Have announcement procedures changed?

[silverfoxcc]

Will be as vague as possible with location

Arrived at a NR station to hear an announcement that the xx.xx service js cancelled due to a person being hit by a train.

Now i thought that these were covered by the generic 'incident' quote.
Is this now the norm so passengers can be more aware of the circumstances.

A few weeks ago LUL did the same thing to explain why the service was disrupted

 

[newWCMLwatcher]

I agree that I've always heard "due to an operational incident" or "due to emergency services dealing with an incident" never the actual announcement of what's happened. It could just be as simple that the system has been updated to include these, or there's a message behind them to make others 'think' for a moment... anyone who's thinking of it and anyone who is going to complain.

 

[silverfoxcc]

My Thoughts as well. It would certainly make others think and not go the 'me,me,me' route

 

[newWCMLwatcher]

My Thoughts as well. It would certainly make others think and not go the 'me,me,me' route

Don't they though? On social media and the like.

 

[Starmill]

Announcements saying cancelled due to "a fatality" or "a person hit by a train" have been around for years and years.

Some places stopped using them a bit in recent times, but they're still common both in announcements at stations and on official Twitter feeds.

 

[greaterwest]

Both reasons exist in all Customer Information Systems used by all TOCs, it is a TOC decision on whether they use "person hit by a train" or "emergency services dealing with an incident". Southern tend to use the former, while SWR use the latter.

 

[Bertie the bus]

VTEC (now LNER) stopped using the emergency services dealing with an incident a few years ago. I believe EMT stopped using it as well which resulted in utterly ridiculous situations at Manchester Piccadilly if Northern, TPE and EMT trains were all delayed by the same incident Northern and TPE ones were due to emergency services dealing with an incident and EMT ones by a person being hit by a train.

Person being hit by a train should always be used in my opinion as regular passengers know the incident will last at least 1 - 2 hours and the real point of announcements is to provide passengers with relevant information. Emergency services dealing with an incident could mean anything. I doubt there is any evidence at all the emergency services announcement prevents copycat suicides. If there was VTEC and EMT management would have blood on their hands.

 

[Hadders]

Historically 'person hit by a train' was used. Then a year or so ago it changed to 'dealing with an incident'. Following complaints it was changed back to 'person hit by a train'.

Person hit by a train is far better, in my opinion. When there is disruption understandable people want to know what's going on. 'incident' can mean anything and is likely to have passengers questioning staff, possibly even becoming abusive etc. If 'Person hit by a train' is used people are for more understanding which causes fewer issues all round.

I was caught up in the ECML disruption last Wednesday due to a PHBT. We pulled into Grantham on time and the guard announced what had happened. As passengers we knew what the issue was an from experience I knew our delay was likely to be around 2 hours. The staff on the LNER train were excellent, coming down to check everyone was ok and offering free tea and coffee from the buffet.