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Euston departure board to be moved

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F Great Eastern

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Managed to take a few pictures of the new infotec RGB screen outside today. They’re also installing (I think?) infotec TFT screens at the platform entrances.

It's probably already been said in this thread and will be part of what they're trialling here, but I'm surprised there isn't already a standard for digital departure boards. Almost every station they've been put in so far have used a different version and you'd think they'd be more common in 2023.

The company that was Infotec, after 30 years of trading was purchased by Journeo a while ago following a fairly drawn out process. That's why the Infotec website and social media has been silent for a long time now in terms of updates. There are new people at the helm now and the company is being absorbed into the parent business.

I'll leave you to judge by what happens over the next year or two as to whether it's a good thing. Normally such takeovers aren't.
 
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TT-ONR-NRN

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Look at those Platform Closed signs… the famously inhospitable Euston gateline staff will probably love those, and as a result use it as an easy excuse to gleefully boot spotters off of empty platforms.

Also, they’re misleading boards. Anyone notice “Platform closes in 3.5 minutes” for a 2024 train shown at 2020.30? Everyone knows the stubborn staff will refuse you entry as soon as it hits 2022. That needs to be fixed if they want to maintain the doors close 2 minutes before departure hoo-ha.
 

Bletchleyite

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Look at those Platform Closed signs… the famously inhospitable Euston gateline staff will probably love those, and as a result use it as an easy excuse to gleefully boot spotters off of empty platforms.

I am concerned at them using that on P8-11, where keeping people outside blocking the gateline (no way am I waiting in the scrum) is worse than just telling them what their platform is in advance! There is no sensible reason to suppress LNR platforms, particularly now splitting and joining at Euston has ceased.

On other non-gated platforms it's how revenue protection works. To be honest it surprises me they don't fit some kind of sliding doors with only the inside sensors turned on if a train isn't on the display, it'd be easy to do.

Also, they’re misleading boards. Anyone notice “Platform closes in 3.5 minutes” for a 2024 train shown at 2020.30? Everyone knows the stubborn staff will refuse you entry as soon as it hits 2022. That needs to be fixed if they want to maintain the doors close 2 minutes before departure hoo-ha.

I suspect that's just misconfigured.
 
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Bletchleyite

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It’s configured to countdown to departure time, whereas if staff are going to start refusing access from two minutes before that, the countdown needs to go down to two minutes before as well.

It's not, it's counting down to 30 seconds before departure time, which is the official LNR cutoff.

Ah, so it is. Just needs reconfiguring and I'm sure it will be. It's a pretty good idea if the staff are going to stick to it.
 

TT-ONR-NRN

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It's not, it's counting down to 30 seconds before departure time, which is the official LNR cutoff.
That is of no relevance whether it’s departure time exactly or 30 seconds before, the point is it’s not counting down to 2 minutes before, so it’s unfair if they then close boarding 2 minutes before. This is why it needs to be fixed, either that or 2 minute door closure rule dropped, and that rule helps trains leave on-time (although some staff are OTT with it, LNER Kings Cross especially with their rope) so it’s better if they just fix the board.
 

Bletchleyite

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That is of no relevance whether it’s departure time exactly or 30 seconds before, the point is it’s not counting down to 2 minutes before, so it’s unfair if they then close boarding 2 minutes before. This is why it needs to be fixed, either that or 2 minute door closure rule dropped, and that rule helps trains leave on-time (although some staff are OTT with it, LNER Kings Cross especially with their rope) so it’s better if they just fix the board.

It will be fixed I'm sure. Crikey, give them chance, they haven't even installed them all yet!
 

zwk500

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It will be fixed I'm sure. Crikey, give them chance, they haven't even installed them all yet!
Tbf I would have expected somebody to check that 'platform closed' was before the scheduled departure time, because otherwise why not just have the countdown to train departure?
 

