So many announcements, so few people taking them on board

ivorytoast28 · 30 Jan 2024

Found this rather amusing tonight on the last SWR train from Guildford to Waterloo. At every single station the same announcement would be repeated "Make sure you're in the front 8 carriages for Wimbledon and Clapham junction as these stations have short platforms". With so many stops it almost got annoying.

And of course as we arrive at Wimbledon, almost half of carriage 9 stood up to get off and wondered why the door wouldn't open (I was surprised at how many people were getting off there which further shows how ridiculous it is that swr don't normally stop any mainline services there given how well connected it is). I had to usher them down to the next carriage...

At Clapham junction there were less people but still some that tried to alight from carriage 9 despite repeated announcements as we pulled in...

I just found it amusing mostly, the announcements were non stop but a significant amount of people paid zero attention. And then when we arrived at Waterloo many people moved down, I will assume they were just in a hurry but I fear some had seen what had gone down at the last two stations and assumed the doors were broken or something

RailUK Forums

yorkie · 30 Jan 2024

Yes, there are far too many announcements and therefore people don't pay attention.

However, the people who make these decisions probably lack the sort of real-world experience people like us have.

deltic · 30 Jan 2024

Someone asked TfL an FOI on the effectiveness of its safety announcements - see https://tfl.gov.uk/corporate/transp.../foi-request-detail?referenceId=FOI-1507-2223

The response was

TfL does not hold the requested information as no research has been undertaken on this specific topic

All those announcements and no-one knows if they work!

lookapigeon · 30 Jan 2024

Not surprised, they need to cut the crap. I was on an SWR service recently and it was relentless, and I felt sorry for the poor guard who had to keep delivering all this.

Who cares for monologues about taking all your personal items with you, paying attention to the safety labels next to the window, pentalty fares being in operation, texting 61016 if you see something suspicious.

Essential info only - the next station is X, the train splits at Y please ensure you are in the right part of the train.

irish_rail · 30 Jan 2024

Personally I think people take notice of human announcements, but the automated stuff, most people just zone out as its so darn reptitive and monotonous.

IndianPacific · 30 Jan 2024

ivorytoast28 said:
Found this rather amusing tonight on the last SWR train from Guildford to Waterloo. At every single station the same announcement would be repeated "Make sure you're in the front 8 carriages for Wimbledon and Clapham junction as these stations have short platforms". With so many stops it almost got annoying.

And of course as we arrive at Wimbledon, almost half of carriage 9 stood up to get off and wondered why the door wouldn't open (I was surprised at how many people were getting off there which further shows how ridiculous it is that swr don't normally stop any mainline services there given how well connected it is). I had to usher them down to the next carriage...

At Clapham junction there were less people but still some that tried to alight from carriage 9 despite repeated announcements as we pulled in...

I just found it amusing mostly, the announcements were non stop but a significant amount of people paid zero attention. And then when we arrived at Waterloo many people moved down, I will assume they were just in a hurry but I fear some had seen what had gone down at the last two stations and assumed the doors were broken or something

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.

But yes, there will be a lot of people just ignoring the announcement or not hearing it through their headphones.

lxfe_mxtterz · 30 Jan 2024

irish_rail said:
Personally I think people take notice of human announcements, but the automated stuff, most people just zone out as its so darn reptitive and monotonous.

Even that's a push. Any time during disruption when you're instructed to run fast and skip out intermediate stops, you can pretty much guarantee you'll be questioned "Why didn't we stop at X"?

I had a woman angrily berate me for "not stopping at Vauxhall" a few weeks ago on a delayed service running fast from Waterloo to Motspur Park, despite me making five or six announcements in the platform at Waterloo and another once we'd departed. She then had the cheek to accuse me of not making any announcements.

I will admit that it is incredibly easy to miss the automated announcements, however. Unless deliberately listening out for them, I often find myself doubting whether I've put the code in (or whether they're even working) because I've automatically tuned them out.

ivorytoast28 · 30 Jan 2024

IndianPacific said:
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.

