So many announcements, so few people taking them on board

[Northerngirl]

Why do the btp have a different phone number than the real police, we don't get a horrendous slogan to call 999 if there's an incident on a bus.
Other than that, another one that winds me up is "Station stop" why do we need both words, and dont get me started on the 'delicious hot and cold refreshments are located in the shop in carriage c', I'm sure I've even heard it on the platform at Crewe

The 230s do a brilliant job, loudly says "The next station is ..." and that's it. If something goes wrong, then the guard can say something themselves.

 

[IndianPacific]

Why do the btp have a different phone number than the real police, we don't get a horrendous slogan to call 999 if there's an incident on a bus.
Other than that, another one that winds me up is "Station stop" why do we need both words, and dont get me started on the 'delicious hot and cold refreshments are located in the shop in carriage c', I'm sure I've even heard it on the platform at Crewe

The 230s do a brilliant job, loudly says "The next station is ..." and that's it. If something goes wrong, then the guard can say something themselves.

There were awareness campaigns for the 101 and 111 non emergency numbers when they launched.

The shortcode 61016 also works with text, with the idea being that texting can be a bit more subtle than saying someone’s description out loud while stuck on a train with them.

 

[455refurb]

It's really high time the ORR ran a human factors based investigation into the safety case and effectiveness of announcements on the UK rail network (including TfL routes). I would argue the frequency of announcements do indeed reduce the safety and usability of the network.
TfL in particular are appalling on stations, with continuous drivel playing over the PA at the vast majority of stations on the tube and Overground network for no reason other than the fact that they can, it appears to me.

I regularly travel on a route with splits, and I often encounter people who don't know where they should be, despite endless announcements. It's precisely due to the frequency and banality of on board announcements that passengers tune out, or have headphones in. In my experience, the only time you'll actually see passengers remove headphones at the sound of a 'bing bong' is if the train has been unmoving for any period of time.

All that is required on board is: Next stop, and perhaps door opening side. Then, destination of the train once the doors have opened. That is it.
Passengers would then be far more likely to listen to "off normal" or urgent informational announcements when they're made.

 

[bramling]

It's really high time the ORR ran a human factors based investigation into the safety case and effectiveness of announcements on the UK rail network (including TfL routes). I would argue the frequency of announcements do indeed reduce the safety and usability of the network.
TfL in particular are appalling on stations, with continuous drivel playing over the PA at the vast majority of stations on the tube and Overground network for no reason other than the fact that they can, it appears to me.

I regularly travel on a route with splits, and I often encounter people who don't know where they should be, despite endless announcements. It's precisely due to the frequency and banality of on board announcements that passengers tune out, or have headphones in. In my experience, the only time you'll actually see passengers remove headphones at the sound of a 'bing bong' is if the train has been unmoving for any period of time.

All that is required on board is: Next stop, and perhaps door opening side. Then, destination of the train once the doors have opened. That is it.
Passengers would then be far more likely to listen to "off normal" or urgent informational announcements when they're made.

The other stupid thing about excessive announcements is they impair communications between staff, either over the phone or radio. This is especially the case on TFL where there is already a lot of background noise. For an industry that is supposedly aware of the risks that can arise from a miscommunication, this is rather remiss, but as usual the people deciding on these things aren’t the ones who have to work with the consequences.

 

[The exile]

Other than that, another one that winds me up is "Station stop" why do we need both words,

Switch pedant mode on.
The “next station” is the one we’re about to pass through at speed. More importantly (especially before door locks) - the “next stop” is the one at the red signal half a mile out of the station. Now that doors can’t be opened you could probably manage with just “next stop” - especially if passing the platform end triggered “we have now arrived at xyz”

 

[py_megapixel]

Switch pedant mode on.
The “next station” is the one we’re about to pass through at speed. More importantly (especially before door locks) - the “next stop” is the one at the red signal half a mile out of the station. Now that doors can’t be opened you could probably manage with just “next stop” - especially if passing the platform end triggered “we have now arrived at xyz”

Well, if we're arguing that way, trains can stop at station platforms without opening the doors too...

"The next scheduled station stop at which passengers can alight is..."

 

[Northerngirl]

Switch pedant mode on.
The “next station” is the one we’re about to pass through at speed. More importantly (especially before door locks) - the “next stop” is the one at the red signal half a mile out of the station. Now that doors can’t be opened you could probably manage with just “next stop” - especially if passing the platform end triggered “we have now arrived at xyz”

I dread to think how long of an announcement there would be if that logic is followed. I think people will be aware what stations their train is going to before boarding

 

[Parallel]

I think announcements are useful but they need to be appropriate. Listing the full calling pattern with see it, say it, sorted after every stop is too much. A simple ‘this train is for, the next station is’ ‘we are now approaching’, ‘we are now at’ is fine, with perhaps the calling points listed after large or interchange stations, and appropriate safety announcements - I.e. if it really is a large step down!

