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Do Information Designers Ever Use The Railway?

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fgwrich

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A tortuous journey yesterday on the SWR network made we wonder again if those who design and implement passenger information regimes ever have to use them themselves?! SWR have taken to claiming that trains which may have a departure time over half an hour away are "Due", when they really mean that they are 'On Time'. This is an issue with any reversing train, and I frequently see it at Guildford with, among others, the Farnham shuttles. To claim a departure time half an hour away is "due" is simply wrong, and is another example of the railway inventing new, wrong, terms for ones which already exist! The Farnham train I saw also displayed "Winchester", whereas very many I saw on my travels were simply showing "SWR" - SWR are very poor at this.

Then there is the use of platform train indicators to show other messages, most notably forthcoming engineering works. At Woking, with the service in turmoil yesterday, passengers were dashing from one platform to another as trains were altered, only to see a message about engineering works, not which train was about to leave without them as they waited for the information to be shown! To have passengers dithering around train doors because they can't be sure that they are boarding the right train is counter-productive, as they are likely to obstruct the doors until they see the information they need.

Part of my career on the railway was in designing passenger information systems, and the current state of things is depressing to witness.

I forgot how irritating this system was until I was stood on Platform 3 at Basingstoke for a while last night. PIS Screens show that the all stops service to Waterloo is "DUE". Then as the set for the service rolls in, it changes to "Please do not board the train now approaching platform 3, this is not for customer use" (or something now unnecessarily longer) before switching back to announcing that this train is the all stops service to Waterloo. Cue a dozen passengers standing on the platform waiting for the next service as this one has already advised passengers not to board it before making a last minute dash for it!

Another thread mentions the Abellio / GTR style screens - can we please have more of those please and replace this outdated LED systems please?!
 
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The exile

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I don't disagree about announcements. However many can be switched off with the click of a button should there been serious service disruption. In fact the operators of CIS system have access to "Disruption Mode" which will turn off all automated announcements if need be.

Operational staff (drivers, guards, dispatchers) need not pay attention to these announcements as they are for passengers only at stations. They are responsible for the safe running of trains and ensuring passengers are safe in and around trains too. In emergency situations - such as station evacuations - the same will be true and it will be one emergency alarm that tells people exactly what to do. If the situation requires it, announcements can be altered and changed with a moment's notice. I suppose there's just disagreement and divergence amongst TOCs about what "normal" should sound like.



Many train stations are also termini. There are people (and staff) waiting to meet [people off] trains as well.
Hence the comment about “arrived” being suitable for an arrivals board ( or a platform screen that for whatever reason is announcing an arrival)
 

mike57

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Operational staff (drivers, guards, dispatchers) need not pay attention to these announcements as they are for passengers only at stations.
Its the not the staff, it is the passengers, because they will have 'announcement fatigue' they could potentially sit/stand there ignoring a message which turns out to be very important. I can think of a number of situations where failure to respond to an announcement could contribute to harm or worse when something goes wrong. There would be then be much discussion about why the passengers failed to respond to the announcements made, and top of the list would be the steady stream of messages prior to the one that mattered, so that they had mentally switched off. It could be when on board the train or while waiting at the station. In my book verbal announcments should be about things concerned with the current situation, where the train is stopping, disruption, etc. and immediate safety instructions. Its not the right way to impart standard safety or other messages.
 

py_megapixel

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Another thread mentions the Abellio / GTR style screens - can we please have more of those please and replace this outdated LED systems please?!
The Abellio ones are a different design and full of pointless animation, and relegate important information to far too small sections of the screen. They also don't get their information directly from the live feeds so the information is often inaccurate.

The GTR ones are infinitely better.
 

norbitonflyer

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Hence the comment about “arrived” being suitable for an arrivals board ( or a platform screen that for whatever reason is announcing an arrival)
We also have the curious habit at Waterloo (terminus) that platforms are only announced for arriving services if there is an alteration. Since we are not usually told which platform a train is to arrive on, why bother to tell us it's changed?

They also (confusingly) announced arriving "roundabout" services as being the xx:xx from Waterloo, which without a "via" point or two is singularly uninformative and somewhat confusing for occasional passengers as there is no other clue that the rounders exist - departures on those routes only display calling points to half way round.
 

Bletchleyite

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We also have the curious habit at Waterloo (terminus) that platforms are only announced for arriving services if there is an alteration. Since we are not usually told which platform a train is to arrive on, why bother to tell us it's changed?

There is an arrivals display, isn't there? The announcement draws your attention to that having changed.
 

Bikeman78

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Its the not the staff, it is the passengers, because they will have 'announcement fatigue' they could potentially sit/stand there ignoring a message which turns out to be very important. I can think of a number of situations where failure to respond to an announcement could contribute to harm or worse when something goes wrong. There would be then be much discussion about why the passengers failed to respond to the announcements made, and top of the list would be the steady stream of messages prior to the one that mattered, so that they had mentally switched off. It could be when on board the train or while waiting at the station. In my book verbal announcments should be about things concerned with the current situation, where the train is stopping, disruption, etc. and immediate safety instructions. Its not the right way to impart standard safety or other messages.
It's not as if most people take any notice anyway. It seems to be a box ticking exercise. Since Covid Greater Anglia has had an announcement "please remain in your seats until the train has stopped and avoid congregating in the aisles or doorways" which is routinely ignored. Everyone bunches up just like they used to.

Somehow the railway/DFT/ORR have convinced themselves that lots of automated announcements are a good thing. As you say, they are probably counter productive.
 

Horizon22

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Its the not the staff, it is the passengers, because they will have 'announcement fatigue' they could potentially sit/stand there ignoring a message which turns out to be very important. I can think of a number of situations where failure to respond to an announcement could contribute to harm or worse when something goes wrong. There would be then be much discussion about why the passengers failed to respond to the announcements made, and top of the list would be the steady stream of messages prior to the one that mattered, so that they had mentally switched off. It could be when on board the train or while waiting at the station. In my book verbal announcments should be about things concerned with the current situation, where the train is stopping, disruption, etc. and immediate safety instructions. Its not the right way to impart standard safety or other messages.

Anyway it's interesting this topic has been brought up, because I found out yesterday there's a Network Rail working group looking at exactly this regarding station announcements and fatigue.
 

norbitonflyer

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There is an arrivals display, isn't there? The announcement draws your attention to that having changed.
The arrivals display only shows the long distance trains - perish the thought that the locals should sully the arrivals board.

SWT colour-coded their trains to help identify their contents:

white - Clients, to be cosseted:
blue - Customers, to be humoured:
red - Cattle, to be herded.
 

webbfan

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What wanted to say is that it isn't a simple process to design and implement software systems and as a programmer designer there are a lot of things to consider that are not always available to control. We should not have to use the systems we design but do have to rely on information we are given. Theres an excellent article here https://www.d.umn.edu/~gshute/softeng/principles.html that explains things far better than I can.
 

Grumpy Git

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Part of my career on the railway was in designing passenger information systems, and the current state of things is depressing to witness.

If its anything like the attitude I witness in my particular branch of engineering, a lot of the problems are caused by the "can't be arsed" attitude, (plus most of the descison makers not being engineers, thus having little or no idea of how simple or complex any given task will be).
 
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