Greetings.

In article , James Farrar
wrote:

On Thu, 3 Apr 2008 21:15:19 +0100, Tom Anderson
wrote:

On Thu, 3 Apr 2008, Tristan Miller wrote:

What is the purpose of the "open" buttons on the doors of the London
Underground carriages? On every Underground train I've used, the doors
open automatically at every station. Is/was there a time or place
where they don't open automatically and the buttons must be used?

I have heard two possible explanations: one (as you stated) being that
passengers were confused; the other being that there were fears of
passengers using close-door buttons to close the doors on other
passengers.

Neither of these explanations seems particularly satisfying. I've used
plenty of public transport systems in Europe where it was necessary to
push a button (or even pull a handle!) to open the carriage door. Surely
if continental types can learn to push a button, then so can Londoners.
With respect to close-door buttons, that's not really germane to this
discussion, as we're talking about open-door buttons. I've never seen an
underground carriage with close-door buttons. On systems where there is
an open-door button, pushing it causes the door to remain open for some
fixed period of time, or until the train is about to leave the station.

Regards,
Tristan

--
_
_V.-o Tristan Miller [en,(fr,de,ia)] Space is limited
/ |`-' -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= In a haiku, so it's hard
(7_\\ http://www.nothingisreal.com/ To finish what you