Euston departure board to be moved

[JaJaWa]

So the scaffolding has been took down to reveal a massive adverting screen, which will no doubt be blinding bright..

Some absolutely ridiculous decisions and designs being made here at Euston.

This picture seems to be from the Network Rail Euston page on X/Twitter

Here's their caption:

London Euston @NetworkRailEUS
Thank you to passengers for your patience while we have had scaffolding in the station.
We have started to take it down.
Coming soon, replacement advertising screen for partners @JCDecaux_UK

https://twitter.com/NetworkRailEUS/status/1717207733496086982

 

[Dr Hoo]

Anyone who has been to Waterloo would hardly be surprised that Euston will also be getting a big new advertisement screen.

 

[high camera]

Please see my previous post on this subject from way back when. Told you so,


“In my mind this is nothing to do with customer convenience it’s all about advertising revenue, the old space will be covered with more digital advertising screens that generate thousands from advertising campaigns. It wouldn’t surprise me if the media companies have paid for the departure screens to be moved.”

 

[Trackman]

So the scaffolding has been took down to reveal a massive adverting screen, which will no doubt be blinding bright..

Some absolutely ridiculous decisions and designs being made here at Euston.

yes, I know about this. My blood is boiling. I've ranted on this forum before about this, woe betide anyone who mentions this to me in the pub as I will be ranting for a good half an hour.
The way I see it (figures are a guess)
£1.6M for new departure screens
JCD pays £10m or whatever some huge $ lease to NR for their new advertising screen space.
For crying out sakes it's a railway station..
Plus they had digital advertising next to the old departure board - is that not good enough NR??

 

[jayah]

(It's also meant to cost £1.5m - a good bit of railway inflation there - a 50" LCD TV costs a grand at the top end of the range, and there's 10 of them per side (40 in total) and a chunk of metal to hang them off plus some wiring and a control box, so I struggle to see how it should really cost more than about £100K at most)

Paddington have tried the 50in LCD approach by the Hammersmith Line entrance. It is not much higher up than an average person.

You almost need to have your nose touching the screen to read what it says. Bear in mind many TVM screens are larger these days.

Utterly unfit for any purpose and not close to being compliant with any disability legislation.

 

[high camera]

Advertising and retail space makes more money than running trains, good business sense to me. The same has happened at airport terminals. Advertising relies on footfall, the site needs non rail revenue.

 

[BJames]

I am not looking forward to seeing this switched on. I don't like Euston at the best of times but this just amplifies that feeling.

 

[thomalex]

I think I said this when they announced the new departure boards ‘experiment’, the driver clearly was to create space for advertising rather than any sort of passenger flow considerations.

And low and behold not even a year later we now have our giant advertising display in place of the departure boards.

Whatever happened to this once bright and airy station? https://x.com/ianvisits/status/1669257191646277632?s=46.

 

[jon0844]

If it's a mini LED display, which can be extremely bright, I hope it won't actually be on maximum brightness!

If it brings in lots of revenue it has to be a good thing under the current circumstances threaten the railway.

 

[Bletchleyite]

If it brings in lots of revenue it has to be a good thing under the current circumstances threaten the railway.

Not if it totally messes up flow in the station, which it does.

 

[6Gman]

I assume they wouldn't put new ones in the place where the old ones were because they want that latter space for massive in-yer-face adverts. Commerce trumps passenger usefulness of course.

Somebody clearly had some inside information!

 

[Kite159]

Anyone who has been to Waterloo would hardly be surprised that Euston will also be getting a big new advertisement screen.

Although unlike Euston, the departure screens weren't moved for that large advert to get built.

 

[crablab]

It's rather ridiculous that the advertising screen is more prominent, visible and usable than the departure boards which have been relegated elsewhere.

Remind me what the primary purpose of a station is again? It wasn't "public transport", by any chance...

Perhaps if they're really desperate for cash they could put out some deckchairs on the mezzanine and do film screenings too? That screen is definitely "widescreen"!

More seriously, I do find the bombardment with advertising in daily life increasingly objectionable. BT are now installing new advertising podiums in the middle of pavements. The primary purpose of the pavement is for walking, not advertising.

Public realm and public transport have a primary purpose: to serve the public.

 

[Wolfie]

This picture seems to be from the Network Rail Euston page on X/Twitter

Here's their caption:

https://twitter.com/NetworkRailEUS/status/1717207733496086982

Pardon me being rude but what a load of crap!

 

[high camera]

This large digital screen will probably show multiple adverts on a loop. The adverts will change constantly in line with the national or international campaigns that media Company is hosting. Digital adverts are designed to be eye catching so don’t expect that back wall to be visually peaceful

 

[Wolfie]

Probably because the big board is visible from pretty much everywhere on the concourse, particularly the upstairs area. This requires four sets of boards to display what seems to be less information.

As a regular Euston user spot on. Arguably worse passenger information to facilitate bloody advertising!

 

[AndrewE]

Advertising and retail space makes more money than running trains, good business sense to me. The same has happened at airport terminals. Advertising relies on footfall, the site needs non rail revenue.

rubbish, it is a RAILWAY STATION and its job is to get passengers through as effectively as possible, the current set-up is a significant step down from the previous (like original) design.

 

[josh-j]

More seriously, I do find the bombardment with advertising in daily life increasingly objectionable. BT are now installing new advertising podiums in the middle of pavements. The primary purpose of the pavement is for walking, not advertising.

Public realm and public transport have a primary purpose: to serve the public.

Wholeheartedly agree.

 

[Wolfie]

I assume they wouldn't put new ones in the place where the old ones were because they want that latter space for massive in-yer-face adverts. Commerce trumps passenger usefulness of course.