 

[Bikeman78]

For that scenario I don’t think it helps that SWR seem to make those announcements to the whole train and a lot of people probably don’t pay that much attention to which bit of it they're on.

The S stock and class 700 are much better in this regard. The short station messages are only announced in the affected coaches. I like sitting in the rear coach of S stock on the Circle line. It's much less busy because several stations have short platforms.

This pops around on these forums a few times a year and whilst it could be tailored better here and there, it's mostly tinkering and various factors will ensure announcements will always exist - probably more than this forum would like.

Yet the rest of Europe, if not the world, manages without them. Does no one stop and wonder why? The safety record of the Dutch railways is very similar to the UK. How do they achieve that without relentless announcements?

As a driver having to continually suffer these tedious inane announcements I spend much of my time shouting “shut the f#ck up” as they play.

My son does that. "Shut up you stupid train!" Hilarious. Kept the commuters coming in from Shenfield well amused.

 

[Horizon22]

Yet the rest of Europe, if not the world, manages without them. Does no one stop and wonder why? The safety record of the Dutch railways is very similar to the UK. How do they achieve that without relentless announcements?

Last time I was at a Dutch station, I heard quite a few announcements in the station. Same at Gare Du Nord as another example. So this might be a "grass is greener on the other side" argument.

Perhaps on train it is less, or perhaps we drown them out if we don't know the language.

 

[dk1]

The S stock and class 700 are much better in this regard. The short station messages are only announced in the affected coaches. I like sitting in the rear coach of S stock on the Circle line. It's much less busy because several stations have short platforms.


Yet the rest of Europe, if not the world, manages without them. Does no one stop and wonder why? The safety record of the Dutch railways is very similar to the UK. How do they achieve that without relentless announcements?


My son does that. "Shut up you stupid train!" Hilarious. Kept the commuters coming in from Shenfield well amused.

 

[Starmill]

It's a lose/lose though - people then complain when they're not told about issues "oh I didn't hear any announcements". And yes it is true - I have seen such complaints and they can be quite serious (especially where equality and disabled access comes into it).

Sometimes people need to be told information and people refuse to listen to announcements or read messaging no matter how it is tried. Often there's a safety issue "oh an announcement will solve that".

This pops around on these forums a few times a year and whilst it could be tailored better here and there, it's mostly tinkering and various factors will ensure announcements will always exist - probably more than this forum would like.

SWR have a particular love for very lengthy announcements at stations about things which are so low in priority that they can't be explained by this. They include things like the upcoming meet the manager session and a non-curated list of all engineering work changes on the entire SWR network the coming weekend. That is completely unnecessary and distracts from the important information.

 

[Bikeman78]

As an example, if there’s wet weather and someone slips, trips or falls at a station, do you know what is often asked in the investigation “were we playing a wet weather announcement?” Something decried as often useless on these forums - and I may even tend to agree - but a failure can make it easier for someone to make a claim against the TOC or NR, which costs us all money as opposed to a near £0 cost to play a PA.

That example is the one that grates the most. To give a real life example, I got off a train at Manchester Piccadilly a few weeks ago. I was very close to slipping over because the shiny floor tiles were damp and extremely slippery. I have no problem walking along a damp or wet pavement made of tarmac so why does the railway put slippery tiles, which probably cost more, on platform surfaces? Whether or not some announcement went off at the station 30 seconds before my train arrived is completely irrelevant.

 

[Starmill]

All of which are mandatory manual announcements that we have no choice (well obviously we do but at the risk of being pulled up over...) but to make.

Between Stafford and Rugby, all stations require an announcement due to being common connection points for XC and the Cannock line, and 2 are UDS stations so which do you cut?

Yes there is 1 particular Crewe guard who does make rather long manual announcements, but just 1 that I can recall.

Realistically those announcements about Atherstone and Rugeley Trent Valley are really really important, as it's potentially a very long way to the correct part of the train. There don't seem to be very many services where someone doesn't get over-carried at one or the other. Only walking through the train seems to get people to move if they need to move, and even then not everyone.

There must be several complaints per month just out of the people who've missed the announcements for those two stations.

 

[Bikeman78]

Last time I was at a Dutch station, I heard quite a few announcements in the station. Same at Gare Du Nord as another example. So this might be a "grass is greener on the other side" argument.

Perhaps on train it is less, or perhaps we drown them out if we don't know the language.

I'm a fairly frequent user of the Dutch railways. The only announcements tend to be about the service or disruption. Most on train are done by the guard. I think the new CAF sprinters have auto announcers but I don't go on them much.

