Real-time information on the train

[chubs]

The best PIS I have come across is on Dutch Sprinters. The square PIS tells you where you are, where the next stop is, when you will reach it and then the further stops down the line. If you are blind, the automated announcements tell you the same thing, as you approach the next stop, when you are stopped, and then when you start off again. The voice is feminine, it is clear and comforting. Extraneous announcements that plague British trains are absent and only the guard sometimes comes on in order to tell you something interesting. He or she will always begin such announcements with 'Ladies and Gentlemen, good evening'.(for instance).

Good manners cost nothing.

This is fitted on all NS trains now, with the old dot matrix displays switched off. I agree it's great - easy to read blue/white screens that show calling points, arrival times that are adjusted for delays, connections at stations with their platform number a couple of minutes before you arrive.

 

[skyhigh]

There was also one time I was travelling along the Mid Cheshire line from Chester and the train left with "Welcome about this Northern service" on the displays, then about 15 minutes later the auto announcer piped up with:
"Welcome aboard the This is the Northern We will shortly be arriving at Mou This is Moulds This is the Northern We will shortly be arriving at Delamere!"

It seems like the announcements all got stuck in some kind of queue until just before Delamere? Not sure why it would do that though.

That's simply because the crew forgot to set it up until that point (and then chose the wrong starting station).

 

[Mikey C]

The Northern 331s (and 195s) have nice screens, though a lot of the time they seem to have "social messages" on them, rather than travel ones

 

[ThisIsSurbiton]

I don't think you can just ignore apps etc though. Imagine if the real time information on this hypothetical train connected to say Darwin says something that the passenger is not expecting.

Oh, I agree - I was just trying to put them aside for a moment in the discussion, as you can't control the variety of apps out there and where they get their information from. Of course all TOC apps, Trainline, etc. use Darwin, so everything should be in agreement. Anybody using RTT is likely to understand what they're seeing I think. Google can be a problem.

 

[Horizon22]

Wow. How did anyone think that was a sensible setup. I can't quite understand why train crew need to get involved at all, and why the system can't just download the calling pattern from the same database (Darwin?) as the station systems get their info from, with the ability for train crew to amend, of course.

To be fair, an 80x all the crew have to do is input a headcode into the TMS, and everyone will then set up properly. I’m not sure exactly what system it “syncs” with - but it should be the base timetable of the day. I’ve also not seen how user-friendly it is to remove / add special stops to be added to the PIS.

The ‘headcode method’ also does other useful things, like correctly show the reservation levels if the train is the correct formation. Even than can be wrong though - normally due to engineering works and odd routes. I saw this on a LNER service that was showing Aberdeen and was actually terminating at Waverley due to engineering works, and the PIS completely missed out our scheduled stop at Newark North Gate.

Darwin is also not completely infallible and relies on human input which on a daily basis can be wrong or missing - particularly true in sever disruption when the relevant CIS operator gets overwhelmed.

 

[skyhigh]

To be fair, an 80x all the crew have to do is input a headcode into the TMS, and everyone will then set up properly. I’m not sure exactly what system it “syncs” with - but it should be the base timetable of the day. I’ve also not seen how user-friendly it is to remove / add special stops to be added to the PIS.

As I understand it it's only possible to remove stops, not add them.

 

[BrianW]

As I understand it it's only possible to remove stops, not add them.

You couldn't make it up? Next we know we'll have nuclear weapons but no code ...
Honestly, who designs these things? They're obviously not paid enough

 

[Horizon22]

As I understand it it's only possible to remove stops, not add them.

Ah okay - that’s a little frustrating although I’d say at least not to calls orders are probably more common than special stop orders.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 8 Oct 2021 ==

You couldn't make it up? Next we know we'll have nuclear weapons but no code ...
Honestly, who designs these things? They're obviously not paid enough

Hitachi as prescribed by the DfT…

 

[AlexNL]

This is fitted on all NS trains now, with the old dot matrix displays switched off. I agree it's great - easy to read blue/white screens that show calling points, arrival times that are adjusted for delays, connections at stations with their platform number a couple of minutes before you arrive.

The screens on NS trains also get updated in real-time, also when things change to the train itself.

I remember when I was traveling home on a ICM "Koploper" unit a few years ago: the train said "IC naar Venlo" all the time. Shortly before arriving at my destination, I noticed that the destination in the top changed to "IC naar Den Haag Centraal", which is where the train originated from. Not much later the display changed to show the arrival at my destination, and it said: "Eindbestemming" (final destination).