TT-ONR-NRN

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It will be fixed I'm sure. Crikey, give them chance, they haven't even installed them all yet!
It’s just the sheer hypocrisy of it all. If this wasn’t at a station famous for staff being unkind and deliberately awkward/difficult to passengers boarding, then it wouldn’t be such an issue. I have seen a man actually stand in front of the entrance to a Platform with his arms spread out in a starfish shape as soon as it hit 18:03 to stop a woman with a small child board the 18:05 pendolino - having watched her begin the decent of the slope down there in the seconds before it ticked to :03, his eyes darting between her and the clock. And now they’ve installed boards reassuring customers they’ve got more time than they have.
 

Basil Jet

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Managed to take a few pictures of the new infotec RGB screen outside today. They’re also installing (I think?) infotec TFT screens at the platform entrances.
Screen outside still not switched on - still looks as incomplete as it did in these pictures from 2 weeks ago.
 

Bletchleyite

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I note Waterloo has a version of this now, but lower, wider and with smaller screens so a decent number of trains can show. Much better.

I wonder would the Euston one have the capacity to show two rows?
 

AlbertBeale

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I note Waterloo has a version of this now, but lower, wider and with smaller screens so a decent number of trains can show. Much better.

I wonder would the Euston one have the capacity to show two rows?

I hope this doesn't mean that the long (ie wide) traditional [at least now-traditional] yellow-on-back style of display at Waterloo will disappear. I find it a rare example of a station where you can easily scan all the pending departures from many different places; though even this is much less useful than before they installed those "gas-guzzling" TV-screen-style adverts across so much of the concourse, thereby precluding a proper display of departure information from being repeated across the front of all the platforms. (It's a wide enough concourse that the full departure information really needs being repeated across each half.)
 

Bletchleyite

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I hope this doesn't mean that the long (ie wide) traditional [at least now-traditional] yellow-on-back style of display at Waterloo will disappear. I find it a rare example of a station where you can easily scan all the pending departures from many different places; though even this is much less useful than before they installed those "gas-guzzling" TV-screen-style adverts across so much of the concourse, thereby precluding a proper display of departure information from being repeated across the front of all the platforms. (It's a wide enough concourse that the full departure information really needs being repeated across each half.)

Waterloo has long had both, so I'm not totally sure it is, but you can read these from a wider angle than the orange LED ones.
 

setdown

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Do people generally think the new departure boards are better/easier to use? Seeing them the other day, it seemed like overload. Lots of different colours flying around, different layouts, and looks like the density is higher whilst showing less services. The resolution doesn't look particularly amazing either, I found the smaller departures looked blurry. Which is interesting as obviously they are higher resolution than the old ones, maybe the font used isn't suited at smaller sizes?
 

ComUtoR

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Do people generally think the new departure boards are better/easier to use?

I was at Euston on Saturday. I really liked the boards. Simple and easy to read.

Seeing them the other day, it seemed like overload. Lots of different colours flying around,

Different colours ? Pretty much just Blue/Green

Not sure why those colours were chosen as it would affect those with colour blindness
 

dosxuk

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Not sure why those colours were chosen as it would affect those with colour blindness
While red/green colour blindness is by far the most common form, with far fewer people having blue/green issues, it's irrelevant anyway. Choices of colour are only a primary concern when colour is the only differentiation, such as if there was a sign saying below "Go to platform when your service is highlighted green" - obviously not the case here.

Furthermore, almost all colour blind people can see the difference between different colours, so even if they're not sure whether the bluey-green or the greeny-blue is the blue patch, they will still see that all the "Wait here" panels have the same shade as the "Go to platform" panels, so the use of different colour backgrounds still works for those users in highlighting the different panels. Simulators and research partners are widely available to help come up with colours that are differentiable to all but the worst sufferers, and running photos of the screens through such tools shows a good amount of work has been done to do this - even with no colour vision at all the panels appear to be different luminosities so can be identified.

The simple question is "do I need to know that part of the screen is green to be able to understand what it is telling me?" If the answer is yes, then there will be issues with colour-blindness. In this case, it's a pretty clear no.
 

Bletchleyite

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The format is good. The width and location is unfit for purpose.

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== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: ==

Observed an Avanti service depart just now, and the countdown is still to departure time but the platform did close 2 minutes before. This appears to have caught one or two people out (and the bunch of thugs who call themselves Avanti Euston gateline staff continue not to be nice to people).

