Wednesday 9 October 2013

Informing train passengers

It's long been a gripe of mine that Metro's information displays aren't too good.   Yes, in places they're OK,such as the displays at Richmond that (usually) give clear information about the next trains direct to Flinders Street and around the Loop (at least, until a train is changed to go direct to Flinders Street).   But there's nothing at Flinders Street to tell you where to go to for the next train to Southern Cross (or around the loop), and the displays at other stations often leave a lot to be desired.
But the French have, what is in my view, close to the ultimate answer.    Apparently they figure that passengers aren't really interested in what any particular train is going to do.   All the passenger wants to know is, where and when will the next train depart for the station that he or she wants to get to.  What does it matter where the train might eventually end up?   Interesting for the railway, maybe, but not really what the passenger needs to know.
So, I was most interested to see at Saint-Lazare (Paris) screens that listed all the stations in the Ile de France region served from that station (nearly 90), with details of the next 2 trains to that station along with the journey time.


The traditional type of displays were also there, so that passengers who wanted more information could look at them, too.
At the platform - details for the particular train

Details of all departures

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4 comments:

  1. Yanton9 October 2013 at 16:50

    I haven't found that kid of info at most of the Paris stations. Usually it's just the boards with the lists of departs and arrivals, and since the platform is only revealed 20 minutes in advance, a crowd of travellers standing under them waiting to ascertain which platform to charge to. On a visit to Gare de Lyon, a particularly intimidating station, we noted that longer notice was given of which halle ( terminal) the trains would appear at. Seemed good until we saw that the next Lyon train was billed on two boards as leaving from two different halles. However on the subject of station intimidation, SNCF has now produced an App called Gares 360, which gives informative visual about coping with major stations. It's very new, so only 60 are up at this time, but very helpful for the 60.

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  2. Yanton9 October 2013 at 16:59

    I should add that Saint Lazare is one of the 60, so the App is worth a look to refresh your recollections of your trip : I assume that Windows 8 does Apps?

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  3. gxh10 October 2013 at 06:27

    The displays at Saint Lazare related only to Ile de France services and not longer distance services; perhaps SNCF has made a special effort here because there seemed to be a lot of Ile de France services from this station. And yes, Saint Lazare was more pleasant and user-friendly station than the other station we encountered this time, namely Gare du Nord - and certainly much better from the perspective of providing information (and most other respects) than Flinders Street!

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  4. Yanton10 October 2013 at 19:16

    Well, that wouldn't be hard! My favourite is when my loop train reverses back to Richmond unannounced instead of proceeding to Southern Cross, leaving unfortunate passengers stampeding for the next exit.

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