was that Digital Doris decided to announce that this train was replatformed to Platform 9 at the exact time a Transpennine Express service going to Newcastle was sat in that platform(!). So cue hoards of frustrated passengers running over from platform 5 to platform 9, jumping straight onto the train, believing it to be the London train. The TPE staff did their best (the LNER platform staff were nowhere to be seen). Only at this point was a manual announcement made, emphasising that the train in platform 9 was for Newcastle, not London, but I would certainly imagine that a number of people had already boarded, and would be quite surprised to find themselves going north instead of south.
The 18.02 to London King's Cross (a York starter) was shown "On time" right up until the point of departure and was surprisingly heavily loaded, despite being the all-stations departure. At about 18.03, the "On time" changed to "Delayed". (I'm not sure why the 17.33 was not also shown simply as "Delayed", as clearly neither train was going anywhere). This eventually departed at 19.48, some 106 minutes late. Again, Digital Doris continued to state that "this service is delayed", without any suggestion of just how late it was going to be.
The 18.45 Grand Central service to Sunderland was shown as cancelled (it had actually terminated at Peterborough), but the stock off their southbound departure at 17.06 - which had been cancelled at York - was brought in to form the 18.45 starting from York. Cue pointless announcement:
"May I have your attention please on platform 9. We are sorry to announce that the 18.45 Grand Central service to Sunderland is cancelled. Grand Central would like to apologise for any inconvenience caused" - followed immediately by a manual announcement saying that the train was not cancelled, it would depart from platform 11. (A VSTP schedule had been hurriedly created, with exactly the same calling pattern and timings as the scheduled service, so was shown as a separate departure on the screens. But to any customers wanting to use this train, they wouldn't care about that - all they wanted to know was that the train WAS running from York).
Obviously many trains needed to be replatformed at fairly short notice - the Class 180 for the 17.06 Grand Central service was sat in platform 3 for almost an hour before it shunted off to Holgate sidings, and platform 5 was also similarly occupied by the 17.33, so knocking out two of the five through platforms. As a result, platforms 9, 10 and 11 were having to cope with more departures than usual, which added to the confusion. However, the 17.49 to Liverpool Lime Street is booked to use platform 3 and this was displayed on the screens for the whole time the GC 180 was sat there. It was obvious that this train WOULD need to be replatformed - and indeed it was - to platform 10. For customers unfamiliar with York, or not so sprightly as others, or with lots of luggage, the walk from platform 3 to platform 10 is not a quick and easy one. Would it not have been better to simply remove the platform from the Liverpool departure until it was known which platform would be available for it to use? It eventually departed 17 minutes late, although a good chunk of the delay was being held north of the station awaiting a vacant platform.
One thing that I observed is that, around 16.50, there were no less than FIVE LNER members of staff congregated on platform 5, literally doing nothing. Funnily enough, as soon as the disruption began, they ALL disappeared. There's an LNER information point on platform 5 - not once during the next 90 minutes or so did I see it occupied. It took a good hour before anything appeared on the information screens to say that there was major disruption if you were travelling towards London, and about the same amount of time before Digital Doris made a similar verbal announcement.
Delays happen. Serious and disruptive incidents happen. Things happen at short notice. But it was evident here that Digital Doris is just not equipped to cope with such situations. While I was there, three or possibly four "real human" announcements WERE given, so clearly there are still staff who are capable of such things. As soon as the train plan begins to fall apart, whatever the reason, automated announcements MUST stop and be replaced by a human, who is capable of giving information that actually relates to what is happening. These announcements should be backed up by a visible staff presence.
This is a long rant, but it's the thing that causes me the greatest frustration about delay management, and for it to happen at a major, well-staffed, station like York is just unforgivable.
(of course that won't happen...)
As a starting point though, they should be switched off during periods of disruption, because they end up being meaningless and unhelpful.
I happened to be at York station on Saturday evening from around 17.00, and there was unfortunately a person hit by a train between Doncaster and Retford (I presume a fatality but not confirmed).
So of course, Digital Doris went into meltdown, with continual, repeated, and ultimately pointless, announcements about delayed trains for which there was no firm knowledge of when they might arrive or depart.