Are you Septic Peg in disguise??? You obviously recognise Network Rail's priorities well enough....

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Money talks, and is the rather obvious focus, rather than delivering on improving customer service.

Abso-bloody-lutely. Noticeably the Arrivals board has no replacement whatsoever too.

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Has to be the very worst thing any custodian of the present station has ever done to it. An act of abject corporate vandalism of the highest order.

Spot on. Shows, if it was ever doubted, that passengers really are not the priority. I wonder how long it will be before delayed passengers throw very solid objects at the damned thing?

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 25 Oct 2023 ==

This large digital screen will probably show multiple adverts on a loop. The adverts will change constantly in line with the national or international campaigns that media Company is hosting. Digital adverts are designed to be eye catching so don’t expect that back wall to be visually peaceful

Personally any company advertising on that crap will be on my "do not buy" list. Perhaps if enough of us do that.....

 

[Peter0124]

Just aswell I use RTT and signal maps to find the Euston platform early.

 

[Wolfie]

rubbish, it is a RAILWAY STATION and its job is to get passengers through as effectively as possible, the current set-up is a significant step down from the previous (like original) design.

You and l have previously disagreed... On this subject though....

 

[physics34]

For petes sake. Everything is wrong with the railways at moment. The priority should be clear informative signage and displays, not these headache inducing eyesores.

 

[jon0844]

More seriously, I do find the bombardment with advertising in daily life increasingly objectionable. BT are now installing new advertising podiums in the middle of pavements. The primary purpose of the pavement is for walking, not advertising.

BT is using former payphone locations to install equipment fitted with Wi-Fi and 4G/5G small cells. Some also have power supplies to allow people to charge phones.

Whether there are adverts or not, these sites have likely existed for many decades, and people seemed able to avoid them.

 

[josh-j]

The fact remains though - there used to be a big departure board at Euston, and now there are small boards that potentially cause problems with crowding and can't be seen from as much of the concourse, and the big screen has become adverts. Adverts themselves aren't new but this is objectively worse yet wrapped up in PR-speak about improving passenger flows.

 

[John R]

The post on X (formerly Twitter) by Network Rail (Network Euston account) referred to earlier has been absolutely slaughtered in terms of comments and critical reposts.

 

[ScottGallagher]

It will be like Piccadilly Circus in there both for crowds and illuminations.

On a side note has extending the concourse towards the bus station( taking over the outside space )ever been an option, that would give you a big increase in circulation space ?

 

[Starmill]

BT is using former payphone locations to install equipment fitted with Wi-Fi and 4G/5G small cells. Some also have power supplies to allow people to charge phones.

Whether there are adverts or not, these sites have likely existed for many decades, and people seemed able to avoid them.

There was a big controversy over Manchester City Council's new contract with the supplier to install new totems because of their number, because there wasn't previously anything there to replace, and because of of their size and position creating obstacles in narrow walking areas of Manchester city centre. They also consume crazy amounts of energy even when the streets are very quiet and few people are there to see the ads. Of course that's only one part of the country but it shows when you starve a public body of funding so deliberately you turn it into something business-orinented which begins to lose perspective.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 26 Oct 2023 ==

You and l have previously disagreed... On this subject though....

I don't think anyone is claiming no digital advertising should be allowed on trains or at stations are they? I think what people are saying is that the advertising screens must be proportionate with the needs of the primary customer, who are the travelling public. People are paying an awful lot of money to use these train services so they should be treated appropriately when they want to be able to see live departures from all parts of the station.

 

[jon0844]

There was a big controversy over Manchester City Council's new contract with the supplier to install new totems because of their number, because there wasn't previously anything there to replace, and because of of their size and position creating obstacles in narrow walking areas of Manchester city centre. They also consume crazy amounts of energy even when the streets are very quiet and few people are there to see the ads. Of course that's only one part of the country but it shows when you starve a public body of funding so deliberately you turn it into something business-orinented which begins to lose perspective.

It's a tough call. If these sites were to also install small cells (or Wi-Fi) to provide essential mobile communications to local businesses and residential properties then I'm all for them. Such sites are essential for as and when we get mmWave 5G for super-fast mobile broadband speeds, but they need to be positioned carefully. I guess as phone boxes existed before, on pavements and potentially in the way of pedestrians, there was/is precedent for such locations and permission couldn't easily be denied?

Advertising is a necessary evil in a capitalist society though - and if ads can help fund infrastructure installation then I am sure that's what is going to happen.

Now if they're just for advertising then that's a different kettle of fish.

As for Euston, I wonder if the big screen can be divided up so some rail-specific announcements can be made on there?

 

[AndrewE]

As for Euston, I wonder if the big screen can be divided up so some rail-specific announcements can be made on there?

How about just paying off the firm that installed it and using it to display departures? Then open out the concourse again and improve it further where possible.

 

[Bletchleyite]

I don't think anyone is claiming no digital advertising should be allowed on trains or at stations are they? I think what people are saying is that the advertising screens must be proportionate with the needs of the primary customer, who are the travelling public. People are paying an awful lot of money to use these train services so they should be treated appropriately when they want to be able to see live departures from all parts of the station.

Yes, exactly this. The problem is that the new departure screens don't work, and they've been told that multiple times. They provide insufficient information as there aren't enough panels, they're too small, they're hard to look at (because they use a design of screen intended for viewing at a distance for viewing relatively up-close) and their location causes passenger flow issues.

There's plenty more detail upthread on why they don't, and it is possible that a single one in the middle (rather than two) with more panels could work, but they don't as they are, they're useless.

They were also insanely expensive compared to something that would work in that location (a long row of maybe 12 or so 40-something inch LCD panels on a metal pole in the middle of the concourse rather than two of them). This would have cost low hundreds of thousands rather than over a million.