London Banter - View Single Post

Neil Williams · November 17th 04, 08:37 PM posted to uk.transport.london

On Wed, 17 Nov 2004 11:40 +0000 (GMT Standard Time),
(Colin Rosenstiel) wrote:

I'm not so sure about that. Speaking from over 25 years working for the
company that made the radios for Tramlink and other PT, distinguishing the
message type is pretty trivial technology probably already incorporated.

Indeed. My 30 quid pair of PMRs have such technology - all it is
(AIUI) is a couple of DTMF tones. It appears (from what I can tell)
to be 100% reliable, or as near as makes any difference.

Providing a locally-relevant message may be more of a challenge - so
it'd need to be used sparingly - but something like major problems on
a Tube line or serious problems on a significant bus route would
probably be justified in going out "en masse".

Also, if you're sending a broadcast call to drivers to divert (for
example) around a problem, it may be worth the passengers hearing it,
in case it means getting off a stop early would help their journey!

I'd be more worried about the voice quality being good enough for PA over
the radio, though.

I've often heard "group call" announcements to drivers on buses where
they've had the radio turned up quite loud, and it's often easily
audible and discernible from at least half way back on a full-size
bus.

Neil