When will excessive announcements cease?

[gobbybobby]

Can station staff stop the announcements? waited an hour for a train from Bournemouth last week with some disruption because of a police incident

Non stop announcements "x service is delayed we are sorry your journey will take longer than expected" just repeating over and over for a dozen delayed and cancelled services.

 

[island]

In this country we seem to have a tendency to use automated announcement voices that sound like they're shouting, which certainly makes the quantity of announcements a lot more unpleasant. In Germany the voices sound a lot more "conversational".

It could be worse. We could have Aviavox, the horribly grating Dutch-accented announcements used (amongst other places) at Heathrow.

Platform gaps and so forth are genuine dangers. Perhaps indiscriminate and repetitive announcements are not the best way of dealing with it - the ideal solution would be to have rolling stock with sliding steps and adjust platform heights across the country - but the sad reality is that this costs more than sticking an announcement on the system and set it to play a few times an hour, so we're pretty much stuck with it.

There is a specific locally-recorded announcement at Lewisham platform 2 that plays when a train is approaching. It's recorded in a local male accent and even longer than usual, going "attention please attention please. Customers on platform 2. Think about the gap. Think about how you will get on or how you will get off" and several further sentences.

It gets just as tuned out as the rest.

Please mind the gap between the train and platform edge - Isn't it reasonable to expect that if pax managed to get on safely, they should be able to get off similarly?

Not necessarily; not all stations' platform-train interfaces are the same.

Personally i really liked the "[station]. This is [station]." announcements. They were very reassuring to hear especially on late night trains when it was difficult to know where you were. It was very disappointing when the Amey systems were removed and as such these "[station]. This is [station]." announcements have all disappeared.

Yes, I miss these as well.

They need to organise announcements so that people learn to tune in and out appropriately.

• Urgent/emergency announcements: male voice "attention please!"
• Cancellations/platform alterations/service alteration: male voice "may I have your attention please!"
• Facilities announcements (e.g., no catering/reservations/short-formed train): female voice "train announcer calling!"
• All other announcements: female voice, no preceding phrase.

Other than "train announcer calling" which is a little dated, I agree with this concept. Different chimes would be another option although perhaps there would be less familiarity.

If you think the GatEx is excessive, spend 30 minutes at Brussels south. Every train in Flemish and French, Eurostars and ICE also have English and German, often both.

This can be done well if there is the will to do so. I took an NS train to Brussel-Zuid some years ago and the guard made brief to-the-point announcements in four languages.

I am not sure why so many TOCs are obsessed with that tactile paving announcement. First it was the See It Say It Sort It announcement that appeared everywhere and now it is the tactile paving one. GWR and SWR and LNER and Southeastern all seem to be using it.

I assume a TOC somewhere got sued over it.

 

[zwk500]

This can be done well if there is the will to do so. I took an NS train to Brussel-Zuid some years ago and the guard made brief to-the-point announcements in four languages.

It can also be done less well, on the local train here between Liege and Maastricht the train changes language at the border and the Guard either continues announcing in French or just stops completely! To be fair the announcements on the Stoptrein are limited to 'Next Stop: <Station>' so the language change isn't quite as important.

I assume a TOC somewhere got sued over it.

They did indeed. A visually impaired chap fell off the platform and lost his life, so while they work to fit tactile paving the announcements are an interim solution. https://www.disabilitynewsservice.c...or-seven-more-years-despite-inquest-findings/

 

[sheff1]

Doncaster has now lost manual announcements, and the auto ones are a complete overload, after every train announcement there is a tactile paving announcement, then in addition to that for LNER trains there is an announcement about generous luggage space underneath your seat, then the automated usuals aswell, the station is now constant announcements

That's annoying. Used to be a pleasure to change at Doncaster after leaving behind the interminable auto-babble from the PA at Sheffield.

 

[nanstallon]

Why can't the railways just treat customers as reasonably sensible adults? We didn't use to have this incessant babble going on, making it impossible to chat with friends.

Too many 'no win no fee' ambulance chasers, perhaps.

 

[busestrains]

Can station staff stop the announcements? waited an hour for a train from Bournemouth last week with some disruption because of a police incident

Non stop announcements "x service is delayed we are sorry your journey will take longer than expected" just repeating over and over for a dozen delayed and cancelled services.

At some stations i have seen staff cancel the automated announcements by pressing the manual announcement button to make a manual announcement every time the automated announcements come on. So at certain stations they can do that. I think at some stations they can switch fully the system off but i do too not think that is generally encouraged by the TOCs though.

It could be worse. We could have Aviavox, the horribly grating Dutch-accented announcements used (amongst other places) at Heathrow.

There is a specific locally-recorded announcement at Lewisham platform 2 that plays when a train is approaching. It's recorded in a local male accent and even longer than usual, going "attention please attention please. Customers on platform 2. Think about the gap. Think about how you will get on or how you will get off" and several further sentences.

