Would be good if the "rain is wet" warnings would actually be cancelled once the platforms were dry again. Often they aren't!
Again a manual input. Sometimes someone needs to remind the control room to take it off again!
Would be good if the "rain is wet" warnings would actually be cancelled once the platforms were dry again. Often they aren't!
Ah, good old 'someone'. If a passenger speaks to platform staff, would the platform staff be able to phone the control room?Again a manual input. Sometimes someone needs to remind the control room to take it off again!
Well, up to a point. Clearly if a train is due imminently or is actually at a platform the screens need to show the relevant information.Agreed, agreed, agreed, to so many of the complaints on this thread. If there is information about engineering work, leaves, wet surfaces and all the rest (particularly the now-hated 'See it, say it, sorted') then it should NOT share a platform screen with train information. Nor should it share the train information screen(s) in the booking hall, particularly if this is a long way from the platforms.
Screens are cheap these days. Put all information that is not about the next few trains on a separate screen.
Ah, good old 'someone'. If a passenger speaks to platform staff, would the platform staff be able to phone the control room?
If a platform is not going to be used for a while, then there are unlikely to be passengers there to look at the screen anyway.Well, up to a point. Clearly if a train is due imminently or is actually at a platform the screens need to show the relevant information.
However, if a platform is not going to be used for a while there is no harm in warning of, er, slippery platforms or upcoming engineering works, timetable changes and so on. Many previous threads have identified that a lot of people don’t read ‘posters’ any more.
(Posted as a former station manager.)
WMR do this. I often sit at Stratford-Upon-Avon after college waiting for my train, and watch thoroughly confused tourists stare at the platform screen trying to work out of the chiltern train on platform 1 is their train to Birmingham, and then the display changes to some random crap like "JOIN OUR CUSTOMER PANEL FOR 2021!!!!!" or "Wear a face covering!!!" or just some generic message about engineering works that are months off.Agreed, agreed, agreed, to so many of the complaints on this thread. If there is information about engineering work, leaves, wet surfaces and all the rest (particularly the now-hated 'See it, say it, sorted') then it should NOT share a platform screen with train information. Nor should it share the train information screen(s) in the booking hall, particularly if this is a long way from the platforms.
Screens are cheap these days. Put all information that is not about the next few trains on a separate screen.
Agreed - but it's not a "One size fits all" solution. At some (most?) stations where ECS moves form passenger services, there's a long layover for the driver to change ends. Also, the doors aren't opened until the guard has boarded and prepared the train. I've lost count of the number of times I've been on a platform waiting for the doors on an arrived ECS train to be opened. TD and passenger display systems all show it as class 1 or 2 (possibly with the class 5 headcode in the other berth in the platform) but it's still not ready to board.My pet gripe here in Oxford is when a unit leaves the carriage sidings to form the next Up departure from Platform 3. The announcement is something like "This train is not in public service - please do not board this train." On the face of it the advice is correct: the train is a Class 5 empty stock move and clearly does not convey passengers. But as soon as it occupies the platform track-circuit it is automatically re-described as a Class 1 or 2. At this point the train is properly announced with destination and calling-points. So now the train we were a moment ago asked not to board we are now advised to get on! Just how difficult would it be to re-programme the system so as to prevent these misleading announcements for Class 5 stock-moves?
I know what you mean about the ‘main board’ but the ‘pillar’ displays all round St Pancras do use an ‘inclusive’ sequential format.I was in London recently and we were talking about how bad the boards are at St Pancras, for example if you want to travel to Luton or Bedford it's not easy to work out where you should be looking. I can understand Eurostar departures being separate, but everything else should really be shown clearly in chronological format, as at almost any other major station.
We compared it to Kings Cross, which is so much better, however the 'next fastest train' board had errors, with some destinations showing no train for several hours (e.g. Biggleswade, Sandy); before anyone says 'those trains go from St Pancras', many similar destinations did show trains from St Pancras, but not all.
And then at Euston the following day, the departure screen in the ticket office cycled so fast between the pages it was almost unusable.
I appreciate it's niche,but I like the words and sounds matching. I find it like subtitles. With both sound and vision much better chance of knowing what's going on. As long, of course, as it's relevant. All too often in disruption there is no screen text at all, just when it's needed the most!And one from on-board trains - whoever had the stupid idea that scrolling displays need to use the exact same wording as audio announcements? Phrases such as "May I have your attention please" or "Ladies and gentlemen" at the start of an audio announcement give the brain time to adjust from "hearing" mode to "listening" but are completely superfluous on a written announcement - if I'm reading the display, it already has my attention; if I'm not, I'm not going to know that anyone wants it. The scrolling announcements should be as concise as possible. "Next station: XYZ" not "Our next station will be XYZ" etc.,
These days, a lot of the humans are so dependant upon the computers, that the humans no longer have the knowledge or ability to think for themselvesIt requires a human to engage brain and have the guts to say that “computer doesn’t know best”. Unfortunately it appears that no one can be bothered to do this any more. And then they wonder that people don’t pay attention to announcements!
