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Paul Corfield · December 17th 07, 09:39 PM posted to uk.transport.london

On Mon, 17 Dec 2007 21:45:56 GMT, (Neil
Williams) wrote:

On Mon, 17 Dec 2007 19:31:06 +0000, Paul Corfield
wrote:

"The Victoria Line service is suspended. Please choose an alternative
route" - the line was suspended so this was good real time information.
I was quite shocked to see a Tube reference on a bus.

Now that is good.

Perhaps an even better improvement for the future (which I've not seen
on buses anywhere, but the Hamburg U-Bahn does have the feature) would
be to allow the control room to take control of the PA of all or
selected buses, and thus to announce connectional information like
that? Presumably the information was sent to the driver via the radio
then he pressed the button, but why not take out the middle man?

We had had a PA announcement from the driver at Blackhorse Road as well.
The 123 is typically overrun if the tube is off but the top section was
running as far as Seven Sisters so we weren't besieged.

I suspect they may not want to take over the system remotely in case
they frightened drivers half to death by suddenly making an impromptu
announcement over the system - just a guess and possibly not very
logical given they make radio announcements although there is usually a
beep or similar to warn the driver one is about to be made.

I think the controllers can intervene from the garage which is
monitoring the route - they can certainly issue a curtailment
instruction via the driver's panel. The panel also shows whether the bus
is on time, early or late - I've only seen it close up on a 192 bus
before but it was very neat.
--
Paul C

Admits to working for London Underground!