Some examples:
"May I have your attention please at Platform 9. We are sorry to announce that the 17.35 LNER Azuma service to Edinburgh is delayed. This is due to a person being hit by a train. Please listen for further announcements." The further announcement was merely to repeat exactly the same message. This particular train was sat somewhere on the approach to Doncaster and eventually arrived at York 3 hours late.
The 17.33 to London King's Cross arrived on time into platform 5, but was then delayed departing. The information screen merely said "Exptd xxxx", with the expected time simply increasing by 1 minute, every minute. Eventually, the train was cancelled, but only after a good 90 minutes or so, and as far as I could see, all the passengers were still sat on the train up to that point. Periodically, Digital Doris would say "We are sorry that the 17.33 LNER Azuma service is delayed by approximately xx minutes. This is due to a person being hit by a train. LNER are sorry..." etc. - but of course in the end the train was cancelled, so actually her announcement was incorrect and misleading.
"May I have your attention please at Platform 9. We are sorry to announce that the 17.56 LNER Azuma service to Newcastle is delayed. This is due to a person being hit by a train. Please listen for further announcements." The further announcement was merely to repeat exactly the same message.
This particular train was sat at Newark Northgate and eventually a decision was taken to cancel it at that point.
The 17.58 to London King's Cross - a scheduled non-stop service from York, was one of the few trains that WAS able to continue south from York, as presumably it was an Azuma capable of running on diesel, so could be diverted via Lincoln. What was particularly (un)helpful was that Digital Doris decided to announce that this train was replatformed to Platform 9 at the exact time a Transpennine Express service going to Newcastle was sat in that platform(!). So cue hoards of frustrated passengers running over from platform 5 to platform 9, jumping straight onto the train, believing it to be the London train. The TPE staff did their best (the LNER platform staff were nowhere to be seen). Only at this point was a manual announcement made, emphasising that the train in platform 9 was for Newcastle, not London, but I would certainly imagine that a number of people had already boarded, and would be quite surprised to find themselves going north instead of south.
The 18.02 to London King's Cross (a York starter) was shown "On time" right up until the point of departure and was surprisingly heavily loaded, despite being the all-stations departure. At about 18.03, the "On time" changed to "Delayed". (I'm not sure why the 17.33 was not also shown simply as "Delayed", as clearly neither train was going anywhere). This eventually departed at 19.48, some 106 minutes late. Again, Digital Doris continued to state that "this service is delayed", without any suggestion of just how late it was going to be.
The 18.45 Grand Central service to Sunderland was shown as cancelled (it had actually terminated at Peterborough), but the stock off their southbound departure at 17.06 - which had been cancelled at York - was brought in to form the 18.45 starting from York. Cue pointless announcement:
"May I have your attention please on platform 9. We are sorry to announce that the 18.45 Grand Central service to Sunderland is cancelled. Grand Central would like to apologise for any inconvenience caused" - followed immediately by a manual announcement saying that the train was not cancelled, it would depart from platform 11. (A VSTP schedule had been hurriedly created, with exactly the same calling pattern and timings as the scheduled service, so was shown as a separate departure on the screens. But to any customers wanting to use this train, they wouldn't care about that - all they wanted to know was that the train WAS running from York).
Obviously many trains needed to be replatformed at fairly short notice - the Class 180 for the 17.06 Grand Central service was sat in platform 3 for almost an hour before it shunted off to Holgate sidings, and platform 5 was also similarly occupied by the 17.33, so knocking out two of the five through platforms. As a result, platforms 9, 10 and 11 were having to cope with more departures than usual, which added to the confusion. However, the 17.49 to Liverpool Lime Street is booked to use platform 3 and this was displayed on the screens for the whole time the GC 180 was sat there. It was obvious that this train WOULD need to be replatformed - and indeed it was - to platform 10. For customers unfamiliar with York, or not so sprightly as others, or with lots of luggage, the walk from platform 3 to platform 10 is not a quick and easy one. Would it not have been better to simply remove the platform from the Liverpool departure until it was known which platform would be available for it to use? It eventually departed 17 minutes late, although a good chunk of the delay was being held north of the station awaiting a vacant platform.
One thing that I observed is that, around 16.50, there were no less than FIVE LNER members of staff congregated on platform 5, literally doing nothing. Funnily enough, as soon as the disruption began, they ALL disappeared. There's an LNER information point on platform 5 - not once during the next 90 minutes or so did I see it occupied. It took a good hour before anything appeared on the information screens to say that there was major disruption if you were travelling towards London, and about the same amount of time before Digital Doris made a similar verbal announcement.
