Euston Departure Boards

[dosxuk]

They had the heat maps to prove the new boards were working better too.

What they didn't take into account was resistance to change, and then politicians looking for a quick populism boost giving the people what they think they want.

 

[edwin_m]

They had the heat maps to prove the new boards were working better too.

What they didn't take into account was resistance to change, and then politicians looking for a quick populism boost giving the people what they think they want.

The heat maps may be based on rather simplistic assumptions about human behaviour, perhaps even ignoring the fact that many people will go towards the nearest visible departure display to confirm their platform before heading for the platform itself. And given the short notice often given at the time, many will hover near that display until their platform is called.

So maybe these displays would have worked as planned, if the longer notice of platforming had been implemented when they were in use.

 

[Bletchleyite]

The heat maps may be based on rather simplistic assumptions about human behaviour, perhaps even ignoring the fact that many people will go towards the nearest visible departure display to confirm their platform before heading for the platform itself. And given the short notice often given at the time, many will hover near that display until their platform is called.

So maybe these displays would have worked as planned, if the longer notice of platforming had been implemented when they were in use.

I think they may have been based on false assumptions of what works. For instance, they did prove that people stood in a lower density pattern on the concourse so it might be possible to filter through the middle of them more easily. But what it failed to realise was that nobody is generally trying to do that at Euston - the entrances are at the two corners, so what people want to do is enter through those corner entrances and get to the platform "tunnel" and their platform (and exit that way). If you have even a low density of people standing in the way of those flows, it's going to be harder to do that.

Thus it was all to me based on a false premise - what you actually want is a fairly high density set of people standing watching the board in the middle of the concourse (who when a train calls will largely move forward, creating space for people to move into) and almost nobody standing "in the wings" so those remain as clear corridors for access for those going straight to/from platforms to/from outside, as most commuters will as they just want the next train to their destination station which is probably already boarding outside of disruption.

FWIW one more improvement would be to move the stairs up to the mezzanine to another location - they narrow the Tube-side (busier) corner access by about 2m, which made the problem even worse.

As for the "scrum" that's a separate issue which will remain an issue regardless of where the displays are. To fix that you need to stop calling trains at the last minute and increase the number of people on the long distance trains holding seat reservations and the amount of luggage space on those trains - all three of those will help in some way, the former reduces the numbers going to the train at once while the latter two reduce the reasons for rushing. And for the WMT services, stop suppressing platforms entirely and let them work like every other non-terminal station in the country with people going to the platforms as and when.

 

[class442]

They'll move onto the second one tonight I've been told

I'm not sure this is true, going off this LinkedIn post from Euston's Head of Station Operatons:

#teameuston | Amanda Webster-Uz | 10 comments

Works are now underway to remove our eastern tree screen on the concourse! The team on site are working really quickly to remove this tree to free up concourse space and improve visibility of the big screen. A huge thank you to our Capital Delivery team for progressing this at pace. With the...

www.linkedin.com

When asked in the comments if the other one was being removed too:

...we are looking to review this following the removal of the first tree screen. It’s important to assess passenger flows around the station, use of the screens and see how this changes the concourse space. With the new big screen functionality, which has enhanced our customers information, this eastern tree was blocking the view for customers entering via the east side of the concourse. This will hopefully provide line of sight to this new larger screen and make it easier for customers to find and board their services

 

[Bletchleyite]

The other one is certainly less of an issue - far more people enter via the Tube station side than the other side. Though its presence will still cause people to stand blocking access to the high numbered platforms.

 

[DelW]

Earlier boarding, as well as sorting out the "scrum", should also reduce congestion on the concourse - passengers sitting on trains aren't occupying concourse space. I could never understand why the previous management insisted on corralling passengers on the concourse until the last possible moment (meaning they had to stay by the boards ready to dash when the platform was shown), then complained about how overcrowded their station was.

If the boards and scrum are hopefully now dealt with, maybe next on the to-do list will be:

• Reopening direct access from the escalators to the concourse instead of forcing everyone to go outside. A roller-shutter, as used at many other tube stations, would be enough for separation when one part of the station was closed and the other open. That would also remove another congestion point at the 180° turn.
• Basic training in ticketing (and civility) for gateline staff.

Then the station would be back to being close to as usable as it was originally.

 

[Hazlehead]

Passing through today & pillars removed, new floor tiles laid. A big improvement & looka like the other board is staying for now

 

[styles]

Passing through today & pillars removed, new floor tiles laid. A big improvement & looka like the other board is staying for now

A bit off topic, but are we still describing the Caledonian Sleeper lounge as new? I thought that opened like a year ago?

 

[Bletchleyite]

Passing through today & pillars removed, new floor tiles laid. A big improvement & looka like the other board is staying for now

I could actually see that working because it might attract people to stand at the quieter end of the concourse, leaving the busier end with the Tube entrance for people to get directly through to the platforms. Indeed I do think it could work with *just* that transverse board and not the big one, though I prefer it with the big one. But we will have to see if it still causes blockages in the "tunnel".

