From Friday (January 1st) it seems a bug got into the Siemens train automatic announcements, probably associated with the timetable changes which took effect on that date.

Since then, the trains (unless the driver turns off all of the auto announcements) will remind you to “Mind the gap between the train and the platform” with quite staggering regularity.

Here it is in all its glory, when approaching North Melbourne — twice within 20 seconds:

Doesn’t seem so bad? Imagine a train trip through 20 stations. It might get a bit grating after the 40th or 50th time.

The warning appears to go off when departing a station, and then again before announcing the next station approaching, and yet again if the next station is a junction station.

The consequences should be obvious. On a short trip from Footscray to Flinders Street (five stops) we heard the announcement some twelve times. I’m sure I wasn’t the only one to tell Metro about it as soon as it appeared on Friday morning.

"Mind the gap between the train and the platform" auto announcement 12 times between Footscray-Flinders St. 2549T. @metrotrains #TooMuch — Daniel Bowen (@danielbowen) January 1, 2016

It’s not that the “Mind the gap” message is a bad one. Safety is important, and greater awareness can help people prevent accidents, such as the death of Mitchell Callaghan in 2014.

“Effective frequency” of messages seems to be an inexact science, no doubt highly dependent on context, but there comes a point whereby repeated exposure to the message is wasteful, and in this case, simply irritating.

I suspect it also undermines confidence that the automatic announcements are doing their job, and are accurate — just like when they persistently announce the wrong stations, which is a common occurrence on Siemens trains.

Ultimately, it doesn’t make Metro look very good.

On Friday I overheard two drivers discussing the problem, remarking that it was “driving people crazy”.

And it appears some drivers have taken to turning off the announcements altogether, which fixes the problem but means those (such as the visually-impaired, or those who have difficulty seeing through window advertising) who might rely on audible station announcements are disadvantaged.

After numerous complaints on Twitter (and no doubt elsewhere), on Monday Metro finally publicly acknowledged the problem, and said it would be fixed in each of the 36 trains, while they are not in service over coming days.

By Tuesday evening, a third of the affected trains had been fixed.

We've fixed 12 of the 36 trains with excessive 'mind the gap' announcements. Our apologies for any annoyance that this may have caused. 1/2 — Metro Trains (@metrotrains) January 5, 2016

We're currently working on fixing the remainder of the trains with this issue. Thank you for your patience. 2/2 — Metro Trains (@metrotrains) January 5, 2016

For those of us travelling regularly on the lines served by these trains, removal of the repetitive warnings will be very welcome.

I suppose on the bright side, at least those who have had to put up with it (or heard about it via the media) have been exposed to the safety message.

Share this: Twitter

Facebook

LinkedIn

Reddit