I must confess once I did some risk assessment training a lot more about how the railway does things suddenly made a lot more more sense. Most of the "safety" announcements absolutely fall into this category. Take the "due to today's inclement weather surfaces may be slippery" announcement. That's absolutely the result of a risk assessment where to reduce the risk of people falling from the platform edge in wet weather, for the purposes of the assessment, someone has put a control measure as "audible warnings" which has allowed the risk to be reduced.

This, of course, has had no impact whatsoever on the actual risk of someone falling from a platform edge. But it has reduced the theoretical risk of it happening and it means that if someone does fall from a platform edge in wet weather and sues the relevant company they can point to their risk assessment with it's control measure to show at the very least a reduced level of culpability. Of course in the real world the actual impact of telling people every five minutes that surfaces may be slippery is pretty much nil. But that's not what it's about.

This is why it is so infuriating. To use my Manchester example, no announcement is going to make the platform less slippery. I already knew it was drizzly because I could see it on the train windows. I am perfectly capable of walking on most surfaces in wet weather so the slippy surface at Piccadilly caught me by surprise. The only other example of such a slippery platform I can think of is St Pancras South Eastern. Pinging out slippery platform messages at every station and on every train is counter productive because it means the genuinely slippery ones don't stand out. The solution is to construct the platform of something which is not especially slippery. Most platforms already are.

 

[SCDR_WMR]

Realistically those announcements about Atherstone and Rugeley Trent Valley are really really important, as it's potentially a very long way to the correct part of the train. There don't seem to be very many services where someone doesn't get over-carried at one or the other. Only walking through the train seems to get people to move if they need to move, and even then not everyone.

There must be several complaints per month just out of the people who've missed the announcements for those two stations.

Several per day I'd say! Have yet to work the 12 car Sunday service but I can't imagine it anything but a right royal pain

 

[Bonafide]

The safety record of the Dutch railways is very similar to the UK. How do they achieve that without relentless announcements?

The driver announces in a standard format the next station as the train is slowing down, thus, "Eindhoven station, Eindhoven". It works well, giving relevant information succinctly.

The set number is displayed on the ends of each saloon and, when a train is about to split, the announcement refers to these set numbers (no reference is made to front or rear portions). For example, "This train splits here. Set numbers 2865 and 3284 are for Groningen, and set number 2756 is for Leeuwarden". Passengers will glance to see the set number, and the positive confirmation gives reassurance they are in the correct part of the train.

There are few other announcements but, when there is one, passengers tend to stop what they are doing, such as talking, reading, or looking at a smartphone, to listen to it because they know it is likely to be of value.

It works well, and is a good illustration of the old saying of less being more!

 

[Bikeman78]

The driver announces in a standard format the next station as the train is slowing down, thus, "Eindhoven station, Eindhoven". It works well, giving relevant information succinctly.

The set number is displayed on the ends of each saloon and, when a train is about to split, the announcement refers to these set numbers (no reference is made to front or rear portions). For example, "This train splits here. Set numbers 2865 and 3284 are for Groningen, and set number 2756 is for Leeuwarden". Passengers will glance to see the set number, and the positive confirmation gives reassurance they are in the correct part of the train.

There are few other announcements but, when there is one, passengers tend to stop what they are doing, such as talking, reading, or looking at a smartphone, to listen to it because they know it is likely to be of value.

It works well, and is a good illustration of the old saying of less being more!

This is exactly how I remember Dutch train announcements going back to the 1980s. The format hasn't really changed much. When the Koplopers used to split and join, I remember the guard reading out all the set numbers in the formation.

 

[The Conductor]

Last year I travelled by rail from Nuremberg to Sheffield. As far as London, I didn't have to endure a single 'safety' (sic) announcement (and I can understand German). Between STP and Sheffield, there were 13. But then, of course, rail travel in the UK kis much more dangerous than the rest of Europe........

 

[TUC]

Switch pedant mode on.
The “next station” is the one we’re about to pass through at speed. More importantly (especially before door locks) - the “next stop” is the one at the red signal half a mile out of the station. Now that doors can’t be opened you could probably manage with just “next stop” - especially if passing the platform end triggered “we have now arrived at xyz”

But no passenger would expect any reference to a station which the train is not scheduled to stop at. The normal meaning of the phrase that passengers would expect is the next station where it is scheduled to stop.

 

[talldave]

Pointless announcement of the week on the Elizabeth Line yesterday. As the train leaves Hayes & Harlington we're informed about Oyster not being valid after West Drayton through to Reading. Definitely pointless and potentially confusing to passengers on a train going to Heathrow; particularly when a disproportionately high number of them may not be native English speakers.

