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Reduce dwell times

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fordylad

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Just a thought, wouldn't it be easier to paint on the floor along platforms where the doors will be on a train stopping at that platform. Obviously at the different stopping boards,
I know that several stations have differing trains calling at them. But surely a simple colour coded system would work, after all commuters are creatures of habit
 
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Just a thought, wouldn't it be easier to paint on the floor along platforms where the doors will be on a train stopping at that platform. Obviously at the different stopping boards,
I know that several stations have differing trains calling at them. But surely a simple colour coded system would work, after all commuters are creatures of habit

Any commuter worth his or her salt knows where to stand for each train type. It's your irregular traveller c/w buggy or shopping or suitcase etc that seems to land between the doors. :)
 

WelshBluebird

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Some stations have this anyway.
I know at Bristol Parkway they have signs to say stand here for a specific coach. Of course this is only helpful for HST's.

The main problem is as you allude to, is the rolling stock. Many stations have quite a few different classes calling at them, with doors in different places etc etc, it isn't really viable a lot of the time. And especially in FGW land, it is hard to know what class will turn up for a specific service anyway. So you may stand at the location for the doors for a 158, but a 150 may turn up instead.
 
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MidnightFlyer

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I remember at Cromer (which is almost exclusively 156-operated), there are yellow striped boxes painted on the platform's coping stones indicating where doors will be located when the train stops. As for other stations, I can't imagine it would work, what about a station that is served by three or four different classes at some point? It'd just look messy and hard to follow IMO, especially when any class could turn up.
 

EM2

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As it happens, Greater Anglia have just started doing this. I only use Forest Gate, which always has eight-car 315 services, and these numbers have appeared on the Up platform. I've been told they're at Brentwood too, so I assume they'll be at all the Metro stations.
For some reason, my phone decides it likes to show photos sideways!
 

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tsr

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It would be most useful at LU stations served by just one stock type and lacking in platform-edge doors (or passenger-side doors, or whatever they are). Sometimes the crowds do not work how you would expect - they do not always cluster round the locations of each set of doors when waiting for an empty-enough train to board. I know roughly where to go for the least crowded set of doors at most of the stations I frequent, but all the same, it would be helpful.
 

swt_passenger

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I can just see this working at Southampton. Bring a 444 in the wrong way round and some of the doors on the same class of train don't line up in the same positions...

It'll probably become the first proper use for tartan paint...
 

jopsuk

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I've seen pictures of platform markings in other countries that not only mark the position of the door, they indicate that you should stand to the sides.
 

142094

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Taking stations on the ECML such as York, where the A frames display where to stand for coach E etc, they only apply to East Coast services. However, people either don't realise this or don't bother to read the sign fully, so you'll still see people waiting next to this sign for a GC/TPE/XC service, then wonder why they all have to run down the platform to get on.
 

dk1

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There is a terrific member of staff at Torquay who goes up & down the platform shouting & herding passengers into the correct position for the longer distance trains that stop there. It is very effective as passengers here tend to have much luggage & cause extended dwell times as they dither & then insist on walking the length of the platform to their designated coach rather than struggle through the train. He must save Cross-Country & First Great Western a bit of money in delays & help them achieve right time starts. Hope they appreciate him.
 

fordylad

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I'm just thinking that it would ease congestion, on FGW services in the Thames valley you have 2 major types of dmu providing services and the doors are in a similar position on either train,
 

Greenback

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What would help most would be clear indicators on where to stand for luggage racks, first class, disabled spaces and cyclists. For instance, I would have loved to have known where the best place to get on a 166 with luggage a few weeks back at Reading!

Although regular travelelrs will instinctively know where to find these things, we should not forget that many people don't use trains that frequently, or may not be too familiar with the stock.
 

fordylad

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Greenback
I agree, the more information that can be provided the better, at the end of the day it is a service for the public, it wouldn't take much, just to make things that little bit easier
 

Greenback

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The provision of information is something that has needed improvement for ages. But, as I fond out recently, it's no better in Italy...
 

exile

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Germany is (as usual) fantastic at this sort of thing - each platform shows all trains calling there with a diagram of where the coaches are.

And on the train you get told whether to get off on the left or right hand side (Austeig Links oder Rechts)
 

harz99

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There is a terrific member of staff at Torquay who goes up & down the platform shouting & herding passengers into the correct position for the longer distance trains that stop there. It is very effective as passengers here tend to have much luggage & cause extended dwell times as they dither & then insist on walking the length of the platform to their designated coach rather than struggle through the train. He must save Cross-Country & First Great Western a bit of money in delays & help them achieve right time starts. Hope they appreciate him.

And that is precisely what is needed at most major stations, but it simply doesn't happen.

All to often employees of the TOC that "owns" the station simply ignore pax intending to travel on both there own and other TOCs services, and just concentrate on whistle blowing and bat waving, before retreating behind closed doors until the next train arrives.
 

transmanche

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Germany is (as usual) fantastic at this sort of thing - each platform shows all trains calling there with a diagram of where the coaches are.
Here's a couple of examples from Duisburg Hbf; the destination indicator and a poster showing the formation/stopping position of every train.
 

