On Jul 10, 10:19 am, MIG wrote:
The trouble is that the preambles aren't true. If you hear "Your
attention please; here is a special announcement ..." you can
guarantee that there will be absolutely nothing special about the
announcement.


That's true. As with all things, it has to be Done Properly to work.
Eliminate the guff, use appropriate phrases, and so on. As you will
appreciate, I was pointing out WHY certain things are said. Whether
that is the BEST certain thing is an entirely separate debate!

PhilD

--

PhilD wrote:
That's true. As with all things, it has to be Done Properly to work.
Eliminate the guff, use appropriate phrases, and so on. As you will
appreciate, I was pointing out WHY certain things are said. Whether
that is the BEST certain thing is an entirely separate debate!

I think everyone understands why there is a lead-in and the OP's debate
*is* about the content as far as I understood.

One of the worst abuses, IMHO, is the "This is a security announcement"
phrase which exclusively prefixes the advice about not leaving
unattended baggage. One day it might actually be a security announcement
but there'll be a bunch of desensitized people oblivious to it.

ESB

"Ernst S Blofeld" wrote in message
...
PhilD wrote:
That's true. As with all things, it has to be Done Properly to work.
Eliminate the guff, use appropriate phrases, and so on. As you will
appreciate, I was pointing out WHY certain things are said. Whether
that is the BEST certain thing is an entirely separate debate!

I think everyone understands why there is a lead-in and the OP's debate
*is* about the content as far as I understood.

One of the worst abuses, IMHO, is the "This is a security announcement"
phrase which exclusively prefixes the advice about not leaving unattended
baggage. One day it might actually be a security announcement but there'll
be a bunch of desensitized people oblivious to it.

Especially the ones caught up in the blast, I should think...

Paul

On Mon, 09 Jul 2007 19:21:15 GMT, (Neil
Williams) wrote:

On Mon, 09 Jul 2007 10:42:45 -0700, alex_t
wrote:

The DLR scrolling announcements are even funnier: for more then a year
now they constantly show the message that "No lift service at
Shadwell".

Regardless of who does or doesn't use it, isn't it a bit of a disgrace
that it has been out of service for that long? Surely it could have
been replaced if not repairable in that time.

Neil

Shadwell lift is not a repair, it is part of the rebuild of the
ground-level facilites. The job has now over-run, but it is a planned
outage.

Eric

On 10 Jul, 09:59, PhilD wrote:
I appreciate that with constant announcements nowadays this probably
doesn't matter too much overall, but that is the intention.

The problem with the constant announcements is that people just start
to tune them out as so much background noise. If a really important
announcement was made half of the passengers would probably ignore it
anyway since they wouldn't be listening. Another irritation is the
constant use of "customer" instead of passenger. Isn't it about time
LU grew up and dragged itself out of 1990s trendy management speak?

B2003

On Tue, 10 Jul 2007 02:19:04 -0700, MIG wrote:

The trouble is that the preambles aren't true. If you hear "Your
attention please; here is a special announcement ..." you can
guarantee that there will be absolutely nothing special about the
announcement.

On the Jubilee Line, every so often the in-car displays flash
"IMPORTANT" several times (or a similar word, I forget exactly). This
is followed by a message telling you to take your bags with you when
you get off the train.

Of course, the only thing this achieves is to train the passengers to
ignore the flashing notice, so that in the event of actually having to
transmit an important message, this avenue is no longer available.

Ah, the Jubilee - there is nothing better then constant announcements
that "This train terminates at Stratford" when ALL trains terminate at
Stratford. Same on the Northern line - "This train terminates at
Morden"*

* - I understand that this announcements are necessary in opposite
directions (especially for Northern), but why bug eastbound/southbound
passengers.

On Tue, 10 Jul 2007, alex_t wrote:

Ah, the Jubilee - there is nothing better then constant announcements
that "This train terminates at Stratford" when ALL trains terminate at
Stratford. Same on the Northern line - "This train terminates at
Morden"*

Some do turn round at Kennington, and that's quite important. But once the
train's south of there, yes, this does seem a bit pointless. Presumably
the technology is just too inflexible to handle this. Although since that
degree of sophistication would be easily attainable by a bright
10-year-old working on a BBC Micro, i am at a loss to explain why!

tom

--
Pave the world

On Jul 10, 6:18 pm, alex_t wrote:
Ah, the Jubilee - there is nothing better then constant announcements
that "This train terminates at Stratford" when ALL trains terminate at
Stratford. Same on the Northern line - "This train terminates at
Morden"*

* - I understand that this announcements are necessary in opposite
directions (especially for Northern), but why bug eastbound/southbound
passengers.



And you can see it on the platform and at the front of the train.
Kind of strange that there's no equivalent for buses, where there's
usually only what you see at the front, and yet a bus that stops short
results in you having to pay twice, whereas if your train terminates
at North Greenwich, you don't lose anything.

On Tue, 10 Jul 2007 10:18:36 -0700, alex_t
wrote:

Ah, the Jubilee - there is nothing better then constant announcements
that "This train terminates at Stratford" when ALL trains terminate at
Stratford. Same on the Northern line - "This train terminates at
Morden"*

Sorry but trains can and do terminate at North Greenwich, West Ham and
Stratford heading east on the Jubilee Line. Similarly on the Northern
Line trains can and do terminate at Euston, Charing Cross, Kennington,
Tooting Broadway and Morden. Some of these are only used on rare
occasions but announcements and displays are needed to cover this.

* - I understand that this announcements are necessary in opposite
directions (especially for Northern), but why bug eastbound/southbound
passengers.

You may consider these things to be a bug but I assume you have decent
vision and hearing. For those who do not or who may not be familiar with
the LU system then these messages are a source of important confirmatory
information and reassurance.

If you're bugged by the LU announcements then I can't imagine how you'll
react to the I-Bus system on the bus network.
--
Paul C


Admits to working for London Underground!