Announcements are important.
Communicating with riders is important and transit agencies should be doing it a lot more.
I was riding on an airport express train recently when it began to violently rock and hunt — this might not have been a big deal for me, but I was riding with someone from out of town and it certainly wasn’t great that they were getting this as their first experience in the city. Worse still, after and during about a minute of actually scary shaking that dislodged doors and onboard equipment, there was complete radio silence announcement-wise about what was happening.
Now, you might wonder why that communication and touchpoint matters with riders, and I think it comes down to a few key things — and noting these things requires understanding that not every transit user is necessarily a regular transit user, and that first impressions are incredibly powerful (and a lot of people’s first transit impressions of a city will be on an air rail link). For one, I think communication that something is temporary is key: I never found out why the issue was occurring of course, but I can imagine it might have been related to the hot week we were having or work going on on the corridor. That being said, if I wasn’t a regular rider, I might be led to think that this was normal, and given it felt a little unsafe, being told that it wasn’t (if I didn’t have a transit YouTuber with me) would be nice! There’s also a bit of a safety element to this as well: If there is a problem with one car or even a single wheel set of the train and the operator or crew does not realize, that’s a problem — because what starts as a violent shaking could turn into something worse when going fast or going through a switch (seriously, it was scary). In this case it would be nice to hear from the operator what was going on, if there was cause for concern (they would hopefully know), and what was being done to mitigate the problem.
Hilariously enough, that same day my communication problems continued. I was changing trains at Bloor-Yonge Station sitting on a subway platform and no train came for an abnormally long time - almost 10 minutes during the evening peak. This in itself was weird, and there were no audible announcements to say what was going on, so as far as I knew there might be no service and I should get to walking. This confusion and concern about what I should do (I might have ended up late to work, which would not be good), was completely unecessary and if I wasn’t a regular rider I would wonder if this is a system I could actually rely on - and that need not be!
Fortunately, the train did end up coming but, unfortunately it rolled in incredibly slowly - this isn’t super normal and it usually happens when platforms are very crowded, which I wouldn’t say they were. Pulling in, the train was understandably crowded (as widely spaced vehicles frequently are) and I was actually wondering, (probably not alone) if something was wrong with the train and it was going out of service. It wasn’t but, this needlessly slowed down boarding on a train that was already clearly behind schedule and could have been avoided with a little more transit agency communication internally, and communication with customers. I think I generally believe at this point that when in doubt, saying something is better than not, and given this was a heavily staffed station where you’d think we want to keep service running smoothly you would hear more.
If you thought I couldn’t have. experienced any more specific communications break downs there was also a subway shut down on this weekend day. Now, Toronto has done a lot more weekend subway shutdowns over recent years, for signalling and infrastructure upgrades and to also build entirely new lines - all things we will hope to do more of but, I still don’t think we are doing nearly enough. In my several hours riding the TTC I don’t think I heard a single announcement that a key part of the subway network was shut down (it may have even been responsible for the infrequent train service) and fortunately that was alright, because I was not personally impacted. Thats because since I have moved closer to the city center the increased transportation options have made the shutdowns less of a problem. Clearly though, a lot of riders do not have that experience, and not simply running more announcements, especially on the day of, does nobody any favors. Thats because oftentimes announcements can help avoid people avoid frustrating situations, if I am just starting my commute and I hear a part of the network is shut down, I can reroute (even better if I know before I start my journey) and here in Toronto thats more and more relevant especially as we create a denser more connected network that actually has the ability to provide some alternative routes.
You may be wondering how it was I ran into so many issues, and it was because I was touring someone around the transit system, covering more ground than a regular ride. Of course though, when you are travelling to travel you tend to pay more attention to your surroundings and when you don’t pay attention you also rarely see things until they impact you, and transit agencies should know this. The best kind of problem is one that is avoided and a lot of bad experiences on transit could be avoided with better communication from the system to riders. Roads by comparison are usually loaded with obvious signs, especially when something unusual is happening, this approach to communications should be adapted to transit, by providing more information in the format that tends to work better for riders with their heads down - audio announcements. Of course, problems paired with an announcement don’t even need to be problems, transit agencies often say “this closure is for infrastructure upgrade work” which is good but, they could improve messaging by explaining why thats something a normal person should car about.
Now, you can certainly overdo it, and some transit agencies do that, with far too many loud and frequently repeated announcements - this is a balance, you do not want noise pollution, not only because it is annoying, but also because it means the announcements that do matter count for less. That being said, plenty of systems could do with much, much more.