This situation really is unacceptable, and needs fixing urgently. If it can't be changed to be correct (2 mins for Avanti, 30 seconds for LNR) then just remove it.
 
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zwk500

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This situation really is unacceptable, and needs fixing urgently. If it can't be changed to be correct (2 mins for Avanti, 30 seconds for LNR) then just remove it.
This countdown has a strong ring of a workshop thinking its a good idea but not asking station staff what will happen in practice.
 

Bletchleyite

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This countdown has a strong ring of a workshop thinking its a good idea but not asking station staff what will happen in practice.

I think it's a good idea if it showed the correct countdown, i.e. to 2 minutes before departure (Avanti)/30 seconds before (LNR).

As it is (wrong) it's actually costing people time and money - unacceptable.
 

zwk500

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I think it's a good idea if it showed the correct countdown, i.e. to 2 minutes before departure (Avanti)/30 seconds before (LNR).

As it is (wrong) it's actually costing people time and money - unacceptable.
I totally agree with you - either get it right or get rid. I was just commenting that it's very easy to think it's a good idea in one environment but what really matters is the actual environment it will be used in.
 

TT-ONR-NRN

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Observed an Avanti service depart just now, and the countdown is still to departure time but the platform did close 2 minutes before. This appears to have caught one or two people out (and the bunch of thugs who call themselves Avanti Euston gateline staff continue not to be nice to people).

This situation really is unacceptable, and needs fixing urgently. If it can't be changed to be correct (2 mins for Avanti, 30 seconds for LNR) then just remove it.
I'm glad you agree with me on this, and the term I've emboldened is exactly what the vast majority of them are, hence my concern.
I can see them gleefully turning away poor customers who have seen from these boards that they've got more time.
 

F Great Eastern

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The situation out of Euston has been a nightmare for a while though, it pre-dates Avanti in my experience and started in the Virgin days.
 

Bald Rick

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One of the outside boards was commissioned today. It was under test this morning, and is working right now (I’ve just passed through…)
 

Bletchleyite

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One of the outside boards was commissioned today. It was under test this morning, and is working right now (I’ve just passed through…)

That will to some extent mitigate the issues with the main board locations given that you'll walk past it when entering the station from 2 of the 3 possible directions. I think I'll end up using that one most.
 

modernrail

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I really don’t like the new boards. There used to be a decent gap on hang left or right of the concourse and at the back that was your best chance to make it through the scrum. Now the gaps seem to be filled in and it can be near impossible to get through without collisions.

As for the boards themselves I find them to be awkwardly placed and difficult to read quickly. I don’t wear glasses and could read the old ones fine no matter how big the scrum. Now I find myself having to work my way through the scrum to get to a position where I can read the board and then exit the scrum to find a gap to get to the platform. It has left me seriously close to missing my train a few times. Especially when you add the usual Euston potential for confusion on the ramps when multiple departures are leaving close together off the same ramp and then of course those oh so delightful and super helpful gateline staff.
 

chrish2

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The placement, size and other aspects of the main boards feels odd and makes them feel more downgrade than a upgrade. Suspect some supplier had some spare and managed to flog them to Euston. They are absolutely not designed for the space.


As some posters have said there is flow issues near the food outlets which use to take the surge of passengers to/from the platforms very well. The only way I can see them fix this is to block off the view and/or create some extra screens that branch off. When I say about branching off that would be changing the main screens to look more like --------< or --------| screens facing platforms showing local directions or TfL info for passengers leaving the platform.


Re the countdowns to platform closure, I worry about this from a safety perspective given how late announcements of platforms are so common at this location. Throw in a mistimed announcement, some incorrect data, WCML discruption, or bad logic in displaying the countdown with the Euston Scrum and we could easily be in crowd crush area. Really hope this has all been considered and weighed up against other options such as i) use the same data feed but instead of showing a count down just the screens to generic "train doors lock 2 mins before departure" message at the point the board things the platform is closed, ii) code the countdown to be far more subtle such as something like the old ITV/C4 Cue dot before ad breaks in the top right corner or use a more visual indicator like a progress bar (think like the yellow bar during Youtube ads).
 
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