Paul Corfield wrote:

I think you will find every stop will be announced and displayed as I
believe that part of the project's objectives is to provide additional
info for blind and deaf travellers. If you consider what their
requirements are likely to be then you'll find that every stop will need
to be announced and displayed.

True. If all that is announced is "Pigeon Street", or "Next Stop
Pigeon Street" at most, it won't be disruptive - it IMO isn't on German
buses where such automatic announcements are fitted (if a driver does
it he typically only reads the stop name). If the announcement is "The
next bus stop will be Pigeon Street, please make sure you take all your
belongings with you and mind the doors" it will grate.

OTOH, at interchanges it *will* be useful to announce "Please change
here for the Northern Line and for routes 1, 2 and 3".

This is so that they have a fair chance
of knowing that their stop is coming up even if it is not a major stop
or a compulsory one. Quite how hail and ride sections of route will be
done I do not know!

Are there many left in London? One would hope that such routes will
just be phased out, as they are neither good for passengers (lack of
information, slower runs, general confusion) nor operationally any
improvement over fixed stops. There is some argument for allowing
alighting between stops in quieter times (as indeed some German bus
operators do), but not really for random boarding.

Neil

Neil Williams wrote:

True. If all that is announced is "Pigeon Street", or "Next Stop
Pigeon Street" at most, it won't be disruptive - it IMO isn't on German
buses where such automatic announcements are fitted (if a driver does
it he typically only reads the stop name). If the announcement is "The
next bus stop will be Pigeon Street, please make sure you take all your
belongings with you and mind the doors" it will grate.

I've never found it a problem on German buses, in fact, quite the
reverse, it's really helpful. They're limited to just saying "Next
stop: Gerhard Hauptmann Strasse", or, if it's a U-Bahn/S-Bahn station
"Next stop: Barmbek, interchange with U2, U3 and S1". Some of the
central ones also have the information in English, as well as "exit
here for Alster boat trips" or "exit here for town hall" (the only
problem being the use of the word 'exit'. Interestingly, the tourist
information is generally not mentioned in the German, and the
interchange not mentioned in the English.

What did grate this weekend on my visit to Hamburg, was that they've
got a really irritating kid to do the announcements for some reason.