I was on BBC breakfast today as they had picked up on an item in the Daily Mail bemoaning the frequency of announcements on trains. It was an easy target. There are, as I have mentioned before, far too many announcements. The worst, of course, are the automatic ones warning you to take your luggage with you and to read the safety notices.
On stations, it can be even worse. At Hull recently, we were bombarded with announcements every minute or so ranging from the standard ‘don’t leave bag unattended’ to warnings about slippery floors – this on a sunny day in June.
However, interestingly, the emailers to the BBC were very split on the issue. While many agreed, a substantial number did not, arguing that the announcements were useful and necessary. I appeared on the programme with Jeremy Deller, the Turner prize winner, who has published a little book of sayings for London Underground train drivers to read out to their bored passengers. He made a telling point, which sums it up, saying that these announcements ‘infantilised’ us all, by implying we were all morons unable to pick up our bags or to realise that the doors would not open till ‘the train came to a complete stop’ – as opposed to a partial stop.
Indeed, it is partly about language, partly about repetition. Of course the needs of people with special needs should be recognised and catered for, but there is no possible justification for the sheer volume of noise on the trains. If the announcements were in Good English, and were varied and even informative – such as the viewer who complimented the (foreign) train guard who told people to watch out for the sunset out of the left hand window – then they would be bearable. I liked the suggestion from a vox pop interviewee who suggested that one carriage should be announcement free.
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46 Responses
I agree that too many announcements can be intrusive, but to patronise all us ‘Special Needs’ passengers with the link to infantilisation is ignoring the needs of the vast majority of passengers, especially non-commuters for clear information. Before these automated announcements we were left to the ‘mercy’ of patchy, infrequent audible announcements and no visuals. Visually impaired people had to ‘count stations’ often ending up at Clapham because of an unscheduled signal stop, and people with hearing loss like myself were regularly carried forward on ’skip stopping’ trains because they were unable to hear the manual announcements – try it yourself one day either shut your eyes or use your earphones! and finally – your quiet carriage sounds great without the ‘pains on trains’ but why should I be excluded from the peace because of my hearing loss!
Best Wishes
Ann Bates (DPTAC Rail Chair)
Posted on August 19th, 2009 at 6:06 pm
It’s always struck me as strange that so few LU trains have electronic displays fitted, even after they’ve been given major overhauls. The “Networker” trains in Kent have had such displays since their introduction around twenty years ago. What’s LU’s excuse?
Even without the special needs issues, the fact is that people have been wearing headphones on trains ever since the invention of the Walkman, way back in the 1970s. People use trains precisely *because* they can do other things while travelling. We already have a mode of transport which requires us to concentrate all the time. It’s called a “car”. That LU seem to ignore the problems of the deaf, hearing-impaired and MP3 player after so many years reflects poorly on them.
It’s an important design rule that the more often you repeat a warning, the more you train the listener to ignore it. This is a basic tenet of user interface design. You’ll often see it discussed in computing circles, but the most obvious example of its effects were documented by a certain Dr. Pavlov during some experiments with dogs.
Commuters are users too. Rail networks are complex systems and they expose a user interface in much the same way as computers do. The only difference is that the rail network’s interface is largely mechanical and tactile, rather than electronic and virtual.
A poorly designed interface can have a huge impact on productivity, but in the IT field, the worst consequence is rarely more than a trip to the nearest computer expert and the loss of some work. On the rail network, the consequences of such Pavlovian training can be rather more… terminal. (I hope someone from Health & Safety is taking notes.)
Donald A. Norman’s classic on this subject, “The Design of Everyday Things” has been in print since the 1970s. Perhaps it’s time it was made required reading in schools and MBA courses throughout the world. It’s arguably more relevant to today’s society than Shakespeare’s “Coriolanus”. And it’s a lot shorter too.
Posted on August 19th, 2009 at 8:09 pm
The announcement that annoys me the most is “Please take ALL your personal belongings with you when you leave the train”. Unless I’m moving house, I don’t have ALL my personal belongings with me – what is wrong with “Please don’t leave anything behind when you leave the train”?
Posted on August 20th, 2009 at 8:58 am
Of course the announcment I’d really welcome on trains would be the occasional “please take your litter home with you or place it in the bins provided” – I’m heartily sick of getting on trains to be surrounded by piles of plastic drinks bottles, discarded newspapers and general food wrapping.
The announcment would have to be amended re Cross Country who have refurbished trains and removed all litter bins (apart from in the toilets – so presumably they are working on the assumption that a desperate terrorist is not really desperate enough to find a litter bin in the toilet and would, after a thorough check of the passenger compartments conclude that they could not bring terror to a Cross Country train!)
Of course Ann B has a valid point, but I really can’t see how you need the automated efforts (from Southern for example) that run: “The next staion is X, we are now approaching X, this is X, the next station is y etc etc” At least 1 of those could be edited out.
And I do think quiet carriages should have edited versions of the announcments, if none at all – since at least 50% are not required.
It’s arguable that a good proportion of passengers are discriminated against simply on the basis that many announcments are impossible to understand – ever listened to the info on ticket restrictions at the start of an Inter City journey – without having done the full course on “UK rail ticket validity” at degree or even post graduate level?
Posted on August 20th, 2009 at 9:23 am
I have several pet hates from using C2C and LU around East London.
Waiting at Barking drives me mad. Every 3 minutes it’s:
‘Unattended items may be removed by the security services’,
‘This station used closed circuit Tv suveillance for your safety and security’
I find those both irritating and sinister.
West Ham overground delivers this message from the district platform, but audible to all, every 5 minutes. You have to imagine a Bob Crow accent for this:
‘London Underground Control here. All London Underground lines have a good service at present’
The accent and the pointlessness of that really jar. And it is often a total lie anyway. Only last Friday the Jubilee line was terminating at West Ham because of a signal failure at Stratford. That seems quite a useful piece of information to tell someone getting off to go there. But no, they’d have to do the tour of the staircases before finding out for themselves on the Jubilee platform.