The guard came on and announced the stop at Breda, "...and we will continue to Tilburg, Eindhoven, Helmond, and then all stations to Venlo". 30 seconds later the guard made another announcement - "I have just been informed that this train will terminate at the next station due to an incident further down the line".

The screens were more up-to-date than the train crew, I quite appreciated to see how effective the IT systems had gotten at distributing the information.

 

[DelW]

The same is somewhat true of stations; whilst new display screens (such as some new ones at Waterloo & Victoria) are starting to appear - as well as interactive ones - the majority are just bulk orange dot matrix screens with the scrolling departures board which don't give as much information as could be provided and its been like this for 15-20 years now.

Where are the new screens at Waterloo located please? I haven't noticed any, though admittedly I don't travel through the station as often as I did.
The dot matrix departure boards show no more information than the old Solari boards did around half a century ago. In a world where screens have developed out of all recognition in that time, that's a pretty poor state of affairs. There is quite a lot of useful additional information which could be included on higher resolution screens. We could also move on from having to scroll through two or three screens to show the stations served.
Travelling in Germany, I've thought their station and on-board information screens have been well in advance of most of ours for at least a decade.
The on-board information systems are also only any use if they're working. Travelling on two SWR trains yesterday, both 450s, neither of their PIS displays were showing anything useful, and the only audio announcements were made manually by the guards.

 

[Nova1]

WMR/LNWR have recently installed screens onto all their units, but have kept in operation the normal "dot matrix" displays you'd usually see. (These are actually not dot matrix displays, they are just OLED displays, when there is no route programmed they just show "westmidlandsrailway.co.uk" with the logo)

These screens are helpful but maybe under utilised. At the moment they rotate between a large format "This train is for: destination", with "The next station is: station" at the bottom in smaller text, with the time to the right. They then rotate to "connections at (next station)" with a list of all the departures from the next station. Sadly most of the time this just says "connection information unavailable". They then sometimes switch to a graphic that scrolls through all the stations in a map style format with the estimated times and scheduled times.

Although if anything weird happens (trains made express due to disruption etc) these are just switched off.

 

[BayPaul]

Although if anything weird happens (trains made express due to disruption etc) these are just switched off.

This is one of the most frustrating things. This is exactly the time when information is most needed by everyone on the train, and more often than not you go from having clear visual and audio information, to having a manual announcement that is less clear, and with no provision at all for deaf passengers, or those who are using headphones.

 

[Horizon22]

Where are the new screens at Waterloo located please? I haven't noticed any, though admittedly I don't travel through the station as often as I did.

They're near the main departures board and station clock. It's only a "next fastest service" board, but looks fairly dynamic as has extra info like special notices if I recall correctly.

As for the scrolling through to another page, well ultimately that depends on the size of the screen / size of the text. Other places prefer to scroll down in a more continuous motion. You can see this to some extent on the Thameslink CIS screens in the core between St. Pancras and London Bridge.

 

[DelW]

They're near the main departures board and station clock. It's only a "next fastest service" board, but looks fairly dynamic as has extra info like special notices if I recall correctly.

Thanks, I'll try to remember to have a look next time I'm there. Yesterday I was hurrying for a train and didn't get further than looking at the first dot matrix board to check its platform number.

 

[BrianW]

They're near the main departures board and station clock. It's only a "next fastest service" board, but looks fairly dynamic as has extra info like special notices if I recall correctly.

As for the scrolling through to another page, well ultimately that depends on the size of the screen / size of the text. Other places prefer to scroll down in a more continuous motion. You can see this to some extent on the Thameslink CIS screens in the core between St. Pancras and London Bridge.

It's good that we know what they mean- 'Next fastest' meaning that that's the train that's not quite as fast as the fastest??
Like 'use both lanes'- which pedanticly should be 'Use either lane'?

 

[XAM2175]

Travelling in Germany, I've thought their station and on-board information screens have been well in advance of most of ours for at least a decade.

Quite so.

DB also offer a particularly magical feature on their website and mobile app: a journey planner that uses real-time information. If you have an itinerary saved in the app it will even offer you what it terms "current alternatives" - hugely convenient if there's disruption because you don't need to be able to understand the disruption messages to use it.

 

[Nova1]

Quite so.

DB also offer a particularly magical feature on their website and mobile app: a journey planner that uses real-time information. If you have an itinerary saved in the app it will even offer you what it terms "current alternatives" - hugely convenient if there's disruption because you don't need to be able to understand the disruption messages to use it.

yeah that is something that I always think is a little lacking in the UK, often when disruption occours passengers aren't really told what the alternatives are clearly.