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tsr

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All to often employees of the TOC that "owns" the station simply ignore pax intending to travel on both there own and other TOCs services, and just concentrate on whistle blowing and bat waving, before retreating behind closed doors until the next train arrives.

Or - and this is a major gripe for me - staff who have to be interrupted in order to gain information whilst conversing with a colleague on the opposite platform in a very loud voice about something entirely irrelevant. But that's my rant over, because the point I'd really like to make is that perhaps staff are equally confused about where doors will be positioned, unless there are relatively few stock classes using the station in question, and all travelling in predictable directions. It's not much good if a member of staff at a Southern station thinks a 442 is coming, but that unit been replaced by a 377 because its doors have fallen off (or some similar ironic excuse), and you are therefore next to some innocuous but temporarily irrelevant couplings when you come to board.
 

Michael.Y

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And that is precisely what is needed at most major stations, but it simply doesn't happen.

God, can you imagine what it would be like at most stations when staff try telling passengers what to do and/or what's best for them?

Exactly. They'll ignore them and carry on doing what they think is right.

And when they miss their train / get on the wrong one, they'll blame everyone but themselves.

Today due to other services running late, we were put on P3 at Piccadilly instead of our usual P8. A TPE service was then advertised as coming in behind us, for a departure 3 mins before us. Despite staff on the platform threshold, our train only having one door open with the guard stood by it, and the display boards saying "Front Train Only", we of course got half way to Stockport and had at least one passenger who had meant to catch the other train.
 

tsr

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Here's a couple of examples from Duisburg Hbf; the destination indicator and a poster showing the formation/stopping position of every train.

As someone who has recently visited Germany (but speaks very little German indeed - a friend translated for me!), I am entirely unsurprised by this; these are excellent posters, in my opinion, and probably understandable by most intelligent people, whatever language they speak, to boot. I can think of a number of other European information systems that could enhance railway information provision here in Great Britain.
 

Michael.Y

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Shows what you can do with a single, integrated, quasi-nationalised railway company.
 

Mainliner

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In my ECML experience with MkIII/MkIV carriages, delays are more often caused by someone trying three or four different ways of putting a suitcase in the luggage area, or faffing about before sitting down in a seat near the vestibule, resulting in a queue of people in the right place, but unable to get on. I've gone to the adjacent door a few times when this has happened.



 

fordylad

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That is pretty annoying when people are faffing about whilst joining the train, with mkIII/IV stock I think Chiltern are on to a winner with power operated doors, and larger vestibule areas Although that wouldn't stop the brain dead people that still manage to force themselves between closing doors,
 

87015

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As it happens, Greater Anglia have just started doing this. I only use Forest Gate, which always has eight-car 315 services, and these numbers have appeared on the Up platform. I've been told they're at Brentwood too, so I assume they'll be at all the Metro stations.
For some reason, my phone decides it likes to show photos sideways!
Superb, just in time for the Metros going back down to 4s off peak from December to save money!
 

Mojo

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God, can you imagine what it would be like at most stations when staff try telling passengers what to do and/or what's best for them?

Exactly. They'll ignore them and carry on doing what they think is right.
As someone who was employed by a Toc at one of the busiest railway stations outside of London to undertake 'platform management' duties (looking up train formations on Trust and from Control reports, and then walking along the platform to advise customers where they should wait, and perform other customer service functions) I never ever had this problem despite seeing off hundreds of trains in my time.
 

142094

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Try York when a XC service comes in. I've seen EC dispatch staff telling people to move down the platform, but low and behold it is only when the Voyager goes whistling past do some people then start to move.
 

button_boxer

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This sort of thing should work very well on closed systems with uniform stock but... On Sheffield Supertram there's tactile paving on every stop that lines up with the doors (two in the front part of the tram and two in the rear part, there's no doors in the middle section) but you still see people day in day out waiting in the middle of the platform and then looking confused when there's no door in front of them.

As for voyagers, being able to tell passengers where to stand for first class/bike rack/quiet coach/etc relies on knowing which way round the train will be when it arrives. In three years of commuting between Sheffield and Derby I would estimate that the "first class at the front/rear" message on the info screens was wrong about 30% of the time. As a regular passenger you can spot the yellow coupler but that's no good for the occasionals.
 

bronzeonion

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Door position markers would be an excellent idea. In Japan every train station will have them, even ones with platforms serving all kinds of different train, usually with a Microsoft Paint diagram type (like you see on Wikipedia for certain trains such as class 375) drawing of the front of the train in the centre, with the background colour being the line colour and bold text showing which carriage you can board from that marker. They are designed so people queue behind them.
 

dk1

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Superb, just in time for the Metros going back down to 4s off peak from December to save money!

:shock: But since Westfield opened the Metros are busier than ever!!

We've been here before, more than once. It doesn't work.
 

D1009

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As for voyagers, being able to tell passengers where to stand for first class/bike rack/quiet coach/etc relies on knowing which way round the train will be when it arrives. In three years of commuting between Sheffield and Derby I would estimate that the "first class at the front/rear" message on the info screens was wrong about 30% of the time. As a regular passenger you can spot the yellow coupler but that's no good for the occasionals.

Cross Country have a clever system which transmits real-time data about the mechanical condition of the trains back to the depots, however it appears to be beyond their capability to transmit something as simple as which way round the train is to the customer information screens.
 
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