Less irritating but just senseless is the ‘the train at platform 1 stops at all stations to Shoeburyness’. Then they list all those stations. Why!!?
Posted on August 20th, 2009 at 12:38 pm
This issue has long been one of my biggest bugbears and has taken up a considerable amount of my time in my attempts at researching (and trying to find reason and justification for) the need for such tactics.
For over a decade now I have witnessed an increasing tendency from rail operators and transport authorities alike to resort to this frankly irritating propensity for automated announcements. It’s almost as if everybody who is anybody is now possessed of this urge (not need) to mis-use technology to harangue, lecture, preach, bully and boss everybody about. It appears to have escaped their notice that, with such gratuitous overproliferation of so many loudspeaker messages emanating from every railway building, platform and on board trains, passengers may switch off completely and not take any notice of any of these announcements, thus leading, inevitably to them missing the IMPORTANT announcements actually concerning their trains.
I have on many many occasions over the last few years, written letters to Network Rail staff, managers at various termini – in particular Manchester Piccadilly and Liverpool Lime Street (stations which I pass through on an almost weekly basis) – and selected TOC managers, pointing out this and questioning the justification for so many such announcements. Sadly, the answers have always been the same – mainly because of government-recommendations and the ridiculous health and safety culture in which we’re becoming so increasingly entangled with – and controlled by.
I have taken the initiative to carry out my own surveys with fellow passengers over the years gauging their views on these announcements – and more crucially, the WORDING, of these messages – and the results have been interesting. My most recent survey took me 18 months and involved getting responses from a cross-section of the travelling public on 21 different routes in the Merseyside and Greater Manchester area. This survey specifically addressed the frequency of the apology announcements that we’re so relentlessly bombarded with on a day to day basis and I am currently taking the findings of this survey around various TOCs (Merseyrail being one of the parties I am due to speak with in due course) just so they can get some insight into what their customers REALLY think.
To be fair, train announcements are a way of life, but in the case of the railway network today it appears they (TOCs and Network Rail) have completely lost perspective on what makes an IMPORTANT announcement and what makes a pointless, unnecessary one. Furthermore, too many announcements (see Manchester Piccadilly, Leeds, Birmingham New Street, Liverpool LIme Street, Hull, and other major termini) effectively constitutes noise pollution – something which these authorities ‘in the know’ do not seem to realise even when it is pointed out to them (the announcements at Manchester Piccadilly in the platform areas are particularly deafening – I actually had them measured at 102 decibels!).
Not content with hectoring us about 24 hour CCTV, 24 hour permit parking, security personnel, ticket checks, unattended luggage, care in wet weather, no smoking, no cycling, skateboarding, rollerblading, feeding pigeons, giving money to beggars, and – presumably to come – not loitering, taking photographs, trainspotting, obstructing the escalators, running, scratching one’s backside, eating with one’s mouth open, etc etc…. it appears now that the powers that be who install new automated toilets at some stations have also decided in their infinite wisdom to provide its users with a cheerful verbal soundtrack to keep them occupied whilst they are spending their hard-earned 20 or 30 pence, at their INconvenience, presumably. I am referring to the ridiculous automatic toilets at Liverpool South Parkway – which actually talk to you for a full three minutes and sixteen seconds before it lets you get on with the job in hand (I know this – I timed it!).
What about, you may ask? Merely such hugely crucial issues as welcoming you to the toilet, outlining which buttons to press for various functions, where the toilet paper is, how to operate the sink, how to flush the bowl, how to use the washbasin and drier, how the toilet cleans itself, how long you are allowed to spend in there before a buzzer orders you out in order for the toilet to clean itself (it’s 15 minutes maximum, though I half expected a message to say ‘this toilet will self-destruct in 2 minutes time’ then the theme tune to ‘Mission Impossible’ come ringing around me as I get forcibly ejected out of the cubicle red-faced with my trousers still around my ankles), and not forgetting the fact that no smoking is allowed and – most disconcerting of all – that the toilets are monitored by CCTV (so I am being watched as I go about my business then???). If anybody who hasn’t visited Liverpool South Parkway finds this all a bit hard to believe then I strongly advise you take a trip there and check out their automated lavatory. Truly, it is something quite amazing – and worthy of a Channel 4 short film slot.
Finally, it is not too much of a surprise now to discover that, as far as privatised services/utilities and (privatised) public transport is concerned, the most gallingly overused phrase (or words) in the English Language is that nauseating sentence: “We would like to apologise for any inconvenience [or added journey time] that this will cause”. Based on my previous observations and tallys from my surveys, I have roughly estimated that, across the country, taking into account every railway station with a public address system, said phrase is probably uttered several thousand times a day, several hundred thousand times a week, and several million times a year. Is it not too much of a Herculanean effort for these incompetent morons to simply say ’sorry for a rubbish service’ and then shut the hell up without the need for the rest of that extraneous baloney? What has this country sunk to, I really do wonder?!!
No wonder our European friends keep laughing at us every time they travel on our trains and I for one don’t blame them. Imagine how I feel??
P.S. Oh, whilst on the issue of live on-board train announcements – perhaps the reason why they ramble on so long is that they get paid by the word? So the longer the announcements, the more extra commission they get? Just speculating!!
Posted on August 20th, 2009 at 4:21 pm
Alan Williams has been morning about this in his column in Modern Railways for a while. One suggestion of his is that a TOC does a proper trial, with proper research in to the effect of leaving out some of the announcements. Then the TOCs could justify their announcements with statements like “50% more passengers leave luggage on our trains when we don’t remind them to take it with them.”
On the other hand the research may prove that announcments make no difference at all to passenger behavior.
Posted on August 20th, 2009 at 6:14 pm
Apologies to Simon, if my last post suggested that his research was not “proper”. I was thinking more along the lines of statical analysis on the effect left luggage when the announcements were removed. This kind of thing could only be done with the assistance of a TOC.
