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Don’t Hate Her, She’s Just the (Subway) Messenger

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Re: Don’t Hate Her, She’s Just the (Subway) Messenger

#21

Post by cpeterso »

pluma wrote: post #17
probably_wrong wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The German train system uses TTS in all stations to announce (among other things) delays and cancellations. Cancellations are usually followed by the phrase "we apologize". This has always been for me the most infuriating part: that the fakest of apologies was attached to it. In contrast, getting actual information about the delay works for me, precisely because it feels more honest.

The most infuriating part for me with the local transport agency in Cologne (KVB) is the verbosity. They use a 90s style unbearably slow ticker display. So if you catch a glimpse at the wrong moment you're stuck reading all the unimportant garbage while trying to figure out whether the message is even relevant to you. This is especially bad with cancellations because it lists every major stop (with station name and t…

> They use a 90s style unbearably slow ticker display. So if you catch a glimpse at the wrong moment you're stuck reading all the unimportant garbage while trying to figure out whether the message is even relevant to you.

BART in the SF Bay Area is the same. The tickers slooowly scroll through repeated public service announcements and ads before eventually showing the train ETAs and current time for five seconds. They should show that important information all the time.

Re: Don’t Hate Her, She’s Just the (Subway) Messenger

#23

Post by dgellow »

probably_wrong wrote: post #5
no_wizard wrote: post #2

I have friends who have and currently live in NYC and I know the MTA gets a lot of flak from them and sometimes for very good reason. I have to say though all things considered this is a shining example (to me) of something that is typically very opaque - government agency public relations- and giving it some honest try polish and actually trying to meet people where they are (e.g Twitter) Does this paper over all th…

The German train system uses TTS in all stations to announce (among other things) delays and cancellations. Cancellations are usually followed by the phrase "we apologize". This has always been for me the most infuriating part: that the fakest of apologies was attached to it. In contrast, getting actual information about the delay works for me, precisely because it feels more honest.

Isn’t this “fake” politeness part of the German culture? I see it in everything related to business communication, from banks, insurances, public services, etc. Even from retail stores. That has been explained to me as being part of the etiquette for proper communication, which seems to be quite important in Germany, even if everybody I asked agreed that it was empty and meaningless.

Re: Don’t Hate Her, She’s Just the (Subway) Messenger

#24

Post by Animats »

The innovation here is that this PR person works in the Rail Control Center, with the people who are actually running the subway. Not in some PR office. She's surrounded by the people who are telling the trains what to do, controlling signals and switches, and dealing with problems. She can see the track boards and listen to the comm loops.

Contrast this with big sites which have status pages showing everything is just great half an hour after it's hit the mainstream media that they're down.

It's very New York. When Maersk Shipping had a big hacking incident and was down for most of a week, the best no-bullshit info was coming from someone at the Port Authority who edits their feed for truckers. Maersk PR was saying "almost everything is fine". The Port Authority trucker feed was saying stuff like "Maersk can't take outbounds at APM, only one gate is open for inbounds, don't return empties at this time". That brutal honesty beats horsing a semi over there to find out you can't unload.

Re: Don’t Hate Her, She’s Just the (Subway) Messenger

#25

Post by msla »

Animats wrote: post #24

The innovation here is that this PR person works in the Rail Control Center, with the people who are actually running the subway. Not in some PR office. She's surrounded by the people who are telling the trains what to do, controlling signals and switches, and dealing with problems. She can see the track boards and listen to the comm loops. Contrast this with big sites which have status pages showing everything is ju…

Seems like it's a new communications channel which is ripe to get PR'd into uselessness, just like the company's official channels.

Maybe it can't be, because there has to be some useful channel to tell people that, no, those ships aren't coming in today or that train isn't going to make it on time or so on, but if the company sees a value in presenting the happy face to everyone, it has an incentive to make whatever deals it needs to in order to ensure all public or not-private channels stay on-message. This works out to NDAs and encryption, usually.

Maybe that's impossible at a practical level.

Re: Don’t Hate Her, She’s Just the (Subway) Messenger

#26

Post by Symbiote »

pluma wrote: post #17
probably_wrong wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The German train system uses TTS in all stations to announce (among other things) delays and cancellations. Cancellations are usually followed by the phrase "we apologize". This has always been for me the most infuriating part: that the fakest of apologies was attached to it. In contrast, getting actual information about the delay works for me, precisely because it feels more honest.

The most infuriating part for me with the local transport agency in Cologne (KVB) is the verbosity. They use a 90s style unbearably slow ticker display. So if you catch a glimpse at the wrong moment you're stuck reading all the unimportant garbage while trying to figure out whether the message is even relevant to you. This is especially bad with cancellations because it lists every major stop (with station name and t…

How about the English one, copied from [1] with an example train included:

"May I have your attention please on platform 1. We are sorry to announce that the nineteen-fourteen South West Trains service to Windsor and Eton Riverside has been cancelled. This is due to a failed train at Richmond. South West Trains apologises for the inconvenience caused."

At least some parts of that one are useful. I found hearing things like "This is a safety announcement. Due to today's inclement weather, please take extra care whilst on the station. Surfaces may be slippery." and "Security personnel tour this station 24 hours a day." very annoying.

(And I said "English" intentionally. You can at least double the length of these, Welsh first, in Wales.)

[1] http://automatedannouncements.wikia.com/wiki/Generic_Station...

Re: Don’t Hate Her, She’s Just the (Subway) Messenger

#27

Post by freeflight »

dgellow wrote: post #23
probably_wrong wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The German train system uses TTS in all stations to announce (among other things) delays and cancellations. Cancellations are usually followed by the phrase "we apologize". This has always been for me the most infuriating part: that the fakest of apologies was attached to it. In contrast, getting actual information about the delay works for me, precisely because it feels more honest.

Isn’t this “fake” politeness part of the German culture? I see it in everything related to business communication, from banks, insurances, public services, etc. Even from retail stores. That has been explained to me as being part of the etiquette for proper communication, which seems to be quite important in Germany, even if everybody I asked agreed that it was empty and meaningless.

It indeed is, in a way German culture is very similar to something like Japanese culture, where the social form is way more important than actual intent/content.

For the same reason, the German language has very complex honorifics [0].

Some Germans take real offense if you don't address them with the proper honorific or forget to list one of their, oh so important, honorific titles on some text communication.

Because of this, there exists quite a lively market to sell honorific titles, specifically aimed at German-speaking users [1], in that regard there still exists a very real "class distinction" in Germany.

Stuff like that always makes me wonder how much influence population density has on the evolution of such strict social dynamics.

[0] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/H%C3%B6flichkeitsform#Die_H%C3...

[1] https://title-town.eu/

Re: Don’t Hate Her, She’s Just the (Subway) Messenger

#28

Post by JackCh »

pluma wrote: post #17
probably_wrong wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The German train system uses TTS in all stations to announce (among other things) delays and cancellations. Cancellations are usually followed by the phrase "we apologize". This has always been for me the most infuriating part: that the fakest of apologies was attached to it. In contrast, getting actual information about the delay works for me, precisely because it feels more honest.

The most infuriating part for me with the local transport agency in Cologne (KVB) is the verbosity. They use a 90s style unbearably slow ticker display. So if you catch a glimpse at the wrong moment you're stuck reading all the unimportant garbage while trying to figure out whether the message is even relevant to you. This is especially bad with cancellations because it lists every major stop (with station name and t…

The best display technology IMHO is the old electro-mechanical split-flap. They update pretty fast, and they make one hell of a racket when they do so everybody in the train station knows when something updated (this is a feature). They're sufficiently versatile to display information a train station needs to. They also have a certain aesthetic that simply cannot be touched by modern LCD/LED displays.

Re: Don’t Hate Her, She’s Just the (Subway) Messenger

#29

Post by jrockway »

pavel_lishin wrote: post #12
jrockway wrote: post #7

I checked out their Twitter feed a couple days ago (had to reroute due to a broken rail at Wall St. and wanted to see a picture or something of the broken rail). I was amazed how polite and helpful they are to the most irate customers. It really does seem that the social media team calms down a lot of angry people. Meanwhile, I am surprised at how desynchronized their various data sources are. I check mta.info before…

The worst part about mta.info is that it'll show scheduled work on lines, but it doesn't show closed stations - so the C looks like it skips 86th but not 72nd, when in actuality 72nd is closed for repairs and you ain't getting on or off a train there. If you need to plan a trip, you have to check at least two places.

Yeah, the updates are honestly pretty bad.

For that broken rail incident, I'm pretty sure I could have gotten home. The announcement said Clark St. was closed, which is my station... but I am pretty sure, in retrospect, that they meant that there would be no Manhattan-bound trains at that station because they're being rerouted over the 4/5, but I think Brooklyn-bound trains were not being rerouted (as that rail wasn't broken). They were very unclear, and so I just took an alternate route. They could have been completely clear, but chose not to.

(I'll also point out that they provided walking directions from Clark St. to Borough Hall... but they provided directions to the actual Brooklyn Borough Hall, not the subway station with the same name. Oops.)

Re: Don’t Hate Her, She’s Just the (Subway) Messenger

#30

Post by blacksmith_tb »

pluma wrote: post #17
probably_wrong wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The German train system uses TTS in all stations to announce (among other things) delays and cancellations. Cancellations are usually followed by the phrase "we apologize". This has always been for me the most infuriating part: that the fakest of apologies was attached to it. In contrast, getting actual information about the delay works for me, precisely because it feels more honest.

The most infuriating part for me with the local transport agency in Cologne (KVB) is the verbosity. They use a 90s style unbearably slow ticker display. So if you catch a glimpse at the wrong moment you're stuck reading all the unimportant garbage while trying to figure out whether the message is even relevant to you. This is especially bad with cancellations because it lists every major stop (with station name and t…

I wonder if that's a limitation of the (likely ancient) systems they pull the data from, or just a terrible convention. Even a vertical refresh, one complete line at a time, would let you show a lot more updates to the passengers than a horizontal scroll.
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