WMR do this. I often sit at Stratford-Upon-Avon after college waiting for my train, and watch thoroughly confused tourists stare at the platform screen trying to work out of the chiltern train on platform 1 is their train to Birmingham, and then the display changes to some random crap like "JOIN OUR CUSTOMER PANEL FOR 2021!!!!!" or "Wear a face covering!!!" or just some generic message about engineering works that are months off.
What? Have the mere underlings who have to mix with the travelling public talk to the great deities in their ivory tower? Whenever I've suggested to platform staff that they might do such a thing, they act as even the very thought would bring down a thunderboilt on them.Ah, good old 'someone'. If a passenger speaks to platform staff, would the platform staff be able to phone the control room?
(I have also seen announcements system having arguments with the screens - which would be funny if it wasn't so important)
It seems the interface between the announcements and screens isn't 100% in places. One I've noticed is that a lot of trains at stations north of Tring are being shown on screens as being 4-car, but the announcements are correctly announcing them as 8.
Thats odd as the announcements information and text are from exactly the same data source.
What? Have the mere underlings who have to mix with the travelling public talk to the great deities in their ivory tower? Whenever I've suggested to platform staff that they might do such a thing, they act as even the very thought would bring down a thunderboilt on them.
The "Due" thing has normally come directly from passengers due to "Arrived" annoying people because the train was physically not there but had trigeered the berth point slightly down the line. This was normally more of an issue on TOCs running a significant metro operation it seems. However this has come to annoy another set of people, so not really sure what the solution is as the technology can only do so much (reliant on the physical infrastructure to tell you where the train is).
- Inconsistent use of words, e.g the Due example quoted early, and different TOCs presenting the same information in different ways. Use the same key words across the system
Many stations do have standalone "notice screens" which show rolling information as mentioned. Some places again only have platform displays so physically there is nowhere else to put this information. I'm sure many would love a separate screen but it of course comes at a cost. That being said, I can't say I've ever seen a text "wet weather" notice on platform displays!
- Use of displays to convey irrelevant information. A departure board should tell you about train departures, and any information which affects departures. As an example telling me platforms get wet when it rains does not live there (see next point). If you need to convey that information put it on a separate display with other things that do not affect the immediate journey(s) e.g. Up coming engineering work, special offers etc.
- Too many audible cues, Audio announcements/tones should be resticted to immediate things, in the rail world that would be departures and disruption. Other things cause user overload, and they tend to switch off. (In my world operators will often disconnect or otherwise silence an offending speaker, I've seen more that a few cases of the 'sock and gaffer tape' solution over the years.) There are documented limits in our industry which identify both the length and frequency of audible cues before user overload results, trust me the average station/train exceeds this by a large margin
- Linked to the previous point. If you are using spoken announcements, preceed all announcements with an audible cue (Anyone who has travelled in France will recognise the SNCF ding dong intro before messages). This helps users concentrate, if you are hard of hearing (like me) or English is not your first language it helps you 'tune in'. This should apply to both automated and human announcements.
- Carry out real world tests of any system, you can model/desktop review every aspect, but you can never catch everything, and then make changes. In the case of audio systems test under both crowded and quiet conditions.
- Every announcement/display needs a purpose, on hearing that announcement/seeing that display what action do you expect passengers to take?. In the case of departure boards thats fairly clear, go to the platform and get on the right train, so is all the information they need to carry out that 'task' presented to them. With other displays its less clear, and repeated announcements/display messages on the trivial level e.g. 'rain is wet' cause confusion and user overload, and are strongly discouraged in our industry. The only time where it is permitted in our industry is if there is an immediate and serious safety issue which requires immediate action, e.g. a building evaction is required
- Information accuracy, inaccurate information is worse than no information. I know there will always be case where something is broken, but at least fix the obvios and repetetive errors that seem to occur regularly
There is a lot more. A lot of what I see when travelling is just plain sloppy, the consistent station name boards is a (small) start. There should be national standards, which all operators should be told to follow. Getting it wrong does have consequences, people miss important information (Recent Swindon not stopping incident?), and it could be considered a safety hazard when managing abnormal events. Maybe the advent of GBR will see some of the worst examples addressed
Put it on a plain notice board if needs be, or the ticket machine 'at rest' display, even our local station, Bempton, which is at the bottom end of size and footfall has a ticket machine, but please dont clutter destination displays with it.Some places again only have platform displays so physically there is nowhere else to put this information
The only situations I can see where “arrived” is an appropriate message (as opposed to the expected departure time) are a) on an arrivals board - as in an airport arrivals hall - fir the benefit of those meeting arriving passengers and b) where a train service commencing its journey is formed by an arrival which then sits in the platform for ( say) 30 minutes. For the first 20 minutes or so, it’s worth putting up “arrived” to let people know they can already make their way to the platform and board the train - after that, it’s probably better to show the expected departure time .Let's take your post in turn as there are some fair comments.