Posted on August 20th, 2009 at 6:31 pm
“The next station is X, we are now approaching X, this is X, the next station is y…”
The best time and place to inform a potential passenger of a train’s itinerary is *before* they board it. If the passenger didn’t know where the train was going, why would they get on it in the first place?
“Unattended items may be removed by the security services.”
Good, so you weren’t just going to leave random pieces of luggage strewn about the station concourse and platforms until nature reclaimed them in much the same way it’s been reclaiming large tracts of the railway itself of late.
“This station uses closed circuit TV surveillance for your safety and security.”
As opposed to using them for kicks and giggles, I suppose? Why, exactly, do the public even need to be told this? We don’t hear “Catford Borough Council uses closed circuit TV surveillance to stop you thieving bastards nicking stuff from Poundstretcher.”
“All London Underground lines have a good service at present.”
It’s a poor reflection on LU that this situation is clearly no longer considered the default state for their network. Not even Microsoft Windows goes so far as to pop up a message box every couple of minutes to crow about the fact that, “Your computer has not crashed, and is currently operating normally.”
If Health & Safety are the root cause of all this, they need to be told, in no uncertain terms, to get a bloody life, not a petty little civil service empire. It’s their fascistic approach to their remit which has helped create an increasingly litigious society today.
The rail industry needs to stand up for itself and fight back against those who would cripple it with ludicrous constraints, while maintaining double standards for other forms of transport. (3000 people are killed on the UK’s roads every single year, yet nobody seems to be particularly bothered about them. Health & Safety certainly aren’t.)
Posted on August 20th, 2009 at 8:29 pm
Does anyone else find these announcements deafeningly loud? I have complained on SouthWest trains and been told by the guard that they have to be that volume for people who might be a bit deaf. Sorry to be unsympathetic, but couldn’t they use hearing aids? And couldn’t the use of such loud announcements be alienating those who have normal hearing, or do they have to be pitched so loud to get through to the personal music machine users, who surely could remove their headsets if they chose to do so? I also find the sheer remorselessness of the announcements a nightmare – stations all have speakers about every two inches or so, so that there is no escape from the cacophony! On the District Line in London, at Earls’s Court underground station, there are usually several announcements at once echoing to the rafters, and then every tube train is also blasting forth announcements…you get the picture!
Posted on August 20th, 2009 at 11:42 pm
Great post Simon, and well doen for trying to badge TOCs et al into doing something about this.
Here’s food for thought – you don’t get all this waffle in places like indoor retail parks etc (although don’t get me on the subject of the proliferation of musack) – might that be because the owners know it could drive customers away?
Well, like all the other nuisances of using public transport – the litter and grime, annoying behaviour of other passengers, this is part of the sort of thing that makes people think “I’ll get in my car thanks very much – I can control my own environment in there” – thus it probably drives business away, it certainly reduces the pleasure of the train journey – the best form of tranport yet devised IMHO.
After all – I don’t hear many people ever saying “I’ll take the train today, they always remind you to take your baggage with you thankfully – and at least you know when you are on CCTV”!
Here’s another thought, I wonder if it would be possible to convince the authorities that terrorists were devising ways to camouflage bombs as litter? That migth get some of it cleared up!
Posted on August 21st, 2009 at 9:31 am
Yes, Catherine – they are loud – you are right – esp on SW Trains (even more so in the SWT quiet carriage!). I do feel sorry for people who live near stations, platform announcements must carry into their homes at all hours – which is a shame, since living right close to a station would, in many other respects, be really handy
Posted on August 21st, 2009 at 9:33 am
I must admit that as the years have passed, my contempt and utter despair at this sort of cyber-bullying (effectively authorities getting their hands on technology and MIS-APPLYING IT AT EVERY CONCEIVABLE OPPORTUNITY REGARDLESS OF RATIONALE OR COMMON SENSE) has not faded, but rather intensified. To the extent that I now consider a train journey without hearing one single announcement of any sort – not to mention one sole utterance of those nauseatingly trite words ‘apologise for the inconvenience….’ – a minor miracle indeed.
Come to think of it, I actually look at it in terms of football speak whereby the goalkeepers’ main objective is to keep a ‘clean sheet’ – as in not allowing the opposition to get anything past them. Similarly, the number of ‘clean sheets’ I have managed over, say, a 7 day period whereby I use the trains on five out of those seven days (i.e. avoiding at all costs coming into earshot of a single useless pre-recorded announcement from everyone’s favourite AWW [Automated Wittering Wench] whilst passing through the platforms / concourse of Manchester Piccadilly station for instance) are virtually non-existent. Nevertheless, the few occasions when I DO manage to succeed in dodging one single announcement, as you can imagine, are worthy of wild celebration.
It really is a sad sign of the times that these days it is obvious that many bodies should NOT be trusted with new computer technology under any circumstances. These people include, in descending order of those for whom it should be outlawed, starting with the most cluelessly negligent first:
1) central government (and everything under its control)
2) Network Rail
3) the various train operating companies
4) local government
5) the part of the NHS keeping hold of patients’ records
6) the Royal Mail
Whatever happened to the good old human being employed to do live announcements? Are we so dehumanised these days that we have to programme absolutely EVERYTHING by computer just so we can get our rocks off listening to them grating on and on in those dreadfully false and cold, soulless, sexless, bloodless voices ?? In this respect – to paraphrase a wonderfully apt Blur album title – modern life truly is rubbish, and make no mistake.
Posted on August 21st, 2009 at 5:50 pm
If only the rest of the public information system on the railways was as efficient as safety announcements. In the last few weeks the seat reservation system has failed on Virgin trains I have used. This week I was seeing off a friend from Sheffield who had a reservation, the train was loading but the coach number was not being displayed on the electronic display, which in the end didn’t matter as the seat reservation system was again not working.
Another problem with Virgin stations is the departure boards. These often show three pages of departures, the most imminent on page one. Often I approach these boards when they’re on page two, I wait for a minute for them to change to page three (often with just one train on it), wait another minute and at last get to page one, where I can find out what platform my train is that is due to depart in two minutes.