Delays happen. Serious and disruptive incidents happen. Things happen at short notice. But it was evident here that Digital Doris is just not equipped to cope with such situations. While I was there, three or possibly four "real human" announcements WERE given, so clearly there are still staff who are capable of such things. As soon as the train plan begins to fall apart, whatever the reason, automated announcements MUST stop and be replaced by a human, who is capable of giving information that actually relates to what is happening. These announcements should be backed up by a visible staff presence.
This is a long rant, but it's the thing that causes me the greatest frustration about delay management, and for it to happen at a major, well-staffed, station like York is just unforgivable.
Surreytraveller
On Moderation
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These days, a lot of the humans are so dependant upon the computers, that the humans no longer have the knowledge or ability to think for themselves
Can’t really win though - you also get hordes of complaints that engineering works isn’t advertised enough in advance. The way the interleaving works could be better but they are mostly default timings that most operators have little to no control over.
norbitonflyer
Established Member
What? Have the mere underlings who have to mix with the travelling public talk to the great deities in their ivory tower? Whenever I've suggested to platform staff that they might do such a thing, they act as even the very thought would bring down a thunderboilt on them.
They don't even have the ability to switch off a display which is giving wrong information, such as displaying as "on time" a train that was due two hours ago (having been lost to the PIS system due to a diversion by another route) or more seriously, a farcical episode at Wimbledon when the PIS, in league with the automated announcements, enacted an homage to the Two Ronnies "Mastermind" sketch by displaying one train whilst the previous (or was it the following?) train was in the platform. Despite the evident confusion and obvious potential for passengers ending up in the wrong place (platform 8 serves at least eight different branches) and the announcers were doing their best to win the arguments with the automated system PIS, it seems no-one had the authority to pull the plug on the automated system.
(I have also seen announcements system having arguments with the screens - which would be funny if it wasn't so important)
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
It seems the interface between the announcements and screens isn't 100% in places. One I've noticed is that a lot of trains at stations north of Tring are being shown on screens as being 4-car, but the announcements are correctly announcing them as 8.
Thats odd as the announcements information and text are from exactly the same data source.
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
I thought I misheard the first time, but I've noticed it several times now.
On the other hand I’ve had platform staff mention it to me before and that’s fine. Whether a passenger mentioned it to then first I have no idea, but I would certainly hope a conscientious member of staff noticed it before a passenger had to bring it up.
Whilst it’s generally removed in good time, some stations the control staff don’t actually have a direct view outdoors and maybe have a few cameras so believe it or not you can’t always see when it’s raining. And once an announcement is on sometimes you can genuinely forget. Many times certain parts of the station are more damp than others and some managers are risk adverse and insist it remains on for a period of time as claims regarding slips,trips and falls normally have a key question around “was it raining / wet?” and “were safety announcements being played?” The claims can run into tens of thousands of pounds. Not everything is an evil conspiracy! But yes people could be a bit more on the ball at times.
CaptainBen
Member
The Northern City line platforms at Moorgate are another source of silly announcements. Departures roughly every 5 minutes, on one of two routes, and typically alternating between platforms 9&10. Every so often however, one train will end up swapping, which then has a domino effect of needing all the following services to swap platforms too. Cue a series of automated announcements along the lines of:
"This is a platform alteration. Can I have your attention please on Platform 9? This is an announcement about the 1855 service to Welwyn Garden City. The 1855 service to Welwyn Garden City will now depart from Platform 10."
Repeat for every train that's timetabled to leave in the next two hours... despite the fact that everyone on the station will be wanting wither this train or the next one.
"This is a platform alteration. Can I have your attention please on Platform 9? This is an announcement about the 1855 service to Welwyn Garden City. The 1855 service to Welwyn Garden City will now depart from Platform 10."
Repeat for every train that's timetabled to leave in the next two hours... despite the fact that everyone on the station will be wanting wither this train or the next one.