It gets just as tuned out as the rest.

Not necessarily; not all stations' platform-train interfaces are the same.

Yes, I miss these as well.

Other than "train announcer calling" which is a little dated, I agree with this concept. Different chimes would be another option although perhaps there would be less familiarity.

This can be done well if there is the will to do so. I took an NS train to Brussel-Zuid some years ago and the guard made brief to-the-point announcements in four languages.

I assume a TOC somewhere got sued over it.

Aviavox has to be the most dreadful sounding voice to ever exist! I sincerely hope that Aviavox will never get involved in the railways in the UK! I am not sure why this voice has become so popular at our airports. It is a such a terrible voice to welcome visitors to our country. The TTS lady from the Aviavox system really sounds utterly dreadful. She has to be the most dull miserable flat depressing sounding voice i have ever heard. She is so bad that she makes Acapela Rachael sound good in comparison! I understand as you say the TTS was based on a Dutch accent but i have heard a lot better sounding Dutch accents then that so i have no idea how they have managed to make her sound so bad!

It can also be done less well, on the local train here between Liege and Maastricht the train changes language at the border and the Guard either continues announcing in French or just stops completely! To be fair the announcements on the Stoptrein are limited to 'Next Stop: <Station>' so the language change isn't quite as important.

They did indeed. A visually impaired chap fell off the platform and lost his life, so while they work to fit tactile paving the announcements are an interim solution. https://www.disabilitynewsservice.c...or-seven-more-years-despite-inquest-findings/

That is interesting to hear. I was wondering why the tactile paving announcements were suddenly popping up everywhere. We really seem to love adding more announcements whenever anything happens. It seems that TOCs think that more announcements are the solution to every safety issue.

That's annoying. Used to be a pleasure to change at Doncaster after leaving behind the interminable auto-babble from the PA at Sheffield.

The entire LNER network of stations has been fitted with automated announcements in recent weeks. So there is nowhere in the area left without automated announcements now.

 

[zwk500]

That is interesting to hear. I was wondering why the tactile paving announcements were suddenly popping up everywhere. We really seem to love adding more announcements whenever anything happens. It seems that TOCs think that more announcements are the solution to every safety issue.

AIUI the DfT tell them to make the announcements. Although the tactile paving one is justified, for me, as the whole point of tactile paving is for people with visual impairments so a written message that tactile paving is unavailable would be unhelpful.
Whether we need quite so many 'See it, say it, sorted' announcements is another issue. Also the 'next available train' messages when delays occur on 2-track lines and the delayed train will be blocking the train they then advertise you to take.

 

[sheff1]

Why can't the railways just treat customers as reasonably sensible adults? We didn't use to have this incessant babble going on, making it impossible to chat with friends.

Too many 'no win no fee' ambulance chasers, perhaps.

More likely, in my view, the thinking that 'because we can use auto announcements we will', without considering whether they are needed. That evidence shows an overload of announcements is counterproductive is not something the hard of thinking will take into account.

 

[CaptainHaddock]

I’ll defend most announcements but this is incredibly annoying and at several GWR stations. It’s probably to prevent slips, trips and falls (a key safety metric) but it’s so grating and it doesn’t seem to make any difference either!

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



I don’t think it quite makes that point; you’re mixing causation and correlation.

Many people - myself included - like to have headphones (mine are noise cancelling) as I like to listen to music and not be distracted by others around me. Even then I can normally hear the “bing bong” which emphasises a manual announcement which normally contains some key additional info.

On long journeys people might be watching films / TV as well etc. People want to get on with their own thing (a special hatred for people having loud conversations via their phone speaker), not because of excessive on train announcements. You don’t tend to get that many if you’re between stations anyway unless there is disruption.

I disagree. I specifically wear headphones on the train because I find the pointless and unnecessary announcements so annoying ( if you commute on Northern Trains you'll understand!). Most of the time the music I play is ambient or drone music, just loud enough to drown out the announcements so I can read or snooze in peace.

 

[Parallel]

I am not sure why so many TOCs are obsessed with that tactile paving announcement. First it was the See It Say It Sort It announcement that appeared everywhere and now it is the tactile paving one. GWR and SWR and LNER and Southeastern all seem to be using it. Everything that Grant Shapps told us about getting rid of unnecessary excessive announcements seems to have been scrapped.

The irony is the DfT mandated the use of the tactile paving announcements and the See it, say it, sorted ones!

 

[bramling]

AIUI the DfT tell them to make the announcements. Although the tactile paving one is justified, for me, as the whole point of tactile paving is for people with visual impairments so a written message that tactile paving is unavailable would be unhelpful.
Whether we need quite so many 'See it, say it, sorted' announcements is another issue. Also the 'next available train' messages when delays occur on 2-track lines and the delayed train will be blocking the train they then advertise you to take.