The main departure board at Manchester Piccadilly keeps annoying me, half the departures are on one screen, the other half on another round the corner. I go up to it and my destination isn’t displayed, so I go round the corner to the other screen. I’m just about to find my station when it blanks out and displays the information from the first screen. I have to go back and look at the original screen.
Now Virgin station staff have been told to keep passengers behind the yellow line, and jesticulate wildly if you put a foot across the line (apart from one member of staff at Crewe who bellows at you down the platform). Whether or not there is a train coming is besides the point for Virgin Trains.
I could go on, but would it make any difference?
Posted on August 21st, 2009 at 9:51 pm
“I could go on, but would it make any difference?”
Judging by the comments here, I think we’re all preaching to the choir.
Either there’s a legal reason or policy imposed from on high by some knuckle-dragging moron in an office whose only contact with the public transport systems of this country generally coincides with a publicity photo… or the people running our services genuinely believe they’re doing things right.
My suspicion is that managers are running scared of lawyers, given that most of our MPs are of that profession. (The others are accountants: that happy breed of people who know the cost of everything and the value of nothing. Truly, ignorance is bliss.)
Damn. Now I’ve ranted all over Christian’s nice, clean blog. How uncouth.
Posted on August 22nd, 2009 at 12:33 am
My reaction is that one of the classic complaints about BR was that “they never told us anything” – now we seem to be getting too much information – most of it irrelevant.
Posted on August 23rd, 2009 at 12:42 pm
On Saturday evening, I travelled from Bexhill to London on a Southern train and in terms of announcements it was bliss. The computer generated woman merely says next stop and approaching, with no long list of other stops and no announcements about personal belongings, mind the step, slippery floors, pigeons or whatever. The only irritation was when the guard took over and repeated details of the next stop, though in fairness he did give additional information about connections. So if Southern can do it, why not SWT?
Posted on August 24th, 2009 at 9:43 am
Thank goodness for announcements of train departures at Manchester Piccadilly! These are the only bits of sanity to interrupt the otherwise continual drivel about wet platforms, rollerblading, CCTV, keeping your luggage with you, etc, etc
Posted on August 24th, 2009 at 8:14 pm
Keep nagging them Mr Wolmar, passengers need a strong voice (no pun intended) to counter these stress-inducing and futile intrusions.
My personal grievance? A rare trip to the Lake District recently, jumped on the local train at Oxenholme looking forward to a short scenic ride down to Windermere, only to be bombarded by several minutes worth of this pointless drivel. Goodness knows what all the many foreign tourists on the train made, straining to translate all this important sounding babble instead of enjoying the beautiful scenery.
Posted on August 24th, 2009 at 9:08 pm
As I mentioned earlier, I have already had several face to face meetings with the operations staff at Manchester Piccadilly over the years – from both Network Rail and Virgin Trains – about these incessant and pointless announcements. What is depressing is that many of these frontline staff who spend hours at the station each day heartily agree with what I say about the relentlessness of much of these, and they too wish that the tannoy would just shut up for a minute if only to give them some peace.
Interestingly though, I made a note of what many of these members of staff were saying – and that is, they tend to ignore the announcements after a while because the brain shuts off or disengages from paying proper attention to anything extraneous, thus it becomes part of the background noise – but an irritating background noise nevertheless. This just reinforces my argument which I have already put to the operations staff and station management that if there are too many messages in quick succession, not only is it gratuitous noise pollution but eventually passengers will just unconsciously ignore them, with the result that they may well then overlook the **important** messages about their specific train arrivals and departures too, as they will find it hard to differentiate between the two simply because their brains have been turned to mush by the sheer unrelenting cacophony assaulting them at every turn.
Another annoying fact is that whenever an announcement is made about a late arrival or departure, the AWW (that’s Automated Wittering Wench, as I refer to the public address system as) usually repeats it three to four times in quick succession. Now, I have always questioned the need for this sort of thing. Since the volume of these announcements at Piccadilly is already deafeningly loud on the platforms, surely passengers don’t need to be reminded four times on the trot. Twice maybe, but four times? It really is incessant. Now some might argue and say that it’s repeated four times because it is four different trains that are being announced as late as sometimes may happen…. I’m afraid I have to say in response that it isn’t – it’s the same one!
On some of the worst days for train delays (say, a bit of hot weather or wet and stormy weather when the trains are always going to be delayed because the track either buckles or there’s rain / leaves on the lines – both of which then affect the hyper sensitive state-of-the-art signalling which puts all the lights on red thus promptly implying ’signal failure’), there can be anything up to forty or fifty apology announcements emanating from the AWW in a hour. I can account for this happening on one occasion in 2003 when we had that very hot spell in July/August – whereby the heat literally caused the signalling to go haywire, thus delaying EVERY train in and out of Piccadilly station for much of the day. Needless to say, the AWW was on overdrive, what with the delayed train announcements as well as the 15 other pointless safety and security messages it loves spouting off at two minute intervals. In fact, it was a pity that the whole computer didn’t overheat and explode, which would have certainly made many people very happy indeed (even some of the frontline station staff no doubt!).
The station management at Piccadilly (people such as Duncan Law and his predecessor Richard Wojowski), unfortunately, reiterated the need to maintain a ’safe and secure station environment for all of its customers’ by adhering steadfastly to the rules governing these automated announcements. Even allowing for the inescapable fact that their own colleagues find it excessive for there to be so many. What I find ludicrous though is the fact that each of these automated computers now increasingly widespread at our main termini costs Network Rail in the region of £40,000 to programme and implement. As opposed to simply employing a human being like in the old days (even the rubbish Railtrack days for goodness’ sakes!) for far less money just to exercise some discretion and humanity to proceedings – something which now is ironically lacking as each station has the same thing, thus creating a disturbingly Cold War-like uniformity countrywide.
