Charger points at Paddington, arrival data at Reading, water at Temple Meads

[whole diary]

[grahame]

From the Network Rail Media Centre

Network Rail have earmarked £1million to improve facilities at London Paddington, Reading and Bristol Temple Meads as part of their drive to put passengers first and improve their experience of travelling by rail.

At London Paddington passengers have benefitted from the introduction of a free water fountain, free use of the toilets and improved wayfinding in recent months that has helped passengers navigate the station.

As part of the £1million investment new seating is set to be installed in the Lawn area of the station and charging points will be installed so passengers can keep laptops and devices topped up.

At Reading improved information screens have been installed that inform passengers of their expected arrival time at each station rather than just the departure time. This allows passengers to better plan their arrival at their destination and plan for onward connections.

Better signage has also been installed to improve safety and two free to use water fountains have been installed.

Further improvements planned include more than 80 new seats and a larger team of staff dedicated to assisting passengers at busy times and during special events such as Reading Festival.

At Bristol Temple Meads the station has recently benefitted from a new water fountain as well as two new sets of ticket gates which has reduced congestion through the station and sped up the time it takes to pass through the station.

In the next year work will begin on a new roof at the station which will enable the continued safe running of the station and more than 150 new seats will be installed.

[eightonedee]

At Reading improved information screens have been installed that inform passengers of their expected arrival time at each station rather than just the departure time. This allows passengers to better plan their arrival at their destination and plan for onward connections.

Maybe - but most of the rest of the signage is still dreadful, even though only installed five years or so ago.

In no particular order -

1 - Platform signage on platforms 4,5 and 6 too small and spaced out too far so not visible to most passengers, signs at western end largely hidden by structure of roof.

2 - Pitifully small "repeater" signs throughout station showing next arrivals/departures, platforms and times, suspended from roof or on lift shaft walls on over bridge (many of which are now hidden by the retail units and the information kiosk) often  only have room for 4 or 5 trains on a screen view, but the screen view constantly changing between up to 3 sections of an alphabetic lists of train destinations, alternating with a similarly "sectioned" list of main destinations, so you might (if you are unlucky) have to wait for 5 changes of display to find the information you want.

3 - Larger dot matrix boards that cannot show the timetable departure time, the estimated time and platform number at the same time. Yet the brilliant one above the information desk in Brunel Arcade which predates the rebuilding does!.

4- Poorly placed signs out of the passengers sightline (eg along the wall at the back of platform 7).

5 - The constantly changing information on signs at the top of the stairs/escalators on the over bridge - see my earlier post on zones-

The use of zones does seem a little haphazard. They seem to be used in most announcements for Inter City services, and as well as being used on some platform arrival signage, they are now on the signs at the top of the stairs/escalators on the overbridge - see below for an example. There are though some shortcomings. This is one of three messages that constantly change at about 5 - 10 second intervals, the first being the usual time/destination/calling points (which can run to two screens on longer journeys), the second being a general announcement (currently letting you know that there may be amendments to services over the holiday weekend, without further details) and the zonal message.

  - see Stuving's sensible suggestion that the zonal information be confined to platform level.

6- ...and generally the habit of inserting information about up-coming service changes, "public service" type announcements etc into displays that are meant to help the passenger find their train or when it will arrive.

The GW^» (Great Western - used as an abbreviation for the area / lines under the Great Western franchise, as opposed to FGW which includes "First", the company operating them too. For tickets - about) staff I have spoken to shrug their shoulders and say "It's NR^» (Network Rail - home page)". While the improvement referred to above is welcome, there's a lot more to do, and I do hope that NR does not repeat these mistakes and shortcomings in future station refurbishments.

Now as to the fixed signage....but that's enough grumbling for the day!