(03 Jul 2018, 5:43 pm)S813 FVK My first impression of this is that every stop is probably a bit excessive, although I don't want to come across as disregarding the needs of those who rely on such systems. I will try and get out and about to listen to them myself, although I can't see my opinion changing.
With some stops being so close together, the announcement may just delay the next announcement, making the current issue of announcements finishing at the bus stop itself (unavoidable, I know) even worse. "Tyne Road East" and "Tyne Road" when heading towards Stanley on the 16 is a good example of this, as is "Avon Road - Keir Hardie Avenue" and "Avon Road" in the opposite direction.
It will, however, cure the issue of the 'This is the...' announcement not being heard by passengers at the start of a route because of the normal procedure of destinations being set before the driver allows passengers to board.
(03 Jul 2018, 5:47 pm)ne14ne1 Ah, unless it was because the driver reopened the doors to let some last second passengers on. It was a little annoying though as he happened to reopen the doors at 2 or 3 stops in a row, so it played twice each time.
I'm all for the idea but maybe if they go ahead with it properly they could do it on GPS(?) like the next stop lines, rather than on the doors opening/closing?
Also a shortened version (like London's) would be more suitable/less annoying if played so regularly - i.e simply: "21, to, Newcastle", rather than "This is the Angel 21 service, to Newcastle".
The announcement was previously programmed in manually (let's say GPS-driven as per your suggestion, for lack of a simple explanation), at certain stops (usually timing points or stops which a lot of people tend to use), but as Go North East now have more than 400 journeys programmed in their systems, it was becoming harder and harder to keep control of.
It has been requested several times recently that this announcement is played more often, and with a little bit more consistency, rather than just "as and when". It instills confidence in visually-impaired passengers that they have boarded the correct bus, and are heading to the correct destination. The next step will be to have more detailed announcements leaving timing points, similar to those already in use on the X9/X10 and X84/X85, giving some brief details on the main calling points of the route and/or on approach to a major interchange point, but these announcements for now are just a trial to gather some feedback. Thus far there's been very little negative feedback received but it's early days, with the new media only being uploaded to buses over the weekend.
In full agreement that this announcement would be much too excessive if it were played at every single bus stop, and that's why the system doesn't do that. This announcement is (or should be) only triggered after the bus is fully stopped, doors are opened, and the doors are closed again, before continuing the usual "next stop" announcement once the bus reaches a 40m radius away from the previous stop. I believe Oxford Bus Company use a similar set-up for their announcements. Clearly on a route like the 21, the bus does stop at the majority of stops, but this is pretty unique as most services will bypass several stops before an intending passenger flags down the bus. The idea behind this being that this is when passengers have boarded the bus, although it's inevitable that it will also happen when passengers alight and nobody boards (this is unavoidable). On a night when buses stop less often, the doors will be opened (and hence closed) a lot less often, and therefore this announcement won't be played then. I'd doubt many visually-impaired passengers are using Go North East's services late at night, so there's no massive loss here.
Also agree that the shorter London-like announcement may be better - trial and error for now to see what works the best.
It shouldn't delay any other announcements, as if the system detects that the GPS radius is too small between stops, it shouldn't announce anything (but the visual display will work). Clearly speed of the bus will play a part in this too, which the system is unable to detect.
The final stop on the route will always now be announced as where the bus terminates, another announcement which has been requested quite often.