My argument is this – if it is programmable then surely it can be RE-programmable – if only to cut out all of the extraneous gibberish and keep things simple. Funny how they don’t realise this. They simply refuse to accept that perhaps it IS all a bit OTT what with more and more mainline stations now equipped with the same automated voice computer haranguing, bossing and ordering people about just for the hell of it because ‘the government recommends all stations strictly comply with the needs of an increasingly stringent health, safety and security culture’. What a load of baloney. Can people not think for themselves anymore? Sure, there may be exceptions to which Network Rail and its bureaucratically obsessed station managers have to pander, but most passengers are perfectly capable of reading English and making common sense decisions for themselves about being careful in wet weather, not giving money to beggars or being careful not to chew Costalot Coffee paninis without their mouths open lest they get caught, named and shamed on CCTV because the Automated Wittering Wench says so.
This merely proves my theory once and for all that this country is going to hell in a bucket from the way it is simply using – or mis-using – technology unnecessarily as a means to an end, without considering the proper implications, not to mention practicalities and common sense, of such lavish overindulgence. It really defies belief that even toilets on board trains – or an increasing number of public toilets in general everywhere you go – are now over-equipped with all manner of gadgetry to confuse and amuse and infuriate (witness the aforementioned speaking toilet at Liverpool South Parkway station – really, I strongly recommend everybody pay it a visit if you have the chance) when all people want more than anything is a place where they can do their thing in peace and quiet with the minimum of fuss and bother – and then wash their hands in a NORMAL sink and not in some crazy unworkable contraption that looks as if it might have been devised for the sodding Krypton Factor.
Even the seat reservations on board some trains are computerised, meaning the station crew have to download – at some considerable time and inconvenience (what about those staff who aren’t familiar with the whole caboodle?) – all of the information before passengers are allowed to board the train and woe betide any passenger who boards the train to find their reservation that they paid an extra £5 for has mysteriously disappeared off the system due to some unfortunately ill-timed compluter glitch. This isn’t fantasy, it’s reality – I have seen this happening on Virgin / X Country trains!!!
What many people fail to see is the simple fact that not everything in life has to be automated and computerised to the point of no return! Sadly, it seems our wonderful government, Network Rail and the train operating companies in particular constantly love making a [misplaced] virtue out of this, wasting millions in the process, and only succeeding in making life even more exasperating and difficult not just for us, but for themselves. And they are too conceited, arrogant and plain blinkered to see this.
Truly, sometimes it really is fair to say that modern technology is being programmed by morons. I can only hope that one day all of this techno-obsession will backfire and these computerised gadgets bring about their own obsolescence – and that of their operators – and basic common sense prevails again. When will people rise up as one and declare loudly, once and for all, that enough is enough?
Posted on August 25th, 2009 at 12:39 pm
My view is that a certain amount of automated announcements is a good thing, but I heartily agree with many of the commentors that what we have now can be excessive. I regularly travel on the North Wales coast line; we have automated announcements of varying effectiveness on the trains. On the 158s they are generally inaudible. On the 175s they are generally fine but are prone to certain quirks, like announcing we have arrived at Llandudno Junction when we’re at Conwy, or announcing the current station and the next stop as the same (e.g. “This is Chester. This train is for Holyhead. The next stop is Chester.” Sometimes the guard interrupts the automatic announcement part-way through. This is sometimes helpful (such as when the automatic system has got its knickers in a twist) and sometimes not — last week, the automated announcer was halfway through telling us we were approaching Llandudno Junction when the guard cut in to tell us exactly the same thing. Even so, they could give more warning. On some crowded trains I’ve seen plenty people with reduced mobility only just get to the doors to get off before they close and the train leaves, and on one occasion I saw someone who didn’t get there in time. This is a place where automated announcements (if they work) are good, because they’re not dependent on whether the guard is halfway down the train selling tickets at the time (though at least the guards don’t have to fight their way all the way to the back of the 175s to open the doors any more).
I agree with earlier comments about too many announcements making them pointless because people ignore them. I now pay no attention to the safety announcements because I’ve heard them too often and they just irritate me because they put me off my reading. But if I hear the guard (rather than the automated voice) I pay attention because it’s a real human with real authority on the train and I assume they have something to say I ought to listen to.
And the language of these announcements is weird: why “passengers are reminded to keep their personal possessions in view” and not simply “please keep your personal possessions in view”? You don’t need to tell me passengers are being reminded while you are in the act of reminding passengers. And I don’t count an automated computer-synthesised apology as any sort of apology at all. I’d rather have no apology at all than have one pre-programmed by someone far away and a long time ago who decided the system should kick in whenever a train is more than a certain number of minutes late.
Unfortunately the solution to most of these issues is expensive because it involves employing and training more real people to make announcements, check that people have got on or off the train OK and so on. But if we didn’t have so many private companies creaming off the subsidies for their shareholders, perhaps the railway would have the funds to be more human. And I’d suggest making the railway more human is more likely to persuade people to travel by train than shaving a few minutes off journey times here and there.
Posted on August 26th, 2009 at 10:17 am
I would suggest that many of these announcements, not only on railways but in all aspects of modern life, are for the protection of the company, not the passenger/customer. In this litigious age, people might sue the TOC if they get injured trying to board a moving train if the the TOC hasn’t warned them previously that it’s dangerous!
The dreaded health & safety fascists now dictate that we cant get in a lift without being told the doors are closing/opening.
One has only to go abroad to realise the futility of life in Britain.
On a German inter-city what you tend to get is ‘ in a few minutes we shall be arriving at Koln/Stuttgart’ etc.
You dont get reminded to take your stuff with you, or not to try to open the doors till the train has stopped ( how do you do that?) or to mind the gap between the platform and the train. Are they so much more intelligent in Germany?
Health & safety regulations are making this Country uncompetitive and a laughing stock.
And does it actually do any good. Do less people fall out of moving trains in Britain than in the rest of Europe?
Fortunately I’m so old I wont have to put up with it for much longer!
Posted on August 26th, 2009 at 11:21 am
Following on from Michael’s point we have all this nanny-state announcements about health and safety and all the rest of it, but consider this one – all trains which involve Mark 2 or Mark 3 coaches (HSTs, the GEML, Caledonian Sleeper etc etc). Or indeed the old Mark 1 slam-door stock in South London.
