Trains told to get rid of torrent of 'Tannoy spam'

[Tio Terry]

lack of 'Tactile paving' is the latest dross to come out over the p.a. system on platforms...even worse at Northern stations with the camp sounding gentleman!

Maybe if you were blind you wouldn't think it was dross.

 

[dm1]

Maybe if you were blind you wouldn't think it was dross.

The solution is to install tactile paving. It's not that expensive in the grand scheme of things, and there are numerous temporary or cheap solutions that can be implemented until the work can be done (yellow lines with a rough surface for example).

Announcements help nobody, as they don't actually solve the problem. A blind person doesn't really benefit from knowing there are no tactile markings. A guide dog will see the edge of the platform either way, a stick won't be able to detect the absence of tactile paving.

The problem is that the meaures that would actually help, installing tactile paving and ordering trains with level boarding, are deemed "too expensive", and standards are norms are outdated meaning even new platforms and trains built today are not properly accessible.

 

[The exile]

Announcements help nobody, as they don't actually solve the problem. A blind person doesn't really benefit from knowing there are no tactile markings. A guide dog will see the edge of the platform either way, a stick won't be able to detect the absence of tactile paving.

Though knowing there is none means you don’t fall into the trap of “I haven’t crossed any tactile paving, so I’m not about to fall off the….”

 

[43096]

The solution is to install tactile paving. It's not that expensive in the grand scheme of things, and there are numerous temporary or cheap solutions that can be implemented until the work can be done (yellow lines with a rough surface for example).

Exactly that. Announcements are the railway’s cheap and nasty attempt to mitigate the risk: it’s about arse covering more than anything else.

 

[Tio Terry]

The solution is to install tactile paving. It's not that expensive in the grand scheme of things, and there are numerous temporary or cheap solutions that can be implemented until the work can be done (yellow lines with a rough surface for example).

Announcements help nobody, as they don't actually solve the problem. A blind person doesn't really benefit from knowing there are no tactile markings. A guide dog will see the edge of the platform either way, a stick won't be able to detect the absence of tactile paving.

The problem is that the meaures that would actually help, installing tactile paving and ordering trains with level boarding, are deemed "too expensive", and standards are norms are outdated meaning even new platforms and trains built today are not properly accessible.

Yellow lines with a rough surface won't help a blind person who is feeling for tactile paving. At least the audible warning means that they will be trying to find the platform edge with their stick. So announcements are helpful in such circumstances. I don't understand why you think knowing an aid for those with sight issues is not available is of no use to them?

Tactile paving is being installed and will, eventually, be universal across the network. But it takes time. All new platforms and platforms on which major works take place are being built to the same standard which will make level boarding possible. It's not easy bringing Victorian infrastructure up to 21st century standards but there is a lot of effort going in to doing just that.

 

[markymark2000]

Normal tactile paving can be implemented easily. You can get adhesive tactile paving which can be done relatively quickly and at big stations, can probably be done while the station is open as you don't need track access, just close off the running line through that platform.

 

[The exile]

Exactly that. Announcements are the railway’s cheap and nasty attempt to mitigate the risk: it’s about arse covering more than anything else.

And when they give the impression of crying “wolf”, it’s even worse. Will “contents may be hot” protect from liability when the scalded person turns round and points out that not only has the establishment served lukewarm coffee in the same cups for the past 6 months; it also has the same warning on tubs containing ice cream? ( to use a non railway related example)

 

[Bikeman78]

I also call for a review on the volume level on door open and close chimes and bells and pre-announcement chimes.

Most are loud, almost alarm like, which instantly plucks up your attention and physically may cause a feeling of alarm when that isnt needed.

Clearly door close alarms are needed, but they needn't be so panic inducing.

My mum is disabled and won't use trains for this very reason. Sudden loud noises will cause her to panic. To be fair there are plenty of trains out there which have the door release and hustle alarms at a sensible volume.

You can blame PRM-TSI for that. I think the London Underground use of a soft "ding-dong" is much nicer, but it's not compliant.