Yeah I noticed on a southern service recently that after an announcement about short platforms a unique voice clearly stated "you are in..." That helps at least. And in Thameslink the visible red on the overhead signs is possibly a better indicator still

iphone76 · 30 Jan 2024

We have this issue at various stations on the Elizabeth Line. Despite the automated announcement, and announcement I make at Stratford and Ilford, I feel like I'm wasting my breathe. I just hope that even if one person doesn't listen, someone else who has may stop them trying to egress onto the tracks if they see them attempting. (This does happen from time to time).

kristiang85 · 30 Jan 2024

There must be some kind of scientific evidence that people become immune to messages when they are heard too many times.

Also these days so many people spend all their time getting from A to B with earphones in (I dread to think of the deafness pandemic in 20 or so years), likely they just don't hear them.

HullRailMan · 30 Jan 2024

Headphones and phones mean most people operate in their own little bubble. That said, I agree that announcement overload just makes the whole thing white noise that people zone out from.

swaldman · 30 Jan 2024

SWR are particularly bad at this. Some years ago (it might actually have been SWT) I listened and noted that the automated announcements never stopped at all from before the doors closed at Waterloo until after we had left Vauxhall. It was literally continuous.

So of course our minds tune them out.

40129 · 30 Jan 2024

Was at Frodsham station this afternoon and my train to Manchester was delayed. The announcement for this delay (13 minutes) was played every 60 seconds from 3 minutes before the train's schedule arrival until it actually arrived. This was despite the length of the delay never changing. Surely, the minimum interval between such announcements should be 5 minutes

bleeder4 · 30 Jan 2024

Shrewsbury station is particularly bad. There are so many automated announcements that one will regularly start whilst another is already playing, cutting it off. It's just relentless. And so loud as well.

Bletchleyite · 30 Jan 2024

HullRailMan said:
Headphones and phones mean most people operate in their own little bubble. That said, I agree that announcement overload just makes the whole thing white noise that people zone out from.

Hasn't New St turned them off again? I don't know how they work this with the need for access for blind people, though - this resulted in them being turned back on at Manchester Piccadilly after a short campaign.

Horizon22 · 30 Jan 2024

yorkie said:
Yes, there are far too many announcements and therefore people don't pay attention.

However, the people who make these decisions probably lack the sort of real-world experience people like us have.

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.

dk1 · 30 Jan 2024

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.

norbitonflyer · 30 Jan 2024

ivorytoast28 said:
Found this rather amusing tonight on the last SWR train from Guildford to Waterloo. At every single station the same announcement would be repeated "Make sure you're in the front 8 carriages for Wimbledon and Clapham junction as these stations have short platforms".

And of course as we arrive at Wimbledon, almost half of carriage 9 stood up to get off and wondered why the door wouldn't open. I had to usher them down to the next carriage...

At Clapham junction there were less people but still some that tried to alight from carriage 9 despite repeated announcements as we pulled in...

Yes, people do zone out announcements - I have even had a travelling companion berate me for shushing them so I could listen to an announcement.

But the solution in this case was for the guard to actually walk down the rear unit, checking tickets and telling people to move forward if they were not going to Waterloo. It's not as if this is unusual on SWR, it seems to be standard practice on trains that are dividing en route (eg at Basingtsoke or Salisbury)

dk1 said:
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.

The worst one is "Thank you for travelling with......." on a commuter service. As if we had a choice.

dk1 · 30 Jan 2024

norbitonflyer said:
Yes, people do zone out announcements - I have even had a travelling companion berate me for shushing them so I could listen to an announcement.

But the solution in this case was for the guard to actually walk down the rear unit, checking tickets and telling people to move forward if they were not going to Waterloo. It's not as if this is unusual on SWR, it seems to be standard practice on trains that are dividing en route (eg at Basingtsoke or Salisbury)

The worst one is "Thank you for travelling with......." on a commuter service. As if we had a choice.