You can quite easily slide the door windows open stick your head and upper torso out the window whilst the train is going a long at full pelt and get yourself decapitated.
Yet I’ve never heard an announcement warning us against doing this……..a much bigger issue than Mind the Gap or leaving your luggage!
Posted on August 26th, 2009 at 1:10 pm
I am dreading the introduction of this on my commute on our South Eastern (south east London) trains- they are already on the Kent coast ones. On these, a typical leisure journey earlier this year lasting just over a hour from Wye to Bromley had no less than 54 annoucements, each preceeded by my pet hate (those South eastern “chimes”).
If you actually look at the regulations on this they are reasonably moderate ie helpful to the disabled. Just announce the next station (once), the destination (not intermediate stations) each stop. It even says something about too many announcements being irritating if I recall (it’s somewhere on the DFt website) and not having announcements when there’s only a 2 minute gap between stations.
To me the consequence is when the announcements and chimes are brough in on my commute I won’t be able to read a book anymore, as the announcements/chimes are much louder than the safe level of music volume on my MP3. That’s what annoys me most. Unless they can moderate the number, reduce the volume and remove those “chimes” ie revert to what the law actually requires rather than what train companies think we want.
I think what we need is some concerted (all party, grass routes) campaign led by someone like Christian and/or Mr Willets MP(on BBC London news tonight)-with commuters’ support-to ATOC or whoever to get something done.
Posted on August 26th, 2009 at 8:04 pm
I have always been of the opinion that if you need reminded to take your luggage with you, you deserve to lose it and if you need warned about a gap you deserve to fall through it.
Natural selection an’ all.
(Yes, I know, left baggage causes security issues but my beliefs are for a world without extreme paranoia or hysteria)
Posted on August 27th, 2009 at 4:25 pm
Whenever I complain about this phenomenon, people just say “turn up your iPod to drown it out”. Firstly, I don’t possess an iPod and secondly, if you’re adding noise to something which is already shattering your eardrums, surely hearing impairment is a major risk? I’m always amazed at how little people seem to value their hearing and how much loud noise they can tolerate – everyone fusses about smoking so that now pubs and restaurants are smoke-free, but instead we’re risking deafness by increasing use of loud music and announcements!
Posted on August 27th, 2009 at 10:40 pm
Thing is though, I invited a friend of mine who works for health and safety (on building sites) to visit Piccadilly Station a couple of years ago and he had with him one of those devices that measure sounds in decibels to prove whether or not it is of an unacceptably dangerous volume. The announcements emanating from the speakers that are placed on all of the train roof supporting columns at Piccadilly station were thus measured for loudness and we were staggered that many of them were over 104 decibels.
We took these findings to Duncan Law who is the station manager at Manchester Piccadilly and he just dismissed these figures, citing the need for the speakers to relay the messages at such an uncomfortably high volume so they could be clearly audible above the noise of the diesel train engines. I am not convinced by his argument. It’s clear that some of these people are just completely ignorant of what passengers have to say – but the problem is, it would appear not enough people make an issue about these things anyway.
As for the volume of those automated announcements on board trains – once again there are wildly varying degrees of loudness, not all of which automatically imply that the messages are actually intelligible enough (some are wildly distorted!).
Today I was sitting on a Pendolino train at Piccadilly waiting to depart for Stockport. It was another 12 minutes before the train left, but in this period I heard no less than ELEVEN separate ‘AWW’ announcements bleating on about smoking, security, CCTV, left luggage, cycling, skateboarding and rollerblading, ticket checks, security, CCTV, left luggage, smoking, unauthorised parking, etc etc blah blah blah – and this was in addition to actual train departures and arrivals. All this in just over 11 minutes. How does this average out as you may ask? Well you can work it out! Truly, utterly ridiculous public address system overkill as usual.
Incidentally, in Stockport as I was on the platform, there were FOUR announcements (though here they are made by live human voices as Stockport thankfully hasn’t got itself equipped with an ‘AWW’ yet) about signalling problems affecting all trains arriving at Platforms 0, 1 and 2 (all southbound), but even here the idiots couldn’t use proper English when making these announcements. For one thing, you DON’T Use the word ‘apologise’ twice in ANY single message. Once is quite enough, if it has to be used. It is bad English to start the message with the following words: “Apologies to customers awaiting the……..” and then end the message with “…Virgin trains would like to apologise for……” If you’re going to insist on starting the announcement with “Apologies to passengers…”, then surely there is NO NEED WHATSOEVER to then use the word ‘apologise’ again towards the end. It’s just gratuitous, pure and simple. So I heard four messages within three minutes – the word ‘apologise’ was used twice per message – ergo a total of EIGHT times. Totally unnecessary.
Either stop using this word and learn to use the word ’sorry’ or don’t bother bloody apologising so profusely at all because as far as passengers are concerned they don’t give a toss about how many apologies TOCs can utter every hour, because it doesn’t change anything, let alone make the trains run any less late. To be frank, it’s becoming such a bugbear of mine now that every time I get the train ANYWHERE I always get to hear the phrase ‘apologise for any inconvenience’ at some point. A couple of years ago I was on a train, talking to a Belgian tourist who had travelled to the UK to work and he too kept remarking on why the British were so obsessed with ‘apologising for the inconvenience’ at any available opportunity. He found it quite amusing, and hard to believe. Imagine how I felt?!!!
Perhaps it’s true like the song says – how ’sorry’ always seems to be the hardest word.
Posted on August 28th, 2009 at 12:37 am
I’d like to put in a good word for Chiltern Railways. They tried the automatic on-train announcements, but the women who voiced them was the same one who voiced the announcement for the entry door at my dentists. Every time I heard her announce the next station on the train I could not help but think of that invitation at the dentist to “Come in, the door is open”. Enough of us wrote to complain, that they abandoned her, despite having spent a goodly sum on the announcements.
