Enhanced Disruption Announcements

[TrainViation]

I’m not sure how revolutionary this is, but I think it’s relevant enough to discuss. How would this actually help situations out in a real life scenario?

Rail industry launches pilot to transform passenger information during disruption

Millions of rail passengers are set to benefit from new technology designed to deliver clearer, real-time information during disruption, as the system launches on some of Scotland’s busiest rail routes for the first time.

www.networkrailmediacentre.co.uk

(Link to network rail article showing new system for disruption announcements)

 

[MrJeeves]

I was under the impression that remote PAs via GSM-R were already possible on many (most?) trains in GB. Is that not the case? If it is the case, is this not quite literally just adding the ability to do text-to-speech instead of a manual PA, and potentially also to a group of services rather than just one?

I do think an actual person rather than, what some will consider automated, text-to-speech voice would be significantly more effective.

For example, the Rail for London (Infrastructure) GSM-R handbook talks about remote PAs on page 19, so it's not like this is anything new or special in a general sense:

5 Radio communications

5.1 GSM-R call types

There are two types of GSM-R calls, point-to-point and group calls.

5.1.1 Point-to-point calls

[...]

Public address (PA) calls

These are calls made by the signaller or train operator’s control and are a one-way method of communication. The driver will also be able to hear the PA announcement over the train radio loudspeaker.

An RDG document from Jan 2017 also refers to PA announcements via GSM-R too under a section explicitly about improving passenger information:

The TOC Terminal allows a ‘contact FT’ operational text message to be sent to a registered train (note this requires software version NR3.1 or higher), normal point-to-point voice calls to be made and received, and for the operator to connect to the train’s Public Address (PA) system on Driver Only Operation (Passenger) (DOO (P)) trains. (Other non-DOO (P) trains may also have a connection to the PA).

So in the 9 years since then, Smarter Information Smarter Journeys (SISJ) have managed to put a text-to-speech engine (and not even that good of one) in front of this system to present it as some revolutionary feature? Fabulous.

 

[talldave]

From a passenger perspective I have no issue with on train announcements - full marks to yesterday's Southern driver who clearly informed us that the reason for our delay was that the empty train crawling out of the sidings at bugger all mph was more important than us, putting us almost into delay repay territory.

It's at the stations that things are dire. If you're a Southern passenger at Clapham Junction on a meltdown day, you'll get precisely NO information. You get endless SWR inane drivel about something that happened earlier today somewhere you're not going. And then to put the icing on the cake, when a train does eventually arrive, the (vital) announcement of where the train is stopping will be interrupted by more inane SWR drivel about e cigarettes/bikes, timetable updates or rugby. Useless and infuriating.

But nobody cares, so lump it.