Sign language on train route information displays (and station departure boards)

[800001]

Im certainly unlucky, I sometimes joke that being able to guarantee the screen won’t be on page 1 when I am rushing for a train!

And on no occasion has that been because of the presence of a BSL interpreter!

You would think that all platform informations screen would have a set time per page at all stations so that is all
Uniformed.

 

[NSE]

Whatever the benefits may be, it is very unhelpful when you're trying to work out where to catch your connection leaving in 5 minutes time and the departures board is stuck on page 2 for 2-3 minutes while every single word is signed.

Fine if there are other boards nearby, but often it isn't easy to find such. Peterborough for example.

I'm all for adding accessibility to the railway in as many ways as possible, but it shouldn't be done in a way that significantly worsens the experience for everyone, and having a usable departures board so you know where to catch your train is pretty fundamental.

I’ve not seen that. Though I do take your point about departure boards displaying pointless messages. Frequently I watch as Page 1 of 2, rolls on to Page 2 of 2 (I kinda accept that) then a message about hot weather. However that’s (in my experience) always a dot matrix and not the BSL one.

 

[JordR]

According to the most recent census there were 22,000 users of BSL as their "main" language and 65% of those could not understand English "well". So 14,000 people.

According to the most recent National Transport Survey, 41% of the population never travel by train. So 8,000 people.

We're spending £900,000 over three years on a national solution that at the absolute maximum will be of use to 0.012% of the population. Or put another way, we're spending £37 per year for every single person in the population who may use it.

In the same census data, there are 151,000 people in the UK who understand Polish "well" but do not understand English "well". With the same adjustment for people who never travel by train, 89,000 people.

So you'd get 11 times more benefit having every PIS in the country additionally in Polish even if it cost the same as BSL, which it wouldn't. Wonder why that doesn't happen?

It's gesture politics not proportionate to the benefit. If the real desire was to improve understanding of the PIS, there are 42 languages you would implement before BSL.

 

[yoyothehobo]

According to the most recent census there were 22,000 users of BSL as their "main" language and 65% of those could not understand English "well". So 14,000 people.

According to the most recent National Transport Survey, 41% of the population never travel by train. So 8,000 people.

We're spending £900,000 over three years on a national solution that at the absolute maximum will be of use to 0.012% of the population. Or put another way, we're spending £37 per year for every single person in the population who may use it.

In the same census data, there are 151,000 people in the UK who understand Polish "well" but do not understand English "well". With the same adjustment for people who never travel by train, 89,000 people.

So you'd get 11 times more benefit having every PIS in the country additionally in Polish even if it cost the same as BSL, which it wouldn't. Wonder why that doesn't happen?

It's gesture politics not proportionate to the benefit.

What a foul post, suggesting it is gesture politics to improve accessibility to people who through a disability may not be able to understand written English.

If i go to a foreign country, i dont expect to be reading things in English, so i dont see why the Polish bit is relevant.
Also BSL is an official language of the UK whereas Polish isnt.

There are genuine grievances to be had about display screens spending too long on pages which arent the immediate departures (a page 2 or a see it say it sorted on a dot matrix screen).

A lift accessible footbridge at a station may cost several million pounds to install, but only be used a few times a day by disabled people who use a wheelchair, is that gesture politics?

 

[JordR]

If i go to a foreign country, i dont expect to be reading things in English, so i dont see why the Polish bit is relevant.

Being deaf doesn't prohibit learning English, so why should they be specially assisted when there is 1/11th of the benefit case?

There are genuine grievances to be had about display screens spending too long on pages which arent the immediate departures (a page 2 or a see it say it sorted on a dot matrix screen).

I think this is fair. Some of this is a point of design, but usually the BSL deployments reduce the amount of display space available to minimise the need for multiple pages.

A lift accessible footbridge at a station may cost several million pounds to install, but only be used a few times a day by disabled people who use a wheelchair, is that gesture politics?

Possibly. It's also legal for inaccessible stations to continue operating, so we acknowledge that cost is a relevant factor. I think it's entirely right that we spend a disproportionate but not unlimited amount per passenger on accessibility, but BSL screens would seem to be nowhere near the best benefit case for this money.

 

[southern442]

We're spending £900,000 over three years on a national solution that...

See that sounds like a lot of money, but in reality it really isn't.

 

[MikeWh]

We're spending £900,000 over three years on a national solution that at the absolute maximum will be of use to 0.012% of the population.

How much income will the railway generate over the course of a year? What percentage of that income is £300K?