Instead, they just told the drivers to keep us informed as necessary. Some are quite terse, some don’t say much at all, and if you get one particular driver you get a travelogue about all the bus connections and which stop they leave from. All of that is quite OK, because it is variable. I feel that it is the predictability of the automated announcements that is part of the problem. And as several have said previously, the way in which the announcements treat adults as imbecilic kids.
On the stations, Chiltern do use automated announcements, but mostly they are five minutes and two minutes before the train arrives, with precious few of the AWW type.
Overall, I think Chiltern illustrate again that when career railwaymen run the railway they make a better fist of it than when career busmen try the same task.
Posted on August 30th, 2009 at 9:30 pm
Christian – I note your comments about Southern journey – but the week after you took the train to Bexhill I was on the same route Gatwick to Bexhill / Hastings / Ore. This train spilts at Haywards Heath (a complex concept it would seem to many passengers, despite it being a regular occurence on this route since probably the 1930s) –
All well and good until after Eastbourne – long after the spilt- when half the spilt train (on the final leg to Hastings) re started the automated mantra “This train will divide, with the front four caoches for Ore, and the rear four coaches for Littlehampton, please ensure you are in the right section etc etc” – of course this then resulted in more announcements from the guard saying “Please ignore that last announcment” and him then tunring off the whole automated system. So Southern are only slightly better.
You are right this is better than SWT – but the previous weekend I was on SWT Waterloo to Dorchester, and thinking about it the guard must have switched the whole automated thing off as there were hardly any announcments until Bournemouth – when I think there was a crew change and it was switched on again.
Posted on September 1st, 2009 at 10:37 am
Oh yeah – and what about those standard ‘Apology’ announcements having a second sentence: “Forms to claim compensation for the delay are availble from….” – if that had to be stated they’d soon be less frequently announced!
Posted on September 1st, 2009 at 11:49 am
All I will say is that at least automated announcement systems cannot be programmed to tell bare faced lies to passengers (sorry customers) like real people do – I recall a nightmare of a journey when I was on a Euston-Glasgow train that got terminated at Carlisle “due to ongoing technical problems with this train”. Amidst all the angry crowds at the Citadel I overheard a member of Virgin staff saying it was illness of a crew member. Smelling a rat, I noted the number of the Pendolino as it left Carlisle.
Two hours later, I finally arrived into Glasgow and low and behold there was the very same Pendolino proudly awaiting as the 1500 back down to London. So it was so broken or without a crew it couldn’t limp along for the last 102 miles of its journey with its passengers who all got punted onto an already full Voyager an hour later to stand for another hour. So what was the real reason then? – I’ll never know. No announcement system will ever stop the contempt that a lot of people feel towards the way the railway communicates with them.
Sadly Dan, on this occasion I had to furiously go into the Glasgow Central travel centre and ask the poor Virgin ticket office clerk who was on the unfortunate end of my wrath as I asked for a compensation form.
Posted on September 1st, 2009 at 12:25 pm
I don’t know if others have noticed the difference between SWT & Southern AWW digitised announcements – how badly the former are edited/stitched together to make the correct announcement: they are almost unintelligable in their clumsily clipped form. I was once priviledged to hear the complete AWW available on board a train courtesy of a bored Southeastern guard, operated from his handset in the vestibule, but even he was not able to voice-up the emergency announcements, whatever they were. He said that the Southern’s irritating digitised habit of telling even metro 4-car Electrostar’s passengers what number coach they were on (despite no chance of a computer entangled split!) was due to the driver miss-programming the PA system – perhaps, more likely miss-programmed in the first place like most of this techie stuff. But recently travelling on First GW HST we were pleasantly not subjected to any automated or visual announcements, just the usual incomprehensible guard and buffet staff LIVE – don’t breathe a word of this to H&S!
Posted on September 10th, 2009 at 6:37 pm
They drive me mad this incessant clap trap comeing out of PA systems at stations and on trains.
Was in Paris recently and there was blissful silence on the Metro unless it was something important to announce.
Where did all this come from and why it seems like a new type of hysteria.
Posted on October 5th, 2009 at 10:38 am
I had the misfortune of spending a while at Leeds station yesterday around 5pm. Considering the amount of platform changes there were and the fact that some trains were running late there was little or no automated annoucements about this. I was constantly harranged to not skateboard, smoke, leave my luggage unattended, and reminded that for that I was being watched by CCTV.
In comparrison Loughborough and Derby stations are fantastic. A real person telling you what you need to know when you need to know it. It’s a pleasure to travel from there.
I’m really sorry I read this article though as now I notice the AWW more than I used to and it’s made rail travel less enjoyable.
Posted on October 6th, 2009 at 9:21 am
I came across this in Rail 628 on page 67. It’s about why Leeds station wasn’t chosen as “Station of the Year” in the national rail awards.
“The whole station is clean and tidy, and is well-run, but the most irritating aspect of the station is the overuse of the loadspeaker system, which creates unnecessary noise pollution.
Non-train announcements, repeated over and over again, destroy the ambience of the station, and are symbolic of Network Rail’s stance. It does not happen at large stations that are not within Network Rail’s grasp, and Network Rail should urgently rethink its policy.”
Posted on October 9th, 2009 at 9:46 am
DON’T!
LUL are easily the worst offenders here….
“this is a Piccadilly line train…” – at Holloway Road.
“Stand away from the yellow line” – when there are less than 10 people on the platform, all well back.
“This is Euston (or wherever)” – MUCH TOO LOAD, and six times – we can all read….!
Oh, and worst of all: “Stand clear of the doors” – when there is an automated “bleep” to warn you. I kid you not, I counted that said announcement was made over 30 times between Walthamstow and Oxford Circus, on the Vic-line one day.
Excuse me, but…. ARRRGH!
Posted on October 9th, 2009 at 5:09 pm
This isn’t purely a UK thing… I’m an ex-pat who commutes into Toronto by train every day, and each time I am solemnly told that “crossing tracks at platform level is prohibited and illegal”. Surely all illegal things are prohibited?
Posted on November 6th, 2009 at 7:08 pm
REPEATING – just like LUL ….
