On Wed, 09 Feb 2005 23:19:56 GMT, "Richard J."
wrote:

Paul Corfield wrote:
On Wed, 09 Feb 2005 14:40:06 +0000, Dave Newt
wrote:

How different to here, where the same old mantra is repeated 6
times at almost every station, and is routinely ignored.

Well yes but I have to say that the constant exhortations to "do
this, do that, breath in, breath out, this line is running, this
one isn't, don't leave your bag" drive me crazy even though there
are good reasons for making the announcements.

There are only good reasons if the announcements are effective. Since
there is, as you say, a constant stream of the damned things, it seems
to me very unlikely that they are effective, since people just switch
off or get irritated with them.

Yes I would agree with this. If things have gone wrong then you need
good, timely, helpful and accurate information. Too much of the time
that does not happen.

Has there been any research into the effectiveness of general
exhortations about keeping your belongings with you, about CCTV
coverage, about not smoking, etc.? (Though I realise that if a station
supervisor sees on his TV monitors someone smoking or walking away from
their baggage, a one-off targeted announcement may be useful.)

The luggage issue is related to the security rating applied to the LU
network. Advice has to be given in order to keep disruption to a minimum
because if stuff is left behind then we have to close stations or
interrupt the service.

The smoking aspect these days is more likely to be triggered by someone
being observed as you suggest above.

Similarly, has there been any research into comparative dwell times at
stations which do or don't have "closing doors" announcements?

Station dwell time is measured and the whole issue of the management of
train arrivals and departures was the subject of a lot of research to
support the decision to employ more people and make the announcements.
We don't have the sophisticated signalling and control systems that the
Paris Metro has which counts down for the drivers at each station and
advises when to sound buzzers etc. Therefore we use people to do that
and while some announcements are condescending and make we wish to
scream I think the overall effect of providing a more consistent spacing
of trains is genuine and beneficial. If the service has completely
collapsed then the role changes to one of crowd management and
information provision. There is also the reassurance / personal security
aspect of having staff on the platforms which we know customers value.
There is therefore a business case for having these people around.

Some stations achieve a balance but the odd one doesn't and a
wait of more than two minutes can mean you hear a stream of
noise over and over again.

Agreed. Hearing more than once that there is a "good service" while
waiting for your train is particularly irritating. Or at Leicester
Square last night awaiting a westbound Piccadilly: "There is a good
service on the Northern line".

As I use Leicester Square every day I hear this all the time. I usually
hear the Northern Line announcement just as a train leaves and the next
one is 5 minutes away. I'm afraid I consider that to be an appalling
level of service for Central London when everywhere else has a train
every 2-3 mins. The announcement just makes me think the opposite to
what it is telling me.

The Paris Metro answer is to display
network-wide service disruption details on a monitor as you enter the
station, and I find this much more sensible.

There is work going on with this. We have a "heartbeat" display on the
Intranet at work which is now very good and has a very regular update
facility. We also have "Tracker" which shows where the trains are and on
the recently enhanced version you can click on a station and see a big
list of the next 20 trains or so and how long it will take to get there.
On the Jubilee Line it even includes those trains which are still
heading west to Stratford if you click to see the e/b list at Canary
Wharf for example. Not sure when this will be publicly available but I
believe the intention is to provide something via the Tube website in a
similar vein to that for DLR.

--
Paul C


Admits to working for London Underground!