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: Thursday at 23:35 ==

See that sounds like a lot of money, but in reality it really isn't.

Yes, that's another way of saying it.

People have got desensitised to words ending in illion. The same level of outrage is expressed when million is used as is when it's billion or trillion.

 

[MikeWM]

Maybe use the relevant operators app if you are that desperate to search for platform?

Ask a member of staff etc?

I think you'll find a *lot* of people at major interchange stations such as Peterborough or Doncaster are keen to find the platform for their train, and don't especially want to stare at a screen for 3 minutes desperately waiting for it to get back to page 1 so they can discover where to catch their train.

Also what you're suggesting here is a trade-off. What about those people who find using a smartphone difficult or impossible? What about those who find talking to strangers difficult? Accessibility improvements should always be *additive* and *never* be a trade-off, unless totally unavoidable. Certainly put in BSL screens to help people who need them or find them helpful, but put them next to the existing screens rather than *replacing* the existing screens which negatively affects everyone (including those who may prefer BSL in general but are themselves in a rush to catch a connection!).

I've never experienced a screen stuck on same page for several minutes, more like 1 minute and then it changes.

I timed the screen at Peterborough last time I was there (a couple of months back) to see if it was as bad as I thought or whether I was overstating the issue in my head. If I remember correctly, page 2 was on for 2 minutes and 40 seconds as the details of 7 or 8 separate trains were signed. That's unacceptable, especially for such a major interchange station, unless there is an obvious nearby alternative screen that will give a quicker response.

I sgree there is a general issue with many different types of departure board where pages 2,3,4... are on for far too long compared to the all-important page 1, and indeed I've complained about that on here before too. But even the worst offenders I've seen will get back to page 1 in well under 2 minutes, unlike these BSL ones.

 

[Sheridan]

According to the most recent census there were 22,000 users of BSL as their "main" language and 65% of those could not understand English "well". So 14,000 people.

According to the most recent National Transport Survey, 41% of the population never travel by train. So 8,000 people.

We're spending £900,000 over three years on a national solution that at the absolute maximum will be of use to 0.012% of the population. Or put another way, we're spending £37 per year for every single person in the population who may use it.

In the same census data, there are 151,000 people in the UK who understand Polish "well" but do not understand English "well". With the same adjustment for people who never travel by train, 89,000 people.

So you'd get 11 times more benefit having every PIS in the country additionally in Polish even if it cost the same as BSL, which it wouldn't. Wonder why that doesn't happen?

It's gesture politics not proportionate to the benefit. If the real desire was to improve understanding of the PIS, there are 42 languages you would implement before BSL.

How much are we spending for people who can hear to travel by train?

 

[JordR]

How much income will the railway generate over the course of a year? What percentage of that income is £300K?

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: Thursday at 23:35 ==


Yes, that's another way of saying it.

People have got desensitised to words ending in illion. The same level of outrage is expressed when million is used as is when it's billion or trillion.

I agree it's an extremely small part of overall spending. I imagine it's also a small part of accessibility spending, but I couldn't find a single overall figure for that.

It just strikes me as unlikely to have a compelling benefit case compared to what else you could use it for. As others have mentioned, it may even reduce PIS functionality for the 99.988% who don't use it.

What it does have is a whole raft of press releases pushed out by railway organisations.

How much are we spending for people who can hear to travel by train?

I suspect the spend exclusively for hearing people, that doesn't also benefit deaf people, is substantially lower per passenger. Which I'm fine with, as I said in my previous post I think there should be a disproportionate spend to improve accessibility but it should be applied where it generates the most benefit not the most PR.

 

[AlterEgo]

Or put another way, we're spending £37 per year for every single person in the population who may use it.

Peanuts. A single wheelchair user on a single journey to or from an inaccessible station may rack up a railway taxi bill of the same.

 

[D1537]

I think there is a growing trend in some places for people with a disability to be quietly forgotten. Another "undesirable" class. People not like "everyone else".

What is the problem? That deaf people exist, or that other people get a fairly active reminder that deaf people exist? And that they aren't shut away in a little disabled person enclave?

I'd suspect that the Venn diagram of these people and people who are traumatised by rainbow flags and liveries is pretty much a circle.

 

[InkyScrolls]

I'd suspect that the Venn diagram of these people and people who are traumatised by rainbow flags and liveries is pretty much a circle.

Indeed.

If something is there to help other people, why should anyone feel the need to complain? Not everything is about the majority, whether that's in relation to disability, gender, sexuality, race, etc.