 

[thomalex]

Correct - a lot of advertising revenue lost.

I disagree. There’s still space for adverts either end of the departure boards, which has the advantage that everyone is also looking at it.

As installed it was just a large billboard.

 

[Bletchleyite]

I disagree. There’s still space for adverts either end of the departure boards, which has the advantage that everyone is also looking at it.

As installed it was just a large billboard.

The thing I find odd is why they haven't put the billboard sized adverts back at the outer edges which are presently just blank. Nobody ever objected to those, and they were animated ones towards the end. It was getting rid of the departure board that bothered people.

 

[Dr Hoo]

Can anyone actually involved in the project confirm or deny that the ‘heat maps’ were produced purely from artificial modelling rather than any codification of observed customer behaviour? I had vaguely assumed that things like CCTV monitoring or micro anonymised mobile phone tracking were being scanned by artificial intelligence and then converted into maps that showed where ‘most’ people were standing and so on.

 

[bramling]

I am in Euston several times a week so the changes with screens didn't really bother me. What bothers me more is the underground entrance/exit layout. The flow of people doesn't seem to work properly.

Apart from that the escalators seem to spend large periods of time out of use, the problem is that since they moved the LU entrance, more people use the stair/lift access to LU, which causes a conflict of flows at the bottom of the escalators.

 

[FOH]

Absolute failure on the boards today. Held outside for nearly an hour due to "health and safety" and the boards just showed old delayed trains with sporadically one boarding. The only information shown was about the Caledonian sleeper lounge and a QR code. I was luckily next to the train I wanted when it was only displayed 2 mins before departure meaning I had an entire coach to myself as I imagine noone from the concourse made it in time.

 

[Horizon22]

Absolute failure on the boards today. Held outside for nearly an hour due to "health and safety" and the boards just showed old delayed trains with sporadically one boarding.

I don't see how that's a "failure" on the boards - it is simply representing the very disrupted service. Considering that there are delayed trains that were meant to have departed 1 hour prior.

And yes being held outside, prevents overcrowding on the relatively small Euston concourse.

 

[FOH]

I don't see how that's a "failure" on the boards - it is simply representing the very disrupted service. Considering that there are delayed trains that were meant to have departed 1 hour prior.

And yes being held outside, prevents overcrowding on the relatively small Euston concourse.

No message explaining the disruption. No message explaining what passengers being held outside should expect. Trains showing boarding when you're being held outside and cannot get in to board them. But a nice Calendonian sleeper lounge message rotating every 30 seconds.
You're siding with a broken system

 

[voyagerdude220]

Absolute failure on the boards today. Held outside for nearly an hour due to "health and safety" and the boards just showed old delayed trains with sporadically one boarding. The only information shown was about the Caledonian sleeper lounge and a QR code. I was luckily next to the train I wanted when it was only displayed 2 mins before departure meaning I had an entire coach to myself as I imagine noone from the concourse made it in time.

I notice in your photograph an error on the "Next Fastest Train to" screen:

It states 14:29 for Lancaster and Carlisle, whereas the 13:29 is next (although it states the 13:29 is delayed)

 

[Bletchleyite]

I notice in your photograph an error on the "Next Fastest Train to" screen:

It states 14:29 for Lancaster and Carlisle, whereas the 13:29 is next (although it states the 13:29 is delayed)

If Delayed is shown it isn't shown as the next fastest train on the basis that it might be later than the next one that has an expected time on it.

 

[FOH]

I notice in your photograph an error on the "Next Fastest Train to" screen:

It states 14:29 for Lancaster and Carlisle, whereas the 13:29 is next (although it states the 13:29 is delayed)

Odd one indeed. It was cancelled in the end to those stops but I distinctly recall hearing Glasgow Central on the tannoy at the time of boarding. My LNW train overtook it north of Harrow I think and it was crawling

 

[flash21rg]

the departures boards at Euston were always meant to overhead on a wall and not on poles

 

[QueensCurve]

I am in Euston several times a week so the changes with screens didn't really bother me. What bothers me more is the underground entrance/exit layout. The flow of people doesn't seem to work properly.

When the New Euston opened in 1968 much was made of the direct access to the Underground and taxi rank from the concourse. These have both been lost although the escalator to the tube remains in the same place but for some reason now partitioned off with a glass screeen. Did nobody realise that this was a retrograde step?

 

[Mikey C]

When the New Euston opened in 1968 much was made of the direct access to the Underground and taxi rank from the concourse. These have both been lost although the escalator to the tube remains in the same place but for some reason now partitioned off with a glass screeen. Did nobody realise that this was a retrograde step?

It's because of the night tube, as they need to be able to close the NR station at night, while still allowing entrance to the tube station. I find it hard to believe that a better solution couldn't have been found though.

 

[bramling]

When the New Euston opened in 1968 much was made of the direct access to the Underground and taxi rank from the concourse. These have both been lost although the escalator to the tube remains in the same place but for some reason now partitioned off with a glass screeen. Did nobody realise that this was a retrograde step?