How are they still running then? I though it was all meant to be sorted by January 2020? Mattrat is right too. The number of people I see running towards IETs a few minutes before departure is hilarious. Given the internal doors I don't know why the external doors on IETs need to auto close anyway.

 

[Tio Terry]

My mum is disabled and won't use trains for this very reason. Sudden loud noises will cause her to panic. To be fair there are plenty of trains out there which have the door release and hustle alarms at a sensible volume.


How are they still running then? I though it was all meant to be sorted by January 2020? Mattrat is right too. The number of people I see running towards IETs a few minutes before departure is hilarious. Given the internal doors I don't know why the external doors on IETs need to auto close anyway.

The PRM TSI - in fact, any TSI - does not apply to London Underground, it's not classed as a mainline railway.

However, The Equalities Act does.

 

[urbophile]

What is a PRM TSI? I appreciate that acronyms and abbreviations like this will be familiar to many people, but for those of us unversed in railway jargon perhaps there could be a closed thread specifically as a dictionary of such things.

 

[island]

First result on Google – Persons with Reduced Mobility Technical Standards for Interoperability.

The rules and requirements around accessibility on railways.

 

[Tio Terry]

What is a PRM TSI? I appreciate that acronyms and abbreviations like this will be familiar to many people, but for those of us unversed in railway jargon perhaps there could be a closed thread specifically as a dictionary of such things.

TSI is Technical Specification for Interoperability.

PRM is Person with Reduced Mobility.

 

[43096]

What is a PRM TSI? I appreciate that acronyms and abbreviations like this will be familiar to many people, but for those of us unversed in railway jargon perhaps there could be a closed thread specifically as a dictionary of such things.

PRM = Persons of Reduced Mobility
TSI = Technical Specifications for Interoperability

 

[ComUtoR]

lack of 'Tactile paving' is the latest dross to come out over the p.a. system on platforms...even worse at Northern stations with the camp sounding gentleman!

See here : https://www.gov.uk/government/news/report-012021-person-struck-by-a-train-at-eden-park-station

Summary​

At around 19:05 hrs on Wednesday 26 February 2020, a passenger train struck and fatally injured a person who had just fallen from platform 1 of Eden Park station.


The person, who had impaired vision, moved near to, and fell from, the platform edge probably because his visual impairment meant he was unaware that he was close to this edge. The platform edge was not fitted with markings intended to assist visually impaired people

 

[seagull]

One wonders how the railway will address the issue of the visually impaired passenger who arrives at a station seconds after (and therefore missing) the tactile paving announcement, and who is so busy listening to the 101 other warnings of everything else, that they still fall from the edge of the platform?

As has been said before, warning announcements are a crude and pretty ineffective "solution" in all honesty - and are not deemed necessary in other, equally civilised countries - sometimes because they get on and remedy the danger, other times because on overall analysis, the danger is so minuscule as to not warrant vast sums of money being spent, or of risking aural overload.

 

[ComUtoR]

As has been said before, warning announcements are a crude and pretty ineffective "solution"

They aren't solutions. They are 'Mitigation'

 

[miklcct]

Yes please! I don’t need to be told “This is an Avanti West Coast service to London Euston” 5 times before leaving Manchester Piccadilly.

This is very important as it's a key piece of information to identify the train.

For me it's listing every single stop after each station . On an IET leaving Penzance for Paddington, you get all 15 stops (or however many it is) listed every few minutes whilst the train makes its way through Cornwall. How many people really need to hear this over and over?

This should be simplified to "all stops to destination", for example, "calling at Clapham Junction, Woking, Basingstoke, Winchester, Southampton Airport Parkway, Southampton Central, Brockenhurst, New Milton, Bournemouth, Poole, then all stations to Weymouth".

 

[Falcon1200]

One wonders how the railway will address the issue of the visually impaired passenger who arrives at a station seconds after (and therefore missing) the tactile paving announcement, and who is so busy listening to the 101 other warnings of everything else, that they still fall from the edge of the platform?