On our 745/755 units the announcement only plays in the required carriage & the GA guards normally patrol them at the appropriate stations too.

norbitonflyer said:
The worst one is "Thank you for travelling with......." on a commuter service. As if we had a choice.

Our conductors manually announce that bit and it comes over quite well.

pokemonsuper9 · 30 Jan 2024

norbitonflyer said:
But the solution in this case was for the guard to actually walk down the rear unit, checking tickets and telling people to move forward if they were not going to Waterloo. It's not as if this is unusual on SWR, it seems to be standard practice on trains that are dividing en route (eg at Basingtsoke or Salisbury)

And bad for Northern, I don't know how common this issue is nowdays, but in the past Civities would occasionally announce the whole train as not fitting the platform, which people would get used to and just start ignoring the short platform announcements, to their displeasure when a platform actually is too short.

75A · 30 Jan 2024

dk1 said:
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 don't blame you, it's bad enough on a cabride let alone everyday.

iphone76 · 30 Jan 2024

dk1 said:
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.

Can you mute the PIS in the cabs? I do on our 345s. Just have to be careful with the stopping pattern West of Paddington. Lol

800301 · 30 Jan 2024

75A said:
I don't blame you, it's bad enough on a cabride let alone everyday.

The one benefit of the GWR 80x fleet is there are no announcements in the cab, you can turn the cab speaker off in our 387's as well

CaptainHaddock · 30 Jan 2024

Horizon22 said:
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).

Are you seriously saying that some people complain that there aren't enough pointless and patronising announcements on the railway? If so, you may be in a very small minority!

talldave · 30 Jan 2024

dk1 said:
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.

Us passengers feel the same - however you have our sympathy for enduring a full shift of it!!

Buses are much better, although TfL went overboard with the relentless "from some date already past, this bus will become Superloop blah" announcements for what felt like weeks after the transition.

dk1 · 30 Jan 2024

iphone76 said:
Can you mute the PIS in the cabs? I do on our 345s. Just have to be careful with the stopping pattern West of Paddington. Lol

We can lower but not mute. They can also annoyingly be heard to an extent through the cab door. Best just to sing out loud.

talldave said:
Us passengers feel the same - however you have our sympathy for enduring a full shift of it!!

It really is monotonous. Who wants to hear the ‘see it say it sorted’ tosh? I can however knock it out at termini stations which I do most of the time.

Horizon22 · 30 Jan 2024

CaptainHaddock said:
Are you seriously saying that some people complain that there aren't enough pointless and patronising announcements on the railway? If so, you may be in a very small minority!

Yes some people say they do not hear announcements, or ask why there was no information regarding upcoming engineering works, or ongoing disruption, or information about lifts being out of service etc. There are also those with visual impairements who complain about the lack of relevant PA information on board and at stations

I didn't say I personally believed this but to pretend it doesn't happen and also to disregard the (albeit minority) opinions of certain groups is rather blunt. I did expect such a response from RUK forums though; not everyone is within a railway bubble or uses the network often.

dk1 · 30 Jan 2024

75A said:
I don't blame you, it's bad enough on a cabride let alone everyday.

Why they do it to us I’ll never know. Pity I can’t repay the favour into their office day in day out.

Horizon22 · 30 Jan 2024

dk1 said:
We can lower but not mute. They can also annoyingly be heard to an extent through the cab door. Best just to sing out loud.

It really is monotonous. Who wants to hear the ‘see it say it sorted’ tosh? I can however knock it out at termini stations which I do most of the time.

Won't be failing to call at any stops though!

Of course, those who hear these announcements day in, day out will become jaded to it.

dk1 · 30 Jan 2024

Horizon22 said:
Won't be failing to call at any stops though!

Oh no, they come up loud & proud to so not much danger of that. Every cloud I suppose.

So many announcements, so few people taking them on board

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