Is the tactile paving announcement really a good solution to an issue, though? The blind passenger might not hear the announcement for any number of reasons, at which point things are straight back to how they were originally.

Seems more a case of typical weak elements of industry management unable to come up with any solution better than an announcement for a given problem.

 

[zwk500]

Is the tactile paving announcement really a good solution to an issue, though? The blind passenger might not hear the announcement for any number of reasons, at which point things are straight back to how they were originally.

Seems more a case of typical weak elements of industry management unable to come up with any solution better than an announcement for a given problem.

As mentioned, it was a DfT instruction to do it. Make of that what you will.

 

[Barnsley]

Can station staff stop the announcements? waited an hour for a train from Bournemouth last week with some disruption because of a police incident

Non stop announcements "x service is delayed we are sorry your journey will take longer than expected" just repeating over and over for a dozen delayed and cancelled services.

It depends if they have access to the CIS, usually it’s the hub stations that control them, but I got access to ours, as it frequently displays trains in the down direction as platform UM, which is the through line, so doesn’t show, I take the liberty of turning off the ongoing announcements off when I start my shift!

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 27 Jan 2023 ==

That's annoying. Used to be a pleasure to change at Doncaster after leaving behind the interminable auto-babble from the PA at Sheffield.

Next time you go you will notice the difference

 

[Tracked]

That's annoying. Used to be a pleasure to change at Doncaster after leaving behind the interminable auto-babble from the PA at Sheffield.

Haven't spent much time on Doncaster recently, but since they replaced the speakers even the manual announcements were bad; too loud, too frequent, and too long. I think right at the south end of platform 3 was about the only place I didn't find them loud enough to be annoying.

 

[_toommm_]

Haven't spent much time on Doncaster recently, but since they replaced the speakers even the manual announcements were bad; too loud, too frequent, and too long. I think right at the south end of platform 3 was about the only place I didn't find them loud enough to be annoying.

It’s good for people who are hard of hearing though. I personally couldn’t decipher what the manual announcers ever said, and I often had to ask other passengers or staff what was said every time I thought it might be pertinent to me.

 

[g492p]

As I type this, it's 06:17. The (Greater Northern) train left Kings Lynn at 06:10, and it's now just 7 minutes later. I've already heard that super-annoying "See it, Say it, Sort it" announcement 4 times! And it hasn't even reached the first stop yet!

How come I can travel across the entirety of Europe by train and hear almost none of these sorts of messages (well, except the DB ICE train to Amsterdam where they heavily implied there were lots of pickpockets at Utrecht in their on-train announcement; DB throwing some shade on the Dutch there!), yet 7 minutes on a UK train and I'm bombarded by them. Exactly what problem is this Sorting?

(Bonus points: on the occasion a number of years ago I Saw it and Said it (someone smoking on the platform), the staff did nothing. So I tried to complain to the station manager who also did nothing. Hardly Sorted.)

To be fair if the announcement repeated 4 times upon departure from KGX before you reached the first stop, most likely the PIS is faulty. Usually it’s the departure announcement and the 6106 one. I do hate the slogan, but the advertising of the text number is a good thing in my humble opinion. Having been on a DOO train on the continent where a fight broke out, it would have been good to know who to contact to get help.

 

[twitch7443]

Was once on an evening GWR pad-bri service, and between Chippenham & Bath I heard at least 8 different announcements. The regular destination and stops + various smoking and CCTV announcements, and if i recallcorrectly, two variants of the "see it, say it, sorted" - TM must have been bored.

 

[Horizon22]

I disagree. I specifically wear headphones on the train because I find the pointless and unnecessary announcements so annoying ( if you commute on Northern Trains you'll understand!). Most of the time the music I play is ambient or drone music, just loud enough to drown out the announcements so I can read or snooze in peace.

Each to their own. Sometimes announcements are a slight distraction, but then I would say all the ambient noise is and other noise can be much worse. I can still tune into an announcement if needed.

 

[AM9]

Each to their own. Sometimes announcements are a slight distraction, but then I would say all the ambient noise is and other noise can be much worse. I can still tune into an announcement if needed.

It's amazing that some complain about the announcements that they aren't interested in, they then block their ears from hearing them and complain again when their action caused them to not hear another one.

 

[Blindtraveler]

Speaking is a blind person who relies on an announcements rather than screens or other visual communication, it would be easier and a lot less bother to cut out all the additional safety security store your luggage don't do this don't do that crap and have simple announcements like
The next station is a. Customers for stations towards b c d and e and local bus connections to f g and h should change here. This service will now run express two I j and K. If you require any of these destinations please make sure you're travelling in the front 8 coaches as the rear two coaches will detach and terminate here.