Was there a major issue with visually impaired persons falling off platforms before tactile paving, or announcements of its absence, were introduced ? Clearly it is a benefit however, but clearly also installing it at all of Network Rail's several thousand platforms is a massive and inevitably slow process; Does its presence at some stations, but not others, perhaps have the unintended consequence of misleading people to expect it everywhere ?

 

[urbophile]

Yes please! I don’t need to be told “This is an Avanti West Coast service to London Euston” 5 times before leaving Manchester Piccadilly.

As long as we have a privatised disintegrated system this sort of announcement is vitally necessary to prevent passengers unwittingly being charged eye-watering penalty fares for travelling in the wrong company's trains. Maybe it doesn't need to be repeated five times but more than once before the train leaves is essential.

 

[ComUtoR]

This should be simplified to "all stops to destination", for example, "calling at Clapham Junction, Woking, Basingstoke, Winchester, Southampton Airport Parkway, Southampton Central, Brockenhurst, New Milton, Bournemouth, Poole, then all stations to Weymouth".

So someone like me, who has never been to Poole or Weymouth and that part of the network is completely alien to me. How do I know which train to get ?

From an operational perspective. I used to announce 'Then all stations to.." right up until someone asked me about a station on a diversionary route. I only considered that my service was all stations via the main and didn't allow for someone who wanted one on the loop. Just because my perspective is 'all stations' doesnt mean regular folk have that same operational viewpoint

 

[Pigeon]

Does its presence at some stations, but not others, perhaps have the unintended consequence of misleading people to expect it everywhere ?

I think similar thoughts whenever I encounter it. It's not everywhere, it never will be, and the idea of a blind person trying to get around the place depending on it as an essential primary cue is kind of ludicrous in its unfeasibility. To encourage people to expect it is not likely to be a good idea.

Moreover, it's a poor signal in any case because it can mean opposite things. In some places it's a warning, in other places it's an invitation. And in some places it's nothing more than a non-slip surface that's been there since 50 years before anyone thought of using it to talk to blind people through their feet, and doesn't mean anything.

Trying to imagine what I'd do if I was blind myself I don't think I'd find announcements about its absence at all helpful. If I was familiar with the route I'd already know whether the stations I was using had it or not. If I was not familiar enough to know where the edges of things were, I'd be using a stick to find out: if I did start to get the idea that I didn't need to bother because all things would tell me where their edges were, I'd very soon have fallen off enough things to learn better. And an announcement that plays automatically every few minutes is more likely than not to not go off until after I've found out for myself anyway.

But I would necessarily be wanting the announcements to give clear, concise and accurate train running information, and consequently I would be that much more pissed off at all the random guff which is nothing to do with that. It would be like trying to read a departure board where you had to skip half a page of graffiti and doodles and please grass up your neighbour if they're brown and have a rucksack in between every line of actual information.

Things like the above-quoted Eden Park incident are of negative value to the debate because their information content is zero but their emotional content is such as to encourage the attribution of undeserved value to any unsupported assertions that the informational content was actually blah blah blah.
- Did a blind chap fall off the platform? Yes
- Was tactile paving absent? Yes
- Are the above statements causally connected? We have no bloody idea, and we never can have because we can't ask him.
But that won't make any difference to the incident being cited as unimpeachable evidence that tactile paving announcements can't be done away with, when in fact it isn't evidence of anything.

 

[Annetts key]

Yellow lines with a rough surface won't help a blind person who is feeling for tactile paving. At least the audible warning means that they will be trying to find the platform edge with their stick. So announcements are helpful in such circumstances. I don't understand why you think knowing an aid for those with sight issues is not available is of no use to them?

Tactile paving is being installed and will, eventually, be universal across the network. But it takes time. All new platforms and platforms on which major works take place are being built to the same standard which will make level boarding possible. It's not easy bringing Victorian infrastructure up to 21st century standards but there is a lot of effort going in to doing just that.

Network Rail is currently in the process of installing tactile paving on the platforms where it is not fitted at Bristol Temple Meads station. Hence the message about not all platforms have tactile paving / partial tactile paving on the stations P.A. system.