 

[Justin Smith]

The BSL interpreted screens I have seen (which of course may not be the same as the ones the OP has endured) have the BSL guy in the bottom right hand corner which otherwise would have been dead space. So removing them wouldn’t help anyone).

That was certainly not the case on the on train display.

 

[WestAnglian]

I cannot agree. I would love to know how much it cost, I'd be amazed if it were not tens of thousands of pounds, more probably hundreds of thousands, and that's if the cost of the displays capable of accepting video is ignored. BTW, why else would they need those kind of displays ? Furthermore it takes up a significant amount of the display room on the VDUs thus limiting how much other info can be shown, e.g. requiring multiple pages to display the same info and and thus having to wait for "your" page to come up. Lastly, if I am honest I find it distracting, and I am not likely to be the only one, though I may be the only one brave enough to admit it ! Funnily enough just the other week me and some friends were discussing the accidental recording of programmes on the TV which have sign language in the bottom corner and if we then proceed to watch the programme or just delete it. Most of us did the latter because we find it distracting, or even, dare I say it, annoying.

I find it odd that this thread has started, given that LNER first introduced sign language on PIS in late 2023 and I saw it in use at Glasgow Central in May 2024. This conversation was had then. But the cost must be small in the scheme of things - just the time of whoever the signer is.

 

[TUC]

Aren't you lucky to be in a position to find it annoying and not a necessity?

The needs of anyone who finds (relevant) audio announcements annoying should always take second place to those who cannot see and need them. Something that one can mitigate for oneself is always less of a priority than for those with no other option.

 

[zuriblue]

I'd suspect that the Venn diagram of these people and people who are traumatised by rainbow flags and liveries is pretty much a circle.

I suspect you're right. It doesn't help that the reduction in small boat crossings has led the populist right wing parties such as Reform to target the disabled and PIP recipients.

 

[Harratt4]

That was certainly not the case on the on train display.

If you are on the train there must have been at least, what, 2 minutes at the extreme and very least between stations - so what is the problem with the delay in the screens moving over?

 

[py_megapixel]

The time taken for the display to change is annoying but it's annoying on displays without sign language interpretation as well. Since the page has to be shown for long enough for the interpreter to finish signing, one could say it exacerbates the problem, but it is certainly not itself the problem.

The actual problem is that the information has to be paginated in the first place. If the information that needs showing doesn't fit on a single page then a larger display (or multiple displays next to each other) is needed.

 

[skyhigh]

That was certainly not the case on the on train display.

That would be the media screen, which was installed after the PIS screens (which are on the carriage ceilings and always show journey information) and not that long ago was only used to show adverts.

 

[Brightonboy]

I timed the screen at Peterborough last time I was there (a couple of months back) to see if it was as bad as I thought or whether I was overstating the issue in my head. If I remember correctly, page 2 was on for 2 minutes and 40 seconds as the details of 7 or 8 separate trains were signed. That's unacceptable, especially for such a major interchange station, unless there is an obvious nearby alternative screen that will give a quicker response.

I applaud your understanding of BSL if you were able to identify that all of the 7 - 8 trains (and only those trains) on that page were being signed. I have several friends who are very proficient at BSL and some very limited understanding of it myself - enough to know that when, for example, a TV programme is being signed the signer may not be signing what is being said word for word but is (thanks to BSL's different syntax and non literal translations anyway) conveying meaning rather than the words. That 2 mins 40 seconds may have included more information in BSL than the text on the screen.

 

[MikeWM]

I applaud your understanding of BSL if you were able to identify that all of the 7 - 8 trains (and only those trains) on that page were being signed.

Not at all, unfortunately I know no BSL at all. But the UI is pretty clear on these boards - one of the trains is highlighted while the signer does their thing. They finish and briefly disappear, the highlight moves to the next train down, they reappear and start signing again. It is obvious that the intent is that they are signing about the highlighted train. I can't say if that is what they were actually doing but it seems pretty obvious.

Here's a (cropped) image (courtesy of railtechnologymagazine.com) that shows this fairly well, presumably at this point the signer is describing the 1327 service:

 

[AndrewP]

This is a fantastic idea.

 

[Rail2002]

Does anyone know if this is part of the Passengers (of) Reduced Mobility mandates (PRM)? Many of Northern trains have these big screens now. I used to think it was just for advertising but have noticed the signing man appear. TransPennine also introduced these screens but not to their IETs. I find them more tolerable than incessant announcements but ofcourse there are blind people to consider.