It can't be that big a software/configuration challenge to not play out announcements that are only relevant to a route you're not on.

 

[ThisIsSurbiton]

As does Thameslink's "doors will open automatically at the next station" when they mean "this" station!!

And everybody presses the button anyway!

It's really high time the ORR ran a human factors based investigation into the safety case and effectiveness of announcements on the UK rail network (including TfL routes). I would argue the frequency of announcements do indeed reduce the safety and usability of the network.

Exactly, I'm all for simple measures that keep us safer, but if they really don't the legal arse-covering didn't really work.

I think there is also a difference between auto announcements and humans. Cut back the autos a bit - nothing about fares and bags, shortened 61016 without the cringe, remove "change here for" but maybe add the door side, and then people can tune that out if they want, I find the professional voices easier to filter, and as mentioned earlier, the quiet carriage should really be quiet.

Then leave the guard to do the really important stuff about disruptions or other troubles and a quick hello and goodbye at the ends of the journey. And remove the scripted word salad that isn't even proper English. Yes, SWR, I don't need to hear thanks "on behalf of the driver and myself", a simple thanks will do, and I don't care where you are "currently located", especially as on a 455 the information will be useless to half the train.

 

[Urban Gateline]

I don't care where you are "currently located", especially as on a 455 the information will be useless to half the train.

Maybe you don't but some may if they need assistance! Also it's not quite so useless as we as Guards walk through the trains so not always in the middle cabs, maybe you don't see that if you only travel during rush hour when it's not practical for the Guard to walk through the train.

At the end of the day we have guidelines to follow for the announcements and we do get marked down when being assessed if we don't announce at all or miss out bits of what is on the "script". So your grievance would be best aimed at the TOC itself and not its staff who are only following instructions!

 

[pokemonsuper9]

The set number is displayed on the ends of each saloon and, when a train is about to split, the announcement refers to these set numbers (no reference is made to front or rear portions). For example, "This train splits here. Set numbers 2865 and 3284 are for Groningen, and set number 2756 is for Leeuwarden". Passengers will glance to see the set number, and the positive confirmation gives reassurance they are in the correct part of the train.

Occasionally on Headbolt Lane services there'll be an ex-EMR 156 coupled to a 150 or Northern 156, which makes it very easy for the guard to tell passengers if they're in the right part of the train (red seats/blue seats).

 

[High Dyke]

As a driver having to continually suffer these tedious inane announcements I spend much of my time shouting “shut the f#ck up” as they play.

I do similar when travelling as a passenger. Especially when 'digital Doris' repeats the whole "this is the train to..." at least twice in consecutive announcements.

 

[Bikeman78]

Pointless announcement of the week on the Elizabeth Line yesterday. As the train leaves Hayes & Harlington we're informed about Oyster not being valid after West Drayton through to Reading. Definitely pointless and potentially confusing to passengers on a train going to Heathrow; particularly when a disproportionately high number of them may not be native English speakers.

It can't be that big a software/configuration challenge to not play out announcements that are only relevant to a route you're not on.

The 800/802 will tell you to change at Bristol Parkway for Temple Meads even if you have just come from Temple Meads. On a similar note, the info screens on the 331s have connection info which includes trains going back the way you have just come from. I suppose I should be grateful that the audible version doesn't read them all out too.

 

[py_megapixel]

On a similar note, the info screens on the 331s have connection info which includes trains going back the way you have just come from.

The retrofitted info screens on the older Northern stock can include the train you are already on in the connections list!

 

[Starmill]

The 800/802 will tell you to change at Bristol Parkway for Temple Meads even if you have just come from Temple Meads. On a similar note, the info screens on the 331s have connection info which includes trains going back the way you have just come from. I suppose I should be grateful that the audible version doesn't read them all out too.

It's incredibly frustrating it also includes the train you're on sometimes.

The retrofitted info screens on the older Northern stock can include the train you are already on in the connections list!

D'oh, that'll teach me not to read down!

 

[lxfe_mxtterz]

I do similar when travelling as a passenger. Especially when 'digital Doris' repeats the whole "this is the train to..." at least twice in consecutive announcements.

We call her Sonia, as she "gets on 'yer' nerves".

 

[ThisIsSurbiton]

Maybe you don't but some may if they need assistance!

I wasn't clear, my objection is to the clunky phrasing of it, written by people who should do better than that. But also if you are in the middle, thanks to the design of the train half the people won't find you so it seems an odd thing to ask you to stress as it promises something you'll be unable to deliver, at least until the next stop.

So your grievance would be best aimed at the TOC itself and not its staff who are only following instructions!

It's never at the staff, sorry if it seemed that way.