 

[Mat17]

Hmm like all government initiatives this will be counter productive, wait for it, but soon on top of all the announcements being made already there will be stations announcing gleefully that, "Due to recent government guidelines the quantity of announcements at this station has been reduced".

Like those joke health and safety signs saying "caution this sign has sharp edges".

 

[Tio Terry]

"Moreover, it's a poor signal in any case because it can mean opposite things. In some places it's a warning, in other places it's an invitation. And in some places it's nothing more than a non-slip surface that's been there since 50 years before anyone thought of using it to talk to blind people through their feet, and doesn't mean anything."

You do understand that there are different patterns of tactile paving that mean very different things don't you?

 

[TheWalrus]

As long as we have a privatised disintegrated system this sort of announcement is vitally necessary to prevent passengers unwittingly being charged eye-watering penalty fares for travelling in the wrong company's trains. Maybe it doesn't need to be repeated five times but more than once before the train leaves is essential.

Once or maybe twice yes but not 5 times. There’s enough information, announcements, displays and staff around to ensure you don’t get on the wrong train. If you still manage to get on the wrong train I can’t really understand why unless there’s a good reason.

 

[bramling]

So much for the latest cliché'd saying, but it has nothing to do with getting it right for those who need good communications.

Are announcements the best way of communicating information? On a busy weekend service full of families, football supporters, or whatever, announcements can quite often be barely audible on some trains.

Announcements have tended to be the go-to solution to many problems, but this doesn’t mean it’s the optimum solution, or even a good one. Indeed I’ve always wondered whether the fad for announcements is driven simply by some people never getting over the novelty of broadcasting their voice to others.

 

[Gems]

This proposal is welcome. However it is worth noting that it is mostly 'Elf and safety' on speed that has driven this GBH of the lugholes of late.

Some of my colleagues are as guilty of this as well. Whenever I have been travelling as a passenger I have almost said out loud "Shut the f*** up will you" on occasions (Pardon my expletives, but you get my drift)

BTP's "See it, say it, sort it" nonsense needs to come to a close also. It is well past it's sell by date, it is worth knowing that the average poster only has a impact life of about three weeks before it becomes background, many tannoy messages are the same. BTP's slogan lost it's impact a long time ago and that also is just white noise.

As a society we have to stop treating everyone as if they need information 24/7. We don't, we need a quieter life. And congratulations to Northern for getting rid of those 'Settle-Carlisle' line guides who used to travel on the trains telling everyone how many arches Ribblehead viaduct has. I know they meant well, but so did Eddie the Eagle, and he was a irritating object as well.

 

[fusionblue]

I hope "screen spam" is included in this. On a 700 to Blackfriars:

1. Final destination
2. Stations calling at
3. What coach you're in and the load in adjacent coaches
4. See it say it sorted
5. Nearest toilet(?)
6. TFL information (which is too far to read if you're away from the doors anyway, and completely useless if travelling to virtually anywhere on the Sutton or Sevenoaks lines)

Only if you have a stop that is too quick (think Nunhead to Peckham Rye) it interrupts somewhere around 3 and starts over. Same with the automated voice that can go in for ages if trains run further north than Blackfriars. So if you needed to find adjacent coaches then it's missed. It's arguably all useful information just vomited out in one unending stream of "no not that, not that, or that...."

 

[miklcct]

I think that the regular on-board announcements should include only the following regularly at each station:

At the station:
"This is an XXX Line train for YYY."

Just before the train door closes:
"Doors closing"
"dododododo"

When the train is running:
"The next station is XXX. (Interchange station for YYY Line towards ZZZ.)"

Immediately after the doors open:
"Mind the gap."

 

[BeijingDave]

This should be simplified to "all stops to destination", for example, "calling at Clapham Junction, Woking, Basingstoke, Winchester, Southampton Airport Parkway, Southampton Central, Brockenhurst, New Milton, Bournemouth, Poole, then all stations to Weymouth".

I'm also not sure about this one. I am unfamiliar with this area, and it may not answer the question of whether I am on the right train (merely that this train goes in the direction I want).