it couuld be from any transit system in the US or world
Mine is Route 48 Rockvillle from Ride-on and Route F4 Destanation New Carrollton station from WMATA i also like the SEPTA ones
I like the T18 New Carrollton Station, All Pentagon ones, Archives, and Silver Spring Station ones.
I...don't understand what this thread is asking...
For example like when the doors of a bus opens it will say something like this
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AEWp1vbbKwQ (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AEWp1vbbKwQ)
or this Ride-On one
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-D0sqBFriSg (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-D0sqBFriSg)
and this is MTA Marylands
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f1diNadO69c&feature=related (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f1diNadO69c&feature=related)
and alot of other transit companys around the US does this
I figured that, but the voice is the same for just about every announcement for each system...so how does the T18 sound better than the 38B when it's the same person speaking? Do you mean the...phonetics and nuances of the announcer's voice or something?
Maybe like the way she say it like the Ride-On voices sound a lil humerous and some companies have a man voice
We know it's the same person, but the way she says it is different. But Tristan, you ruining the fun -_-
You could just talk about which systems automated announcements you like and don't like.
I like the automated announcements on board the CTA in Chicago. I think the same voice is used for both the trains and CleverDevices on the buses, the person who recorded them is a voiceover artist from Milwaukee who never rode the CTA until several years after his announcements started playing.
My least favorite automated announcements are those on the subways in Madrid (Barcelona does similar), where they have both male and female voices in the same sentences, as follows:
Male voice: Proxima estacion:
Female voice: ...Sol.
Male voice: Correspondencias con:
Female voice: ...lineas uno y tres.
Translation to English:
Male voice: Next station:
Female voice: ...Sol.
Male voice: Transfer for:
Female voice: ...Lines 1 and 3.
Male voice: Proxima estacion:
Female voice: ...Sevilla.
Translation to English:
Male voice: Next station:
Female voice: ...Sevilla.
The ones in Barcelona were similar, but they were made in Catalan as opposed to Spanish, and while I understand Catalan because it is very similar to Spanish, I couldn't tell you what was announced.
I like MTA's and WMATA's.
My favorite for rail goes to NYCTA's subway (male voice) "stand clear of the closing doors please". Even my 7 year old nephew loves it.
My favorite for buses go to WMATA.
Quote from: rideonrulez on November 13, 2008, 09:16:09 AM
My favorite for rail goes to NYCTA's subway (male voice) "stand clear of the closing doors please". Even my 7 year old nephew loves it.
My favorite for buses go to WMATA.
I love NYC's rail voice. I also love WMATA's. I like Portland's bus voices as well.
We need to get our recordings at RTC re-done. It's a patchwork of a professional voice and one of our employees. You'll here "transfer to route" in one voice, then "119" with another. It's kind of funny. We're going to probably put out for bid to have the whole system re-done by a professional voice-over person at some point in the near future. There are errors too that we've heard where she pronounced some things incorrectly and what have you.
Quote from: landoverdivision on November 12, 2008, 08:21:59 PM
We know it's the same person, but the way she says it is different. But Tristan, you ruining the fun -_-
Not trying to rain on the parade, I just ... didn't get it.
Quote from: Tristan on November 13, 2008, 11:09:59 AM
Quote from: landoverdivision on November 12, 2008, 08:21:59 PM
We know it's the same person, but the way she says it is different. But Tristan, you ruining the fun -_-
Not trying to rain on the parade, I just ... didn't get it.
Well know you know. :)
To answer the question, I like kinda like SEPTA's...my audio rec of 5385 has it pretty clear:
"Welcome to route..30, SERVICE TO Frankford Terminal"
I know these aren't destinations but these did make me laugh while they lasted. (Ride-On route 54)
Approaching...W. Montgomery Avenue and HURLEY AVENUE!!! (pretty much shouting)
Approaching...Research Blvd and Shady Grove Rd (Shady Grove Rd being pronounced in a very happy and joyful voice)
Approaching...W. Montgomery Avenue and...
...Aberdeen Road (completely different voice)
I hate to say that Ride-On replaced those sounds, along with many others...
As for other TA's, the voices of BCT make me laugh as well...especially the routes where the announcements are in English/French instead of English/Spanish. idk...the lady's voice in French sounds funny at times. Also, the way the lady says "Stop Requested" makes me chuckle a bit.
My cousin rode Miami-Dade's buses (I have pics but never rode them) and heard that the stop announcer's voice was funny.
Favorite WMATA DESTINATION voices:
Pentagon
Stadium-Armory
Farragut Square
and maybe more but I can't remember now.
Quote from: rideonrulez on November 13, 2008, 09:16:09 AM
My favorite for rail goes to NYCTA's subway (male voice) "stand clear of the closing doors please". Even my 7 year old nephew loves it.
Fun fact of the day: The person who made that recording is Charlie Pellet, a reporter for Bloomberg who can occasionally be heard on WTOP Radio. You wouldn't know it from listening to him, but he is British.
Quote from: WMATAGMOAGH on November 13, 2008, 01:32:32 PM
Fun fact of the day: The person who made that recording is Charlie Pellet, a reporter for Bloomberg who can occasionally be heard on WTOP Radio. You wouldn't know it from listening to him, but he is British.
Wow. That is interesting. I was wondering who did the voices for NYCTA. I remember seeing the names a while ago, but forgot who they were. I wonder who does the voice for the Metrobus CDS.
I like the guy on the NYCTA subway, like Chris, that says "STAND CLEAR OF THE CLOSING DOORS" . He just sounds very happy.
On the other hand I think it was PACE that had the woman that sounded depressed when announcing some of the stops, then would perk up right after. I thought it was just funny.
Quote from: 79MetroExtraMD on November 13, 2008, 02:04:35 PM
Quote from: WMATAGMOAGH on November 13, 2008, 01:32:32 PM
Fun fact of the day: The person who made that recording is Charlie Pellet, a reporter for Bloomberg who can occasionally be heard on WTOP Radio. You wouldn't know it from listening to him, but he is British.
Wow. That is interesting. I was wondering who did the voices for NYCTA. I remember seeing the names a while ago, but forