Greater Anglia New Passenger Information Screens

[Bletchleyite]

Putting PIS screens behind pieces of infrastructure is a LU thing, so they're in good company.

I agree, they are tiny and hard to read compared with LED ones. Nice idea, poorly executed - Abellio through and through!

Sadly I believe we are getting them on LNR, but given their competence I'd imagine it'll take a year or three to get them in. There's been a faulty screen at Bletchley for over 5 years...

 

[F Great Eastern]

I agree, they are tiny and hard to read compared with LED ones. Nice idea, poorly executed - Abellio through and through!

Sadly I believe we are getting them on LNR, but given their competence I'd imagine it'll take a year or three to get them in. There's been a faulty screen at Bletchley for over 5 years...

Probably a darn sight cheaper to buy these, fix them to the wall than buying the new full matrix and white ones, or the Thameslink LED ones Infotec make though with their heavy duty brackets, fittings and supporting strucutres

 

[Class 170101]

This was really well thought out.

No doubt the savings they made by not having to pay for proper brackets and supporting structures Infotec style, were well worth it in financial terms, who cares about the people who actually need to read it.

These things are useless, they're behind other live systems, they're too small, suffer from glare and cheaply placed and supported, The Infotec stuff is far better, but was probably far more expensive.

Which station is your picture taken from? Surely they would have just been better affixing the screen directly onto the wall and turning it through 90 degrees?

 

[Midnight Sun]

At least there is one good thing about screens, in that you now know where the wheelchair and cycle space is going to be. Brings a end to the rush along to the other end of the train when it comes in.

 

[F Great Eastern]

Which station is your picture taken from? Surely they would have just been better affixing the screen directly onto the wall and turning it through 90 degrees?

Stowmarket

 

[eastdyke]

[This thread seems to be roughly right for my moan]
Spent more time around Ipswich Station yesterday than I have since I was about 12. Generally kept myself amused.
The new PIS screens in the lobby (not really a concourse is it?) at Ipswich are totally inadequate. The screens themselves seem ok, just not enough of them.
Six screens in total, for the next 5 departures individually and a summary departure screen for the same 5 trains. Not even a page 2 for the summary screen and no arrivals information at all.

The TO and CS desk staff must be peeeed off with answering questions for which answers could and should already be prominently displayed.

Its not as if everything at Ipswich runs to time (or even at all just now).

Are the screens a work in progress or is that it?
[moan over]

 

[F Great Eastern]

On Monday in Ipswich there was a guy from GA talking to what seemed to be some kind of person from the company who supplied the screens by the way he was talking to him and from hearing their conversation about what they need.

It was very apparent that the person that the GA person was speaking to was knowledgable about what was needed in a staton like ipswich, but the person they were speaking to, didn't have the first idea about the rail sector.

The screens are crap, most of the stations they are smaller than the old ones and harder to read and always seem to be lagged from real time and show less information. They are a definitive downgrade on what went before and I've never seen any of them show multiple pages, so maybe they can't? They're a relatively new system.

There is no denying that some stations without screens or very old ones, or not enough needed them replacing or added. The problem is once again Abellio has decided to try and replace everything and tick as many boxes as cheaply as possible to generate good PR rather than focusing on doing less, but doing it to the standard passengers deserve.

They should have simply left the existing systems in at stations where they were sufficent and just bought some newer infotec displays in to add to them or to install them where there were none or replace life expired ones. The boards at Ipswich absloutely did not need replacing and what we've got now is worse than what went before it in terms of functionality.

There's a reason that the majority of the rail industry use Infotec, because they know the market inside out, and their solutions are designed around passenger needs. You have to pay a bit more for them, but what you get is support from a group of people who reallly understand the industry and better functionality.

 

[eastdyke]

I have poorish eyesight. The new screens are actually an improvement for me.

Sorry but to repeat:
For me, it is simply that there are not enough screens, a summary screen just showing the same 5 train departures is useless. The absence of any arrival information at all is incredible, quite a lot of pax are 'met' at a place like Ipswich, I know I used to do it myself and I was not alone.

 

[smsm1]

At least there is one good thing about screens, in that you now know where the wheelchair and cycle space is going to be. Brings a end to the rush along to the other end of the train when it comes in.

Only if you can figure out that's it's a Class 156, thus the opposite way around to the one shown on the display. I've not managed to check the newer Class 755s to see if they are the right way around.

 

[F Great Eastern]

For me, it is simply that there are not enough screens, a summary screen just showing the same 5 train departures is useless. The absence of any arrival information at all is incredible, quite a lot of pax are 'met' at a place like Ipswich, I know I used to do it myself and I was not alone.

Ipswich used to have the following in the booking hall
- 1 dedicated information screen that could be used as an additional departure scren
- 4 dedicated departure screen for each of next 4 trains.
- 1 arrival screen.

After the barriers there werre about 7 summary of departure screens scatterd all over the station showing the next 10 or so trains leaving from all over the station, along with platforms having 2-3 dedicated departure screens for that platform.

The current set-up is worse than what it replaced and it's unlikely to get any better if they start rotating the information with ads like Abellio have started ot do in Scotland which is highly irritating.

 

[MikeWM]

I'd agree that the placement of the new screens doesn't seem to have been thought through very well.

eg. I was at Bishop's Stortford a few months back and from platform 1 could see at least 3 boards telling me what the next train from that platform was going to be (useful) - but no departures boards. At all. To see a departures board you either had to cross the bridge to the island platform or go through the gateline. For a station often used for interchange (to/from Stansted) that is very poorly planned.

 

[F Great Eastern]

I'd agree that the placement of the new screens doesn't seem to have been thought through very well.

It shouldn't require much thought at all, since most medium to large stations (with some exceptions) already had a good layout of screens and well thought out positioning with usability and passenger requirements in mind, so they even had a ready made layout to base the positioning of the new screen installation on.

It's the very essence of breaking soemthing that didn't need fixing

 

[MikeWM]

It shouldn't require much thought at all, since most medium to large stations (with some exceptions) already had a good layout of screens and well thought out positioning with usability and passenger requirements in mind, so they even had a ready made layout to base the positioning of the new screen installation on.

It's the very essence of breaking soemthing that didn't need fixing

Indeed so. At some places (eg. Ely, Cambridge) they do seem to have done pretty much a straight replacement, but clearly not everywhere.

I do think the new screens are more readable for people who require high contrast (though the old ones aren't at all bad either, certainly not compared to the old monitors we had at Cambridge for years that were entirely useless if the sun was out).

But it is annoying that, even when placed where the previous ones were, these show less information than before per screen, and show stale information for far too long after a train has departed.

As for the exciting 'visual effect' of having the 'on time/delayed/expected at' information scrolling in from the right on the departures board - words fail me. Did they try this out on actual rail users at all?

 

[Joseph_Locke]

Ignoring https://d3cez36w5wymxj.cloudfront.net/migrated/Information Screens FINAL.pdf ....

 

[Bletchleyite]

The current set-up is worse than what it replaced and it's unlikely to get any better if they start rotating the information with ads like Abellio have started ot do in Scotland which is highly irritating.

Ads? Wow. That is wrong in every possible way.

 

[Aictos]

Ads? Wow. That is wrong in every possible way.

Well the Luton to Dunstable busway has screens at the stops on the busway itself that vary between bus information and BBC News so it’s nothing new.

 

[F Great Eastern]

Ads? Wow. That is wrong in every possible way.

The attachment I added above, is from a Scotrail Screen.

Most of the time it seems to be using unused screens to show ads, but in that ScotRail one, you could use the right hand side to show a table of departures etc if it wasn't needed for anything else, instead of that ad.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Well the Luton to Dunstable busway has screens at the stops on the busway itself that vary between bus information and BBC News so it’s nothing new.

BBC News is at least interesting and useful.

 

[Aictos]

BBC News is at least interesting and useful.

If you want to watch the news while waiting for a bus yes but I think information about the service and future engineering works is more important.

 

[F Great Eastern]

BBC News is at least interesting and useful.

Probably Greater Anglia won't show any ads, but the capability is certainly there.

Whole load of other photos here:
https://www.blackbox-co.com/

 

[ashkeba]

Probably Greater Anglia won't show any ads, but the capability is certainly there.

If they do show ads on a screen which could be doing something useful, where can we report it as a fault?

And I am not sure that I want the state broadcaster on there either. They have enough power already. Talking of power, just turn screens off if they are not needed and save some electricity for something greener.

I guess it would be less scary than the big screen showing Sky News at King's Cross - some of the headlines on there can be very dodgy. I guess security must be top notch for it to show some of those in London and not be broken by things thrown at it! That or maybe people just ignore non-core screens now.

 

[Bletchleyite]

If you use the term "state broadcaster" for the BBC you are misguided in how it is governed.

I do however agree that platform displays should not be used for any purpose other than train running information.

 

[Ianno87]

The new screens have been up at Cambridfe for a few weeks now.

One feature I've found odd to get used to is that for the row of screens above the ticket barriers, the ones that show one screen per train (with stopping pattern) left to right chronologically.

When a train is running late, the order which trains are shown left to right is switched from the scheduled order to the actual order to reflect late running.

 

[F Great Eastern]

One feature I've found odd to get used to is that for the row of screens above the ticket barriers, the ones that show one screen per train (with stopping pattern) left to right chronologically.

When a train is running late, the order which trains are shown left to right is switched from the scheduled order to the actual order to reflect late running.

Haven't noticed that myself, but will have to look out for it in the next week or so.

If I was being really cynical, I would suggest that the next step may be removing times of trains and instead having how many minutes they are due in, which would be an excellent way to disguise late running.

 

[iphone76]

I have poorish eyesight. The new screens are actually an improvement for me.

Sorry but to repeat:
For me, it is simply that there are not enough screens, a summary screen just showing the same 5 train departures is useless. The absence of any arrival information at all is incredible, quite a lot of pax are 'met' at a place like Ipswich, I know I used to do it myself and I was not alone.

TfL Rail are going to add arrival times to their system shortly. Perhaps GA will also do this at the same time?

 

[iphone76]

I noticed some new screens have been installed on P4 at Shenfield. They are tiny. About 1/3 the size of the existing screens. I will try and get a picture next time I am there.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Haven't noticed that myself, but will have to look out for it in the next week or so.

If I was being really cynical, I would suggest that the next step may be removing times of trains and instead having how many minutes they are due in, which would be an excellent way to disguise late running.

That works on high frequency all stations services like LO and the Tube. It doesn't work for trains with different calling patterns, as regulars learn the calling pattern of specific trains so need the time.

 

[F Great Eastern]

I noticed some new screens have been installed on P4 at Shenfield. They are tiny. About 1/3 the size of the existing screens. I will try and get a picture next time I am there.

Some of the smaller stations really do have ones that are tiny..

The problem I've seen the most with these screens is the lag in a busy station. There have been instances where a train has left approx 5 minutes ago, another train pulls into the platform whilst the previous one is still on the display. It doesn't seem to happen all of the time, but I've found JourneyCheck and twitter for example are generally ahead of them, whereas with the old screens they were much more in sync.

Also I've seen grammar, spelling errors and typos as well, almost like they have been manually entered, so I'd be curious what kind of data feed they are using and if there is some additional post-processing going on by other systems before they go out to the screens, rather than direct to the screens from the feed, which may account for the lag in part, but might also to be do with the polling rate for refreshes.

 

[iphone76]

Some of the smaller stations really do have ones that are tiny..

The problem I've seen the most with these screens is the lag in a busy station. There have been instances where a train has left approx 5 minutes ago, another train pulls into the platform whilst the previous one is still on the display. It doesn't seem to happen all of the time, but I've found JourneyCheck and twitter for example are generally ahead of them, whereas with the old screens they were much more in sync.

Also I've seen grammar, spelling errors and typos as well, almost like they have been manually entered, so I'd be curious what kind of data feed they are using and if there is some additional post-processing going on by other systems before they go out to the screens, rather than direct to the screens from the feed, which may account for the lag in part, but might also to be do with the polling rate for refreshes.

Oh. I thought the small ones at Billericay were as small as they got. These are tiny. LOL

They did the preparation work for them at my local station, Wickford, but seem to have stopped now. I hope they never introduce them as the ones at Billericay are too small and in terrible locations.

 

[jon0844]

I spent a little time at Cambridge and think Abellio were taken in by fancy graphics and animations - just like people used to buy a TV because Dixons turned the saturation up to 100% and people thought colour=quality.

The presentation looks slick, but there was some disruption and the screens seem totally unable to convey this information clearly and there are some odd choices of colour for things. The text size doesn't adapt, and the Infotec screens used in the core on Thameslink convey information clearer - with scrolling (heck even the amber or white LED matrix screens can do it well, with the white screens having different shades of grey through dimming) and a clear understanding of the railway - no doubt because they've had more experience.

I also saw a few error messages that had a dialogue that needed someone (!) to click okay, but I wonder where the person is who oversees all of the displays?

Finally, the positioning of the screens was odd. Two banks of screens on platform 7 very close together and then nothing further down for ages. The way they show information in the booking hall also looked odd, and I didn't realise they swapped about based on timings (which would really throw people, thinking their train has disappeared).

I have no doubt the information can be fixed once the company gets a better understanding of what passengers want and need - but surely this should have been done 'behind closed doors' with focus groups and usability testers.

By all means split the screen to show other messages, but do it intelligently. For example, if everything is on time and the next service isn't for 5 minutes or more, show ads and promotions. If there's disruption, hide the ads and show more useful information. When a train is due, maybe use the screen to remind people to stand back, let people off, use all doors etc.

I am a firm believer that the next train should always remain on screen. Split things so that remains visible at all times. Use colours wisely to show when someone should pay attention etc.