Or, ladies and gentlemen comet due to the railways terminal in inability to run a tap nevermind a train service will be terminating here and you should ask station staff about replacement road transport


A recent journey on a Cumbernauld to Glasgow Queen Street stopping service produced almost continual verbal diarrhoea from start to finish. Totally unnecessary. Even the southeastern 395 which used to be very good in terms of not too much extra waffle are now repeating calling patterns and other stuff twice


I'm sure I'm not alone in in saying that I'd be far more likely to pay attention to announcements if the above protocol was followed

 

[CaptainHaddock]

It's amazing that some complain about the announcements that they aren't interested in, they then block their ears from hearing them and complain again when their action caused them to not hear another one.

You're missing the point here, possibly deliberately. The vast majority of announcements either tell passengers what they already know or things that they don't need to know, "see it say it sort it" and "mind the gap" being classic examples.

The only things passengers need to know on a train is where it's going, where it's stopping and, if there's disruption, what's the cause and how will it affect your journey. All else is irrelevant.

 

[bramling]

As mentioned, it was a DfT instruction to do it. Make of that what you will.

Indeed. The DfT seems to be the industry these days, and the system seems to be setup so that no one can challenge this.

I can’t help but find it rather dystopian that DFT are sending out wave files to be broadcast on trains and stations - the see it, say it, sort it being another. Almost a bit 1984.

 

[Archie810]

announcements that I want:

''Next stop (station name)''
''This is (station name), this train is for (station name)''

that's it

 

[zwk500]

announcements that I want:

''Next stop (station name)''
''This is (station name), this train is for (station name)''

that's it

That's great for you, but do other passengers want something more?

 

[BenS123]

Can station staff stop the announcements? waited an hour for a train from Bournemouth last week with some disruption because of a police incident

Non stop announcements "x service is delayed we are sorry your journey will take longer than expected" just repeating over and over for a dozen delayed and cancelled services.

I was speaking to one of the staff members earlier who said that the announcements get annoying for them even however they are not allowed to switch them off.

 

[bramling]

That's great for you, but do other passengers want something more?

Has anyone ever actually asked passengers if they want more announcements?

I’ve always had the impression that people get asked loaded questions like “do you want better quality information?”, which unimaginative elements of management use as justification for announcements simply because that’s the limit of their capability, and of course it’s very easy to measure when announcements go out and put this as a scorecard measurable, regardless of how useful or otherwise it might be for the end user.

Given how we know many passengers don’t listen to even important announcements, it’s hard to make a case to say that announcements are a good way of disseminating information.

 

[zwk500]

Has anyone ever actually asked passengers if they want more announcements?

It's been made quite clear that the absolutely stripped out version I responded too is not enough for many passengers. The Operator and (more importantly) Full calling pattern is valued.

I’ve always had the impression that people get asked loaded questions like “do you want better quality information?”, which unimaginative elements of management use as justification for announcements simply because that’s the limit of their capability, and of course it’s very easy to measure when announcements go out and put this as a scorecard measurable, regardless of how useful or otherwise it might be for the end user.

This no doubt happens.

Given how we know many passengers don’t listen to even important announcements, it’s hard to make a case to say that announcements are a good way of disseminating information.

The trick is to focus on the quality of the announcements. I fear management consultants who seem to run the government nowadays don't like to look at quality because it requires creativity to measure.

 

[johnnychips]

That's annoying. Used to be a pleasure to change at Doncaster after leaving behind the interminable auto-babble from the PA at Sheffield.

Absolutely agree.

 

[bramling]

It's been made quite clear that the absolutely stripped out version I responded too is not enough for many passengers. The Operator and (more importantly) Full calling pattern is valued.

Out of interest, where has this been made clear? On something like the Central Wales I’m not sure there’s any value at all in reading out the whole list of stations, for example. I’ve certainly never been asked what I’d prefer.

The 365s in their original form seemed to get it just right - read out the whole list prior to the journey starting (I think they also did the full list at Cambridge as well?), just the destination at intermediate stations, but with the full list on the scrolling displays. Seems like the perfect compromise to me. Also no inane security messages and such like - indeed the fact we’ve had this oppressive stuff for my entire adult life so far rather gives me the feeling that those with nefarious intent have kind of won by influencing our long-term way of life.

The trick is to focus on the quality of the announcements. I fear management consultants who seem to run the government nowadays don't like to look at quality because it requires creativity to measure.

Agreed. As you say, awkward to measure, though not impossible, just too much effort for lightweight management. And, being cynical, probably less useful for the next promotion than some green circles on a spreadsheet.

 

[Kite159]

Special mention to the announcements on the 197s, first in Welsh then in English. The doors were opened and closed by the time it had finished telling people that it was the TfW service to Chester and the next stop will be Frodsham.

The 175 I caught later was so refreshing with basic announcements at where the train is going and what the next stop is