The issue with the Underground seems to centre around the issue that when the main line concourse becomes overcrowded (as it frequently does during disruption), this was resulting in the whole Underground station having to close with it, which seems to have been deemed unacceptable. There was also the issue of better access for Night Tube than just the staircase.

I don’t like it and the whole thing feels messy and retrograde, but I can see why it has been done. Euston as a whole is now a shambles, and this is just a part of that, unfortunately. The LU station isn’t much better.

 

[DelW]

It's because of the night tube, as they need to be able to close the NR station at night, while still allowing entrance to the tube station. I find it hard to believe that a better solution couldn't have been found though.

Like, for instance, combining the new southern opening with the pull-down grilles which serve that purpose at numerous other stations, allowing internal access at all other times?

Forcing connecting passengers outside and back via an awkward and congested 180° turn seems to be just another example of Euston's recent management's apparent desire to make passengers' experience as unpleasant as they possibly can. See also late announcement of platforms, inconvenient and hard to read new departure boards (now scrapped), gateline "assistants" who refuse valid tickets, among other delights.

Hopefully the u-turn on reinstating the main departure board might indicate a change for the better, but taking down and replacing the wall blocking off the escalators might be expensive.

 

[Dr Hoo]

Like, for instance, combining the new southern opening with the pull-down grilles which serve that purpose at numerous other stations, allowing internal access at all other times?

Forcing connecting passengers outside and back via an awkward and congested 180° turn seems to be just another example of Euston's recent management's apparent desire to make passengers' experience as unpleasant as they possibly can. See also late announcement of platforms, inconvenient and hard to read new departure boards (now scrapped), gateline "assistants" who refuse valid tickets, among other delights.

Hopefully the u-turn on reinstating the main departure board might indicate a change for the better, but taking down and replacing the wall blocking off the escalators might be expensive.

As originally designed the Underground entry/exit had the undesirable result of forcing all passengers to pass via the station concourse whether they were a rail traveller or not. And there were far fewer passengers on both modes back then. Subsequently various developments, such as the bus station, offices along the Euston Road, growth of academic institutions such as UCL and SOAS, plus the fact that more people seem to take the opportunity of a walk down through the squares to the south mean that there are even more folk not needing to be on the concourse. So having a south-facing access was very useful for many.

Simply creating a 'T junction' directly at the top of both up and down escalators would create huge conflicts quite apart from the fact that it would also function as another thoroughfare for those not using the Underground at all. Add in the fact that many travellers at Euston have significant amounts of luggage and are relatively unfamiliar with their surroundings and it would immediately become extremely chaotic and thus very dangerous by blocking those coming up the escalators. It would have to be one side or the other.

Various other events subsequent to the 1960s design came with IRA terrorism and the King's Cross fire. These prompted the realisation that a complete separation for security and ventilation reasons would be very beneficial. I can't think of another major London terminal that relies on only one completely dominant tube access. (Marylebone just isn't in the same league an even that can be problematic during disruption.)

Euston was the first station that I worked at, from the mid-1970s, and it was evident even then that the layout was far from ideal, especially after the 1974 WCML service uplift.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Simply creating a 'T junction' directly at the top of both up and down escalators would create huge conflicts quite apart from the fact that it would also function as another thoroughfare for those not using the Underground at all. Add in the fact that many travellers at Euston have significant amounts of luggage and are relatively unfamiliar with their surroundings and it would immediately become extremely chaotic and thus very dangerous by blocking those coming up the escalators. It would have to be one side or the other.

For what it's worth, the T-junction that exists when you pass the Tube gateline with the access to P8-11 and the separate one to the external exit already causes issues with people walking into each other...

 

[Mikey C]

It was a bizarre decision back in the 60s to not have a separate entrance into Euston underground station from outside the mainline station, when there's tons of room in front of Euston. Even then, plenty of people were using the underground station to access to wider area.

I can understand why they stopped using the Leslie Green surface building, but a separate exit to the bus station area would hardly have been difficult to add when the area was being completely rebuilt.

 

[Russel]

Hopefully the boards removed haven't just ended up in landfill and have been reused somewhere, or in store until they are needed.

 

[blimmo]

Simply creating a 'T junction' directly at the top of both up and down escalators would create huge conflicts

Do these conflicts not just happen at a different point? I find it very difficult to get to the escalators from the concourse since I have to fight through the flow of people doing the 180° turn in the opposite direction to me.

 

[gravitystorm]

Simply creating a 'T junction' directly at the top of both up and down escalators would create huge conflicts quite apart from the fact that it would also function as another thoroughfare for those not using the Underground at all. Add in the fact that many travellers at Euston have significant amounts of luggage and are relatively unfamiliar with their surroundings and it would immediately become extremely chaotic and thus very dangerous by blocking those coming up the escalators. It would have to be one side or the other.

Thanks for the details. Have there been any considerations or discussions about providing cover from the elements outside the tube entrance? It's can be a bit miserable being forced out into the rain just to do the 180 back into the station.