New subway arrival announcements

On the RT, they're triggered by the blocks, which also trigger the signals or cab signals. These feed to OCC where the announcements are initiated.

I was at Back Bay Orange Line this AM when they finally said "The next train to Oak Grove is now arriving", better than the next northbound train. That's a lot more reliable too.

I often find that "The next train to <X> is now arriving" is the only announcement that comes through clearly. It is always loud and clear.

Im pretty sure that it is on almost every MBTA subway. I havent heard anything about the Blueline

alex43 wrote:Im pretty sure that it is on almost every MBTA subway. I havent heard anything about the Blueline

Are you saying the arrival announcements are on each line? Right now the are active on the Blue, Red, and Orange lines if that is what you meant. Green Line is not active because it doesn't have full block signalling to support triggering of the messages.

ive only heard the announcments on the redline. But I do know that the Orange Line has it. I didnt know about the bluelines.

savebowdoin wrote:Dusting off an old thread, yesterday I was in town and heard on several occasions a strage announcement that had something to do with Charlie (I'm assuming Cards). It was in the automated voice, and about the only words I could distinguish were "Charlie", "Downtown 'Crossingback' Bay", "North..... Station", and "South...... Station". The rest was a garbled and mispronounced mess. I think they should proof some of these announcements before putting them in rotation over the PA system, as it seems the software has a tough time pronouncing some of the stations and terms used frequently by the T.

Mike

I heard it, I think it was supposed to be Spanish. The only problem is that the poor Voice of Charlie was trying to speak Spanish using English phoenitics.

So this is the thread discussing the Automated In Station Announcements?

I love hearing those announcements as they are useful to tell me when my next train is coming. Before, I had to look down the tunnel, listen closely, or feel for a breeze. Now, I just wait for the announcement, then, I look/listen for what type of train is coming.

So far, I have heard them on every heavy rail line. The red line is the line I use most. I get on at Harvard most and have noticed the main area has both side's announcements, where as the bilevel platforms only get announcements for their trains. Here are the red line announcements:

Ding "Attention Passengers, the next red line train to Alewife/Ashmont/Braintree, is now approaching/arriving".

I have also heard them on the blue line, although I don't ride the blue line as much. It would be cool to see it announce "Government Center", when Bowdoin is closed. At least the new Siemens trains say "Government Center" on them:

Ding "Attention Passengers, the next blue line train to Bowdoin/Wonderland, is now approaching/arriving".

Also, I was not surprised when I heard them on the orange line too:

Ding "Attention Passengers, the next orange line train to Oak Grove/Forest Hills, is now approaching/arriving".

The green line doesn't seem to have them. My guess, is because green line trains are too frequent for it to follow and there are four branches. The red line has two branches, so it can easily tell the difference between them. The green line might get mixed up more, and many times, more than one train comes into the station, so the announcements might get confused. Still it would be cool if there were announcements. I bet they would sound like this:

Ding "Attention Passengers, the next green line train to Lechmere/North Station/Government Center/Boston College/Cleveland Circle/Riverside/Heath Street, is now approaching/arriving".

All lines have announcements about shuttle busses, which can be very useful. Sometimes they sound too robotic. There also are better sounding announcements on not smoking and stuff like that.

One improvement that could help is at the end of the lines, the trains announce they are going to the station they are arriving in. For example, at Alewife, it's like this:

Ding "Attention Passengers, the next red line train to Alewife, is now approaching/arriving".

It would be better if it told you what branch it was going to, since everyone pretty much knows Alewife is the last stop:

Ding "Attention Passengers, the next red line train to Ashmont/Braintree, is now approaching/arriving".

In general though, I love the announcements and they are one of most favorite features now when in stations.

number1tfan wrote:
I have also heard them on the blue line, although I don't ride the blue line as much. It would be cool to see it announce "Government Center", when Bowdoin is closed. At least the new Siemens trains say "Government Center" on them:

Ding "Attention Passengers, the next blue line train to Bowdoin/Wonderland, is now approaching/arriving".

I had never realized that it did that. I guess that I just tend to ride the Blue when Bowdoin is open.

Honestly, I am surprised that they haven't done this. It would be such a simple "IF statement" in the programming of the announcements. For example:
IF the time between 0500 and [another time individually assigned for each station] AND the day is not Saturday or Sunday SAY "Bowdoin" ELSE say "Government Center"
Just a hypothetical map of what the code would be.

number1tfan wrote: The green line doesn't seem to have them. My guess, is because green line trains are too frequent for it to follow and there are four branches. The red line has two branches, so it can easily tell the difference between them. The green line might get mixed up more, and many times, more than one train comes into the station, so the announcements might get confused. Still it would be cool if there were announcements. I bet they would sound like this:

Ding "Attention Passengers, the next green line train to Lechmere/North Station/Government Center/Boston College/Cleveland Circle/Riverside/Heath Street, is now approaching/arriving".

While this might work for some stations, imagine Park Street with a system like this. By the time the thing said that a train was arriving, the train very well may have left, especially at rush hour.
What would be useful at Park Street would be announcing that a train headed to Boylston is boarding somewhere other than the norm, such as when a train is being held for headway adjustment or a C or D train short turning at Park.
Again, at other stations this would be useful. However, on the Green Line I would recommend doing away with having 2 messages and replacing it with 1 due to the very short times between trains.
Also, the Type 8's do have external speakers that are audibly announce the destination of the train to the people on the platform.

An interesting note is how these announcements work. Each train is tagged by the dispatcher when it departs a terminal. If a train has to come out of service or run express it can announce the next train is not in or for service at anytime enroute. Using a tagged system on the computer screen wouldn't work for the Green Line since the dispatchers can't track individual cars along the line. They only can see a list of cars between certain points, basically wayside car readers set up major intersections. So a different system would have to be installed on the Green Line...

Wow I cant believe theyve had these in stations for 3 years now.

I've noticed in the past few weeks that the MBTA has begun switching on Time and Date displays on the LED equipment in several of the subway stations. They look really sharp, but one thing has me stumped. I've noticed already that one of the displays at the Government Center blue line platform, and another at the inbound Airport platform no longer displays the time/date. However, both boards still show the script of the audio annoucements as normal.

First, is it the MBTAs intention to put these time/date stamps in all subway stations.

Second, why wouldn't such a display be trasmitted to each station by a central location? Right now, the Blue Line has clock displays in Bowdoin, GC, Maverick, and Airport....but not Aquarium. Why would they skip this station, and what exactly do they have to do to switch them on? And how is it, that one LED display can stop showing Time/Date while the others in the station do, all the while broadcasting train arrival annoucements/advisories as normal?

Any insights would be appreciated.

*BUMP*

I spotted the first really obvious goof with the system last Friday. My son and I were waiting at State outbound on the Blue Line when the system went off and announced that the next train to Wonderland was now approaching. I thought this was odd because you normally can hear an outbound train leaving Government Center and I hadn’t heard anything. About twenty seconds later, we got the ‘now arriving’ message – again, no sign of any train. After about four minutes, an outbound train finally arrived without any additional announcements being made Do they really have the State outbound sensor located at Government Center?

^ I think there is a senor somewhere for that.

Is this system ever going to be implemented onto the Green line; I noticed the LED clocks there but still no announcements.

I also noticed awhile ago that the southbound orange line platform at State has NO speakers. You cannot hear the announcements there. I didn't notice if there were message displays there.