New Customer Information Systems

[whole diary]

[ldf1985]

Telent were at Westbury today installing the new displays and starting to remove the old orange CRT^▸ (Canal & River Trust, Critical Rail Temperature or Cathode Ray Tube, depending on context) monitors.

I expect they'll be removing the old ticking digital clocks next :-(

[JayMac]

I expect they'll be removing the old ticking digital clocks next :-(

I expect so. The one on Platform 1 hasn't worked for ages and the one on Platform 2 is only accurate to 10 seconds as the last digit is stuck on '0'.

[Louis94]

Project Update from FGW^▸ (First Great Western) Newsletter

Help points Installed last week: Plymouth and Shipton (As already mentioned)
Help Points planned for this week: Starcross, West Ealing and Yate
Improvements last week: Par CIS^▸ (Customer Information System) Installation
Improvements planned for this week: CIS and PA^▸ (Public Address (broadcast loudspeaker announcements) or Passenger Assist (railway staff providing physical assistance to passengers with mobility issues), depending on context) system at Taplow and Tilehurst, CIS system at Shalford and Westbury.

Can confirm Westbury had Telent Engineers working at this a few days ago fitting the new screens.
It also appears the new PA is only being fitted to Thames Valley stations at the moment, I have a clip of the new voice from Bramley, if anyone wants a listen drop me a PM with an email address and ill email the recording to you.

[vacman]

Telent are currently installing something at Exeter Central aswell.

[eightf48544]

Taplow installation finished running and being tested this a.m. Am off to Reading this p.m. will report later.

WE seem to have got male and female annoucers, male on 3 and female on 4. Don't know whther tha was a test but they seem to separate circuits as at one stage they were both talking at once.

We have also got two summary screens with about the next 10 trains displayed at both entrances so if you come from the South car park for Reading you don't have to traipse over to platform 4 to see if your train is late. Would have been good for my wife when she used to come and pick me up from work and the train was late.

[bobm]

Have any of the other stations got the same problem as I reported at Crowthorne with the "Please stand clear" message being displayed for 20 mins at a time.  It effectively makes the system a step back on the old CRT^▸ (Canal & River Trust, Critical Rail Temperature or Cathode Ray Tube, depending on context) monitors as while the message is being shown no other departure information is available.

[Louis94]

WE seem to have got male and female annoucers, male on 3 and female on 4. Don't know whther tha was a test but they seem to separate circuits as at one stage they were both talking at once.

That will be the same as is at Slough, each side of every platform is on a separate circuit.

Have any of the other stations got the same problem as I reported at Crowthorne with the "Please stand clear" message being displayed for 20 mins at a time.  It effectively makes the system a step back on the old CRT^▸ (Canal & River Trust, Critical Rail Temperature or Cathode Ray Tube, depending on context) monitors as while the message is being shown no other departure information is available.

That will be because of the big signalling sections causing the train to appear to be approaching according to the Train Describers however is still miles away where the previous signal is, am I right in thinking the Stand Away message dosen't disappear until 5 or so minutes after the train has passed? I would imagine some other stations where the signalling sections are big between them will have that problems too, shame the screens can't be like SWT^▸ (South West Trains) where the stand away is just displayed on the bottom 2 lines where the top line shows train information.

[paul7575]

I think the stand clear warnings are generally OK on SWT^▸ (South West Trains)'s routes, but as said it's a feature of the signalling section lengths.  I have seen the opposite problem though, a while ago (maybe still are) up trains through Southampton Parkway were already at the platform end just as the warning started - which could possibly be a bit too slow.

What is a bit daft is that there are wide variations in the actual message, and different warning tones sometimes associated with them, across different areas. 

Isn't it the sort of thing you'd expect would have national standardisation?

Paul

[Louis94]

I think the stand clear warnings are generally OK on SWT^▸ (South West Trains)'s routes, but as said it's a feature of the signalling section lengths.  I have seen the opposite problem though, a while ago (maybe still are) up trains through Southampton Parkway were already at the platform end just as the warning started - which could possibly be a bit too slow.

What is a bit daft is that there are wide variations in the actual message, and different warning tones sometimes associated with them, across different areas. 

Isn't it the sort of thing you'd expect would have national standardisation?

Paul

Would make sense to standardise them, but you'd never be able to get every system to announce/display the same thing, due to the fact different systems work in different ways of finding out when a train is approaching, some use train describers on their own systems map (Like SWT), and other are fed straight from Trust finding the head code is approaching and adding a log, of course no good if the station dosen't provide any reports because of big signalling sections. However the findings at Crowthorne is very interesting as it dosen't provide a passing log, yet still shows non-stopping trains on the screen, might just be that our new system is not connected to LDB yet.

[bobm]

They need to look at the situation at Crowthorne. There isn't much point it warning of non stop trains for 20 to 25 mins at a time. If it is down to the signalling perhaps they could teach it to count to a thousand or something after getting the info before displaying it?

[adc82140]

The old CRT^▸ (Canal & River Trust, Critical Rail Temperature or Cathode Ray Tube, depending on context) monitors have been taken away at Farnborough North. The Gatwick-bound platform announcements at North Camp have now been fixed (no longer announcing everything as 21 minutes late), but the CRTs have been given up on I think.

The SWT^▸ (South West Trains) system at Ash always seems to advertise FGW^▸ (First Great Western) trains as 3 minutes late, even if they're on time. An interface issue perhaps?

[Louis94]

The SWT^▸ (South West Trains) system at Ash always seems to advertise FGW^▸ (First Great Western) trains as 3 minutes late, even if they're on time. An interface issue perhaps?

Probably due to the long signalling sections, as its hard to estimate when they are going to arrive when the previous report was 15 minutes away at Wokingham!

Hopefully FGW will set the CIS^▸ (Customer Information System) up like SWT and it will provide report for all stations, when it passes the next signal after the platform however far down the line it is, this is why stations like the ones inbetween Wokingham and Ash get No Report at the moment because Trust does not relate passing the signals as departure from the stations, because of the distance, where as the CIS can estimate what time it departed from stations between signals judging by the time it passes the next signal.

[IndustryInsider]

I was pleased to see that, with Tilehurst's installation nearly complete, Next Train Indicators are being installed on all four platforms.  When Thames Trains' system was installed back in 1997 they only thought it necessary to provide them at Ealing Broadway, Slough and Maidenhead.  Hopefully this will be the case at all other stations where there are main line platforms in use.

OK, there may not be any scheduled trains a day that use the main line platforms at Tilehurst, but in the event of service disruption or engineering work (such as today) they prove very useful in making passengers aware of platform alterations in conjunction with announcements, and even when trains aren't calling it's no bad thing to have warnings that there is a through train approaching - at 125mph!

[Louis94]

Telent are currently installing something at Exeter Central aswell.

Visited Exeter Central yesterday appears all the wiring for the new screens is in, now just needs to be connected up to the equipment!

[IndustryInsider]

Looks like they're starting with Cholsey now.  Also, I spotted a couple of the 'help point with departures screens' which seemed to have a different display layout - slightly smaller text with a maximum of three lines of calling point information (with extra lines scrolling if necessary).  Didn't have chance to have a proper look, but the display did seem to be a little more organised looking.