The "Due" thing has normally come directly from passengers due to "Arrived" annoying people because the train was physically not there but had trigeered the berth point slightly down the line. This was normally more of an issue on TOCs running a significant metro operation it seems. However this has come to annoy another set of people, so not really sure what the solution is as the technology can only do so much (reliant on the physical infrastructure to tell you where the train is
@Horizon22 I am not going to quote your post, there are some reasonable comments, and I think it is clear that there are improvements which could be made probably at relatively low cost, go for the 'low hanging fruit' first, and deal with the easy to sort stuff, and then see what the remaining issues look like, very often if you deal with half the problems the remaining half dont look as bad.
One point I am going to emphasise is: There are far too many announcments, this I see as a serious problem, I would regard the Swindon incident as a near miss, no one was hurt, but there was a lot of disruption. The next time we may not be so lucky. I think it is a matter of safety. Deal with the ambulance chasers if people slip and fall in a different way, present 'see it say it' type info differently, because its my view that in dealing with one problem you are actually potentially creating a bigger one.
Having repetetive announcments about routine matters (see it say it, wet platforms etc) is counter productive, people mentally switch off, even if they dont put headphones in thier ears or whatever. If you are hard of hearing, or English is not your first language, then extra concentration is required and that makes it even worse. After the 6th repetetive announcement in a short space of time you get mentally fatigued/switch off, and if the 7th announcement is something serious you probably wont comprehend it. Not good good if it is something which needs an immediate response, and could be the trigger or contributary factor to something which results in injury or loss of life. (6 is just a guess based on similar experiences in other industries).
In our industry we get a similar situation, alarm flooding, too much information to process, and it was a contributary factor to a major fire at Milford Haven refinary in 1994.
Put it on a plain notice board if needs be, or the ticket machine 'at rest' display, even our local station, Bempton, which is at the bottom end of size and footfall has a ticket machine, but please dont clutter destination displays with it.
The only situations I can see where “arrived” is an appropriate message (as opposed to the expected departure time) are a) on an arrivals board - as in an airport arrivals hall - fir the benefit of those meeting arriving passengers and b) where a train service commencing its journey is formed by an arrival which then sits in the platform for ( say) 30 minutes. For the first 20 minutes or so, it’s worth putting up “arrived” to let people know they can already make their way to the platform and board the train - after that, it’s probably better to show the expected departure time .
This is a very British thing. I don't think I've ever heard warnings about wet weather in Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, France or the US. How have we got to this point in the UK? How could people walking/cycling/driving to the station fail to notice that it's raining? If I slip over on a wet pavement or steps, can I sue the council?On the other hand I’ve had platform staff mention it to me before and that’s fine. Whether a passenger mentioned it to then first I have no idea, but I would certainly hope a conscientious member of staff noticed it before a passenger had to bring it up.
Whilst it’s generally removed in good time, some stations the control staff don’t actually have a direct view outdoors and maybe have a few cameras so believe it or not you can’t always see when it’s raining. And once an announcement is on sometimes you can genuinely forget. Many times certain parts of the station are more damp than others and some managers are risk adverse and insist it remains on for a period of time as claims regarding slips,trips and falls normally have a key question around “was it raining / wet?” and “were safety announcements being played?” The claims can run into tens of thousands of pounds. Not everything is an evil conspiracy! But yes people could be a bit more on the ball at times.
I'm really struggling to get my head round this. Let's imagine that the wet weather warning goes off every 10 minutes. Someone gets off a train and slips on the wet steps 30 seconds later. It's unlikely that the automated announcement will have gone off in those 30 seconds so whether or not it existed at all will have no bearing on the incident. Have people successfully claimed off the railway because they fell over in the rain? As I said above, how does the rest of the world manage without this?Then if it's raining the wet weather one (which can be a key component of a civil case if it's not playing and there's a slip on the station.
Maybe we need to change the message to "For the benefit those you recently arrived from a place where you have never seen rain, rain can make surfaces including walkways slippery"This is a very British thing. I don't think I've ever heard warnings about wet weather in Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, France or the US. How have we got to this point in the UK? How could people walking/cycling/driving to the station fail to notice that it's raining? If I slip over on a wet pavement or steps, can I sue the council?