On Jul 6, 2:58 am, "John Rowland"
journeyflow.spamspam.demon.co.uk> wrote:

What's it got to do with the disabled? It's never very easy to keep
track of where you are on a moving bus, especially if it's after dark
or the bus is crowded or you're in an unfamiliar area without many
landmarks. A lot of my bus experiences have been not fun for exactly
this reason.

It sounds like the new system will let you just listen out for the
name of your stop, rather than peering through the window for clues.

U

On Fri, 06 Jul 2007 04:21:25 -0700, Mr Thant
googlemail.com> wrote:

On a crowded 73 this evening, it was far easier watching the screens
to see if Euston was coming up rather than watching out of the window
(which I could not see) even though I know full well what Euston looks
like. It's also superb for tourists and others not familar with the
routes. It's taken a while but it's something I think should be a
legal requirement on every bus in the country, and it's one that's
been about in some form in Germany and Austria since at least 1998.

Some suggestions for improvement: include connection details "Change
here for routes 1, 2, 3 and the Bakerloo Line" and relevant network
disruption information on the second line rather than wasting it
saying "Bus Stopping".

But, all-in-all, a bloody good idea - only a pity it took them so long
to get there.

Neil

On Fri, 06 Jul 2007 12:07:03 GMT, mymail@hotmail.com wrote:

Yet the announcements provide a *massive* benefit to blind users,
making a service that must be very difficult to use become a lot
easier.

They aren't that annoying - no silly bing-bongs and no over-verbose
pointless[1] announcements like the "Bus stopping at next bus stop"
nonsense that came before it.

[1] Everybody knows that "ding" means the bus is stopping, and that
standing in the way of the doors is a bit silly.

Neil

On Fri, Jul 06, 2007 at 04:21:25AM -0700, Mr Thant wrote:

I manage it. Perhaps you're just thick.

You have a point there, but London is replete with landmarks, and even
if you don't recognise them, asking the driver or another passenger to
tell you when to get off always seems to work for the tourist scum that
use my buses.

On Fri, Jul 06, 2007 at 06:33:05PM +0000, Neil Williams wrote:

Of whom there are approximately zero.

David Cantrell wrote:

David Cantrell wrote:

Have you considered that the reason for that might be how incredibly
scary the use of a bus must be for them without the announcements, or
that once the announcements are provided on every bus we might see an
increase in them using buses?

Neil

David Cantrell wrote:

"This is a local bus for local people"? What utter nonsense.

A good and important part of IBus and the likes is to make buses
accessible to first-time users, tourists or not. It is a fine system
and I want to see it on every bus in the country as soon as humanly
possible.

Neil

In message <20070712105329.GB2200@bytemark.barnyard.co.uk>, David
Cantrell cantrell.org.uk> writes

Goodness. Perhaps I'm thick too, then. Despite being a professional
tour guide for both London and the Midlands, I often find myself not
quite sure where tops are for particular things and having them named an
announced is overall a Good Thing.

(To be fair, the repeated announcements probably will get on my nerves -
they do on Midland Metro and the Underground - but it's a worthwhile
worth it.)

On Thu, Jul 12, 2007 at 08:34:13AM -0700, Neil Williams wrote:

It's a side-effect of there being approximately zero blind people at
all. Oh I know that there are hundreds of thousands of "legally blind"
people, but nigh-on all of them can see perfectly well enough to use a
bus.