“Stand Clear of the Closing Doors” ….
When there is ALREADY an audibvle “bleep” BUT: 32TIMES between Walthamstow and Oxford Circus ?????
“This station is “$NAME” – we can all read – SHUT UP!
“All $NAME and other Undergound services are running normally” – well, bloody SHUT UP THEN!
“Stand clear of the yellow line at all times” – especially when there is a train at the platform with its’ doors open ?????
Posted on February 17th, 2010 at 4:07 pm
Well yes and no really – I think on the Northern Line the automated announcements telling you where the train terminates are invaluble in making sure you are on the right branch – let’s face it – if you get on at Camden Town it must be the only railway in the world where you need to know where the train has come from in order to know where it is going…..
And well if you are blind……how can you read a station sign??
On the other hand telling us that we have a “good service” smacks of a self congratulatory pat on the back on the part of TFL.
But Tube drivers do have a wit similar to London cabbies; here’s a great piece of PA I heard that has stuck in the mind:
“Ladies and Gentlemen, please don’t use the connecting doors between coaches whilst the train is moving, these are prohibited from public use anyway, but if you want to fall under the train and get crushed to death then that’s up to you…..”
Posted on February 17th, 2010 at 5:49 pm
Some interesting comments here. East Midlands Train announcements are not automated, but are no longer announcements. On leaving St Pancras or any city in the Midlands, we get an 8-10 minute speech/monologue/litany/rant.
This is in bizarre convoluted English, with phrases like ‘the next station call has a reduced platform facility’ possibly sounding grandiose to the train announcer possibly with an ego problem, but meaning absolutely nothing to anyone who speaks English less fluently, and meaning little to someone who is struggling with bags, children, and needs not a stream of data that must be processed, rather *information*.
It’s also repetitive. You will be reminded two or three times in the same announcement where the train is going, which is rather pointless by now since the doors are locked and the train is moving. (This is compounded by the fact that the announcements at the stations didn’t happen and the indicator boards lie).
This is followed by a litany of the buffet car contents, and reminders that the train is no smoking and that safety information is printed on posters, and also available in the on-train magazine. This is pathological! After 8-10 minutes of being bombarded with this moronic dirge, we are reminded that coach G is a quiet coach. Now surely this is a form of bullying.
It does make for depressing travel. Of course trains have announcements, but by comparison Deutsche Bahn have to do this in three languages from Brussels going east, but they still manage to do the whole thing in 60 seconds flat.
‘Good evening ladies and gentlemen, this train will arrive in Frankfurt at 9.15, the buffet car is at the front, please have your tickets ready for inspection, and we hope you have a pleasant trip’
Granted, people who are partially sighted need to know where the train is coming in to. This is probably less than 5% of the announcement. Interestingly, on the early trains to London, e.g. 6.30AM, these are in effect sleeper trains, and train managers who cannot manage to shut up on the first trip, are politely reminded by passengers to put a sock in it.
Posted on April 11th, 2010 at 7:16 pm
Milton Keynes station has finally got its automated announcements working so now we’re told to stand clear of the platform edge the next train on platform 1-6 does not sop here!
As trains pass every few minutes MK reminds me now of those films about Nazi Germany or Soviet Russia where their citizens were bombarded with loudspeaker announcements the whole time.
Even in our new local Sainsbury one is treated to a constant stream of announcements about holding onto our trolley’s and being prepared to push them off the walkway.
This country is becoming a very unpleasant place to be with a plethora of useless and annoying signs, together with increasingly invasive public announcements.
We seem to have a sort of diarrhoea of language, never using one word when three will do.
One of my pet hates is the Virgin seat reservation system on the trains . Instead of ‘free’ or ‘reserved’ you have to wait while the indicator scrolls slowly throgh with the message ‘t- h-i-s s-e-a-t i-s n-o-t r-e-s-e-r-v-e-d!
On a crowded train it takes an age for people to find either reserved or free seats.
Verbal and aural pollution is a curse in this Country and the perpetrators should be lined up and shot!
Posted on April 14th, 2010 at 9:53 am
“Verbal and aural pollution is a curse in this Country and the perpetrators should be lined up and shot!”
Another lesson to be learned from Soviet or Nazi systems of course.
Sadly despite much rhetoric from Cameron and co about ‘big govt’ I just know that it will not even touch on all the stuff about these pointless announcments etc – which are far more invasive than what the local council / NHS etc may or may not decide to do !
Posted on April 14th, 2010 at 11:11 am
Has anybody passing through Liverpool South Parkway station (an interchange serving John Lennon Airport) checked out the concourse’s – now infamous – automated speaking toilets yet?
I mean, talk about a new tourist attraction in its own right!! This amazing facility deserves a whole Channel 4 dispatches documentary devoted to it, if only to highly the sheer laughable extremes in which modern technology can be misappropriated. Even some of the staff working there don’t know whether to laugh or cry!
Posted on April 29th, 2010 at 12:34 pm
Motorway gantry signs are another example – apart from the infernal (and patronising) CHECK YOUR FUEL and BE A COURTEOUS DRIVER (a bit of a lost art on British roads, these days), there are the ones that warn of problems that are in some cases hundreds of miles ahead, and relevant probably to about 5% of drivers who will turn off long before the troublespot.
How annoying is it when the RDS on your car radio stays silent and then suddenly a traffic report comes on warning you of the snarl up you have just driven into the middle of?
Posted on April 29th, 2010 at 1:08 pm
“Even in our new local Sainsbury one is treated to a constant stream of announcements about holding onto our trolley’s and being prepared to push them off the walkway.”
In our local coop I was amazed to hear an advert from some government agency or other, advising me on which cuts of meat to buy, and how I should be buying fruit and vegtables and all sorts of other tips on how to shop healthily. It just makes me want to buy more junk food!
Posted on April 30th, 2010 at 12:22 pm
Simon
Please tell us more – it’s a long way to find out. What on earth do they say?
Posted on April 30th, 2010 at 3:02 pm
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