Deepgreen
Established Member
It occurs to me, as someone who learned his most basic railway knowledge in the 1960s/70s as a boy, that the then SR system of headcodes and finger-boards had enough permutations to allow for most journeys and their variants when disrupted. Now, I know the railway is a lot more complex these days, but we appear to have systems in place which could have huge flexibility to account for out-of-the-ordinary circumstances, but which simply don't. We have allowed computer systems to run things to their own algorithms and have lost almost all flexibility. SWR seems to be especially bad at this - when things go even slightly wrong, it seems that most train displays revert oh-so-readily to "SWR" - just when people need more than ever to have confirmation of a train's destination, it disappears! I don't know how the very frequent disappearance of SWR's on-train information fits in with DDA-compliance, but it must surely be in contravention frequently.
On top of that we have the fragmented approach to information that, to take one small example, sees trains "separating", "dividing" or "splitting". There has been the rush to adopt flashy liveries that do away with peripeheral stuff like properly-visible denotation of first class, catering, etc., which had taken decades to become established in the collective consciousness, but which was lost so easily in a short time. To be re-introducing these things again now (e.g. GWR) shows a staggering lack of genuine foresight previously and no real corporate desire to inform passengers, just to advertise each TOCs' identity.
It also seems that there is a corporate attitude that inventing pointless new terms for things somehow displays proactivity and progress - no, it doesn't - it just shows a lack of recognition of how important consistency and conciseness is in the provision of information. What do people want to know above all when arriving at a platform to catch a train? Where the next one is going and when it will come. They can find out about future events, such as engineering, at dedicated, well-labelled screens which have a small marginal cost.
So, my original question of whether these system/information designers ever have to suffer them in real life (or the poor front-line staff who have to wrestle with them) remains, but I think I know the answer.
On top of that we have the fragmented approach to information that, to take one small example, sees trains "separating", "dividing" or "splitting". There has been the rush to adopt flashy liveries that do away with peripeheral stuff like properly-visible denotation of first class, catering, etc., which had taken decades to become established in the collective consciousness, but which was lost so easily in a short time. To be re-introducing these things again now (e.g. GWR) shows a staggering lack of genuine foresight previously and no real corporate desire to inform passengers, just to advertise each TOCs' identity.
It also seems that there is a corporate attitude that inventing pointless new terms for things somehow displays proactivity and progress - no, it doesn't - it just shows a lack of recognition of how important consistency and conciseness is in the provision of information. What do people want to know above all when arriving at a platform to catch a train? Where the next one is going and when it will come. They can find out about future events, such as engineering, at dedicated, well-labelled screens which have a small marginal cost.
So, my original question of whether these system/information designers ever have to suffer them in real life (or the poor front-line staff who have to wrestle with them) remains, but I think I know the answer.
webbfan
Member
Did over 10 years commuting between various stations and Euston before doing any design. Lots of things changed since then but passengers haven't.
mike57
Established Member
I work in a high hazard industry (not railways) designing control systems. Where ever we have an HMI (Human Machine Interface) we have to meet Human Factors design requirement. The design, including screens, audible cues and system control actions are then subject to a human factors review, and the system, after build, but before delivery will then be the subject of further human factors testing, often by the people designated to use it, and may be by other non technical staff to identify any remaining problems.
A lot of what I see as a passenger would not not pass the first hurdle of our human factors design requirements, some examples:
People who use the railways regularly find it difficult, occasional users end up being baffled.
Sorry if this is a long post, but its an area I have been dealing with on my current project...
A lot of what I see as a passenger would not not pass the first hurdle of our human factors design requirements, some examples:
- Inconsistent use of words, e.g the Due example quoted early, and different TOCs presenting the same information in different ways. Use the same key words across the system
- Use of displays to convey irrelevant information. A departure board should tell you about train departures, and any information which affects departures. As an example telling me platforms get wet when it rains does not live there (see next point). If you need to convey that information put it on a separate display with other things that do not affect the immediate journey(s) e.g. Up coming engineering work, special offers etc.
- Too many audible cues, Audio announcements/tones should be resticted to immediate things, in the rail world that would be departures and disruption. Other things cause user overload, and they tend to switch off. (In my world operators will often disconnect or otherwise silence an offending speaker, I've seen more that a few cases of the 'sock and gaffer tape' solution over the years.) There are documented limits in our industry which identify both the length and frequency of audible cues before user overload results, trust me the average station/train exceeds this by a large margin
- Linked to the previous point. If you are using spoken announcements, preceed all announcements with an audible cue (Anyone who has travelled in France will recognise the SNCF ding dong intro before messages). This helps users concentrate, if you are hard of hearing (like me) or English is not your first language it helps you 'tune in'. This should apply to both automated and human announcements.
