Northern using KeTech CIS

[AutoUnder]

In my opinion (and I'm sure the opinion of many others), the rollout of the KeTech CIS to all Northern stations has been a failure. I have never known a CIS to have so many issues, such as announcement audio quality issues, message files becoming corrupt and KeTech now can't even be bothered to replace Celia Drummond and are just simply substituting the announcements messages she doesn't have with Only Woman.

Does anyone on here have any idea why KeTech CIS is such poor quality and why Northern are still carrying on using them. From what I've seen through FOI requests, their contract with KeTech is now on rolling terms so Northern could now stop using them if they wanted. The only potential reason I can see is that a lot of stations use hardware made by KeTech themselves and maybe there would be compatibility issues attempting to use other CIS software such as Worldline on it?

 

[setdown]

I assume this is different to the text-to-speech system they've put in place at smaller stations like Greenbank?
"The next train to depart from platform 1. Is the 09.23. Northernserviceto. Manchester Pick."

I always thought it was better than nothing, but still not great.

 

[AutoUnder]

I assume this is different to the text-to-speech system they've put in place at smaller stations like Greenbank?
"The next train to depart from platform 1. Is the 09.23. Northernserviceto. Manchester Pick."

I always thought it was better than nothing, but still not great.

The text-to-speech system still uses KeTech as the data-feed but the announcements are done by the departure screen software rather than directly from the KeTech CIS. These are being phased out and replaced with LLPA (Long Line Public Address) systems that most other stations use as the TTS system can't support special announcements for strike and disruption information

 

[Geeves]

The process of changing from world line to Ketech wasn't too hard. Servers and PCs were changed at my station so it wouldn't be hard to change to something else. I use the Ketech system everyday and it's very poor compared to the years old systems it replaced! There's not a day goes by where the Ketech system isn't doing weird and wonderful things!

 

[AutoUnder]

The process of changing from world line to Ketech wasn't too hard. Servers and PCs were changed at my station so it wouldn't be hard to change to something else. I use the Ketech system everyday and it's very poor compared to the years old systems it replaced! There's not a day goes by where the Ketech system isn't doing weird and wonderful things!

Worldline seems to work much better. My local station only had it for a matter of months as the LLPA was installed as part of a separate project to the migration to KeTech. In the short time we had it though, it worked fine but KeTech has had issues since day one

 

[DanielTheEMid]

I'd even choose blackbox, yes TTS but way more reliable than the KeTech dump.

 

[AutoUnder]

Here's a perfect demonstration of KeTech being rubbish. At Leyland, control have recorded an announcement regarding the disruption near Wigan North Western today. KeTech does not have the ability to automatically adjust the volume on any of it's recordings so they are at the same volume (confirmed in a FOI to Northern) so as a result, the recording is far too quiet! Also to top it off, the audio quality from the PA at Leyland is awful, making the announcement pretty much unintelligible. https://twitter.com/AutoUnder/status/1785001287517372499

To clarify, it is the KeTech CIS that appears to be causing the audio quality issue here as well. Announcements from the microphone sound fine and the CIS announcements also used to sound fine back under Worldline

 

[northwichcat]

I assume this is different to the text-to-speech system they've put in place at smaller stations like Greenbank?
"The next train to depart from platform 1. Is the 09.23. Northernserviceto. Manchester Pick."

The Manchester bound platform at Greenbank has the same type of system as the Chester bound platform at Northwich and both platforms at Knutsford. It's not a suitable system for a station with Knutsford's level of usage.

The Chester bound platform at Greenbank has a new type of CIS, which eventually replaced the old one that disappeared when the brick shelter was demolished.

As well as Manchester Pick, it also says Ashley Ches and Lostock Gra-lam

EDIT: This is the kind of display the Chester bound waiting shelter has at Greenbank: https://e-voice.org.uk/friendsofhunmanbyrailwaystation/assets/images/facilities-new-waiting-shelter

 

[HSTEd]

I must admit that I am surprised that there is not a project for an in-house system to be used for this purpose.
Clearly given the number of stations there is a lot of potential deployment space.

 

[jamieh27]

Here's a perfect demonstration of KeTech being rubbish. At Leyland, control have recorded an announcement regarding the disruption near Wigan North Western today. KeTech does not have the ability to automatically adjust the volume on any of it's recordings so they are at the same volume (confirmed in a FOI to Northern) so as a result, the recording is far too quiet! Also to top it off, the audio quality from the PA at Leyland is awful, making the announcement pretty much unintelligible. https://twitter.com/AutoUnder/status/1785001287517372499

To clarify, it is the KeTech CIS that appears to be causing the audio quality issue here as well. Announcements from the microphone sound fine and the CIS announcements also used to sound fine back under Worldline

Its more of Northern being poor with CIS as they haven't maintained or looked after it well. Chiltern Railways have KeTech and its been working fine.

 

[ainsworth74]

I'm somewhat puzzled by these issues, the announcements at Northern stations up here all seem to work fine! Different maintenance contract or something?

 

[Parallel]

I have noticed Northern have had some sort of CIS update within the last few months, which has caused recordings to default to the original (incorrect) ones for some stations - Westhoughton is now ‘West-how-ton’ again, and Sandbach has defaulted back to ‘Sand-back’. They still didn’t have Reston or East Linton added when I was at Morpeth a couple of months ago either.

 

[Geeves]

Westhoughton has been wrong again since January at least but Strangely the stations begining with W that were extra loud compared to the rest are normal. Doris used to be extremely excited about Wavertree Technology Park! The whole system is very unstable still. Doesn't seem to be improving

 

[jamieh27]

I have noticed Northern have had some sort of CIS update within the last few months, which has caused recordings to default to the original (incorrect) ones for some stations - Westhoughton is now ‘West-how-ton’ again, and Sandbach has defaulted back to ‘Sand-back’. They still didn’t have Reston or East Linton added when I was at Morpeth a couple of months ago either.

Yes they seem to have revered the two recordings back to the old ones instead of New Celia's recordings, whether this is the same for Wavertree Technology Park or "Wave-Tree Technology Parrrkk" and "Mells Cop" with Meols Cop I am not sure.I am surprised that they got Only Woman to record "Lumo" but not "East Lintern" or "Reston".