- Carry out real world tests of any system, you can model/desktop review every aspect, but you can never catch everything, and then make changes. In the case of audio systems test under both crowded and quiet conditions.
- Every announcement/display needs a purpose, on hearing that announcement/seeing that display what action do you expect passengers to take?. In the case of departure boards thats fairly clear, go to the platform and get on the right train, so is all the information they need to carry out that 'task' presented to them. With other displays its less clear, and repeated announcements/display messages on the trivial level e.g. 'rain is wet' cause confusion and user overload, and are strongly discouraged in our industry. The only time where it is permitted in our industry is if there is an immediate and serious safety issue which requires immediate action, e.g. a building evaction is required
- Information accuracy, inaccurate information is worse than no information. I know there will always be case where something is broken, but at least fix the obvios and repetetive errors that seem to occur regularly
People who use the railways regularly find it difficult, occasional users end up being baffled.
Sorry if this is a long post, but its an area I have been dealing with on my current project...
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Let's take your post in turn as there are some fair comments.
There are a lot of announcements these days and some should be pared back or evaluated. However one of the problems is that some managers and/or DfT are insistent that certain announcements need to be played at certain intervals; (e.g. "see it, say it, sorted" every 30 mins). Then there's normally another announcement about general safety & maybe another one about doors closing. Then if it's raining the wet weather one (which can be a key component of a civil case if it's not playing and there's a slip on the station. Then maybe another mandated announcement and we've not even got to engineering works yet. Some stations / routes are better than others but I agree it's easy to overload. That being said, it's all quite useful information so finding which ones to remove is tricky.
I've often said that many users are not active and highly knowledgable users like members of this forum and announcements are key. But focusing on the critical ones (and manual announcements when there is disruption which piques interest) and actively evaluating what is in the system on a regular basis is important. Unfortunately some feel that "oh record another announcement for X issue" solves an ongoing problem, which in reality it doesn't and adds to the clutter.
Can't say I disagree with this. Many PA systems at stations do include this, but others do not. It probably could be done at a cost to standardise everywhere with a noticable railway (or GBR) "jingle", but would it be seen as a worthwhile cost? There was a thread that discussed this in some depth a while back - read it here.
Most PA systems have been thoroughly user tested, but this was probably decades back now and station layouts and crowding have changed a lot over that time. At many stations, the audio can be deafening in some places and very quiet in others and that is simply dependent on where the speakers are. Again, sorting all of this to be universally heard at all stations probably comes at a significant cost.
Not all announcements should be for "action" purposes. Some are for "information" or "warning" reasons. That being said the 'rain is wet' as you put it does have an action - ensure people are more vigilant and to take extra care than they would normally under dry conditions. Maybe it seems pointless to you and I, but as mentioned previously, its a key point of litigation when people make claims against NR or TOCs.
Definitely agree. During disruption it is hard for human operators to keep on top of all the information and amend it accordingly because there is so much of it and automated systems handle all of this on a daily basis and 95% of the time don't need much human input. Where things do start to go wrong, the workload of some in Control or CIS might triple or quadruple and this is a fundamental problem for the railway; you can't have loads of extra people sitting around spare for an incident to happen, but how do you draft somebody in at very short notice at any given time of the day to support? Some of this comes down to training and team structures but I think it's almost inevitable some things will get missed. Faults or errors I would hope are reported and then looking at the core systems to see if particular recurring issues can be mitigated in some way.
There are already nation standards for disruption (Passenger Information During Disruption or PIDD) and other standards for normal service, although it seems like generally more and more divergence has been allowed in the last decade or so (some of which has been good and innovative). I do hope GBR will be able to thoroughly look at information / communication tools thoroughly and deliver some changes that are applied equally across the railway. As for the Swindon incident that was a combination of many unfortunate factors at the same time (service disruption, crew shortages, a train fault, overcrowding, a power differential, altering an already altered a plan). But yes informatin & communication was part of that and the importance of that can not be underplayed.
A lot of what you mention are as an impact of privatisation / fragemntation though and perhaps GBR will take a holistic view although there have always been differences between regions / sectors too, so may not be universal although a bit of standardisation would be helpful. Not at all costs though - you wouldn't want the same type of information management at a busy London terminal compared to a busy through station for instance.
The "Due" thing has normally come directly from passengers due to "Arrived" annoying people because the train was physically not there but had trigeered the berth point slightly down the line. This was normally more of an issue on TOCs running a significant metro operation it seems. However this has come to annoy another set of people, so not really sure what the solution is as the technology can only do so much (reliant on the physical infrastructure to tell you where the train is).
Many stations do have standalone "notice screens" which show rolling information as mentioned. Some places again only have platform displays so physically there is nowhere else to put this information. I'm sure many would love a separate screen but it of course comes at a cost. That being said, I can't say I've ever seen a text "wet weather" notice on platform displays!
There are a lot of announcements these days and some should be pared back or evaluated. However one of the problems is that some managers and/or DfT are insistent that certain announcements need to be played at certain intervals; (e.g. "see it, say it, sorted" every 30 mins). Then there's normally another announcement about general safety & maybe another one about doors closing. Then if it's raining the wet weather one (which can be a key component of a civil case if it's not playing and there's a slip on the station. Then maybe another mandated announcement and we've not even got to engineering works yet. Some stations / routes are better than others but I agree it's easy to overload. That being said, it's all quite useful information so finding which ones to remove is tricky.
I've often said that many users are not active and highly knowledgable users like members of this forum and announcements are key. But focusing on the critical ones (and manual announcements when there is disruption which piques interest) and actively evaluating what is in the system on a regular basis is important. Unfortunately some feel that "oh record another announcement for X issue" solves an ongoing problem, which in reality it doesn't and adds to the clutter.
Can't say I disagree with this. Many PA systems at stations do include this, but others do not. It probably could be done at a cost to standardise everywhere with a noticable railway (or GBR) "jingle", but would it be seen as a worthwhile cost? There was a thread that discussed this in some depth a while back - read it here.
Most PA systems have been thoroughly user tested, but this was probably decades back now and station layouts and crowding have changed a lot over that time. At many stations, the audio can be deafening in some places and very quiet in others and that is simply dependent on where the speakers are. Again, sorting all of this to be universally heard at all stations probably comes at a significant cost.
Not all announcements should be for "action" purposes. Some are for "information" or "warning" reasons. That being said the 'rain is wet' as you put it does have an action - ensure people are more vigilant and to take extra care than they would normally under dry conditions. Maybe it seems pointless to you and I, but as mentioned previously, its a key point of litigation when people make claims against NR or TOCs.
Definitely agree. During disruption it is hard for human operators to keep on top of all the information and amend it accordingly because there is so much of it and automated systems handle all of this on a daily basis and 95% of the time don't need much human input. Where things do start to go wrong, the workload of some in Control or CIS might triple or quadruple and this is a fundamental problem for the railway; you can't have loads of extra people sitting around spare for an incident to happen, but how do you draft somebody in at very short notice at any given time of the day to support? Some of this comes down to training and team structures but I think it's almost inevitable some things will get missed. Faults or errors I would hope are reported and then looking at the core systems to see if particular recurring issues can be mitigated in some way.
There are already nation standards for disruption (Passenger Information During Disruption or PIDD) and other standards for normal service, although it seems like generally more and more divergence has been allowed in the last decade or so (some of which has been good and innovative). I do hope GBR will be able to thoroughly look at information / communication tools thoroughly and deliver some changes that are applied equally across the railway. As for the Swindon incident that was a combination of many unfortunate factors at the same time (service disruption, crew shortages, a train fault, overcrowding, a power differential, altering an already altered a plan). But yes informatin & communication was part of that and the importance of that can not be underplayed.
A lot of what you mention are as an impact of privatisation / fragemntation though and perhaps GBR will take a holistic view although there have always been differences between regions / sectors too, so may not be universal although a bit of standardisation would be helpful. Not at all costs though - you wouldn't want the same type of information management at a busy London terminal compared to a busy through station for instance.
mike57
Established Member
@Horizon22 I am not going to quote your post, there are some reasonable comments, and I think it is clear that there are improvements which could be made probably at relatively low cost, go for the 'low hanging fruit' first, and deal with the easy to sort stuff, and then see what the remaining issues look like, very often if you deal with half the problems the remaining half dont look as bad.
One point I am going to emphasise is: There are far too many announcments, this I see as a serious problem, I would regard the Swindon incident as a near miss, no one was hurt, but there was a lot of disruption. The next time we may not be so lucky. I think it is a matter of safety. Deal with the ambulance chasers if people slip and fall in a different way, present 'see it say it' type info differently, because its my view that in dealing with one problem you are actually potentially creating a bigger one.
Having repetetive announcments about routine matters (see it say it, wet platforms etc) is counter productive, people mentally switch off, even if they dont put headphones in thier ears or whatever. If you are hard of hearing, or English is not your first language, then extra concentration is required and that makes it even worse. After the 6th repetetive announcement in a short space of time you get mentally fatigued/switch off, and if the 7th announcement is something serious you probably wont comprehend it. Not good good if it is something which needs an immediate response, and could be the trigger or contributary factor to something which results in injury or loss of life. (6 is just a guess based on similar experiences in other industries).
In our industry we get a similar situation, alarm flooding, too much information to process, and it was a contributary factor to a major fire at Milford Haven refinary in 1994.
One point I am going to emphasise is: There are far too many announcments, this I see as a serious problem, I would regard the Swindon incident as a near miss, no one was hurt, but there was a lot of disruption. The next time we may not be so lucky. I think it is a matter of safety. Deal with the ambulance chasers if people slip and fall in a different way, present 'see it say it' type info differently, because its my view that in dealing with one problem you are actually potentially creating a bigger one.
Having repetetive announcments about routine matters (see it say it, wet platforms etc) is counter productive, people mentally switch off, even if they dont put headphones in thier ears or whatever. If you are hard of hearing, or English is not your first language, then extra concentration is required and that makes it even worse. After the 6th repetetive announcement in a short space of time you get mentally fatigued/switch off, and if the 7th announcement is something serious you probably wont comprehend it. Not good good if it is something which needs an immediate response, and could be the trigger or contributary factor to something which results in injury or loss of life. (6 is just a guess based on similar experiences in other industries).
In our industry we get a similar situation, alarm flooding, too much information to process, and it was a contributary factor to a major fire at Milford Haven refinary in 1994.
Put it on a plain notice board if needs be, or the ticket machine 'at rest' display, even our local station, Bempton, which is at the bottom end of size and footfall has a ticket machine, but please dont clutter destination displays with it.
The only situations I can see where “arrived” is an appropriate message (as opposed to the expected departure time) are a) on an arrivals board - as in an airport arrivals hall - fir the benefit of those meeting arriving passengers and b) where a train service commencing its journey is formed by an arrival which then sits in the platform for ( say) 30 minutes. For the first 20 minutes or so, it’s worth putting up “arrived” to let people know they can already make their way to the platform and board the train - after that, it’s probably better to show the expected departure time .
I don't disagree about announcements. However many can be switched off with the click of a button should there been serious service disruption. In fact the operators of CIS system have access to "Disruption Mode" which will turn off all automated announcements if need be.
Operational staff (drivers, guards, dispatchers) need not pay attention to these announcements as they are for passengers only at stations. They are responsible for the safe running of trains and ensuring passengers are safe in and around trains too. In emergency situations - such as station evacuations - the same will be true and it will be one emergency alarm that tells people exactly what to do. If the situation requires it, announcements can be altered and changed with a moment's notice. I suppose there's just disagreement and divergence amongst TOCs about what "normal" should sound like.
Many train stations are also termini. There are people (and staff) waiting to meet [people off] trains as well.
This is a very British thing. I don't think I've ever heard warnings about wet weather in Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, France or the US. How have we got to this point in the UK? How could people walking/cycling/driving to the station fail to notice that it's raining? If I slip over on a wet pavement or steps, can I sue the council?
I'm really struggling to get my head round this. Let's imagine that the wet weather warning goes off every 10 minutes. Someone gets off a train and slips on the wet steps 30 seconds later. It's unlikely that the automated announcement will have gone off in those 30 seconds so whether or not it existed at all will have no bearing on the incident. Have people successfully claimed off the railway because they fell over in the rain? As I said above, how does the rest of the world manage without this?
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mike57
Established Member
Maybe we need to change the message to "For the benefit those you recently arrived from a place where you have never seen rain, rain can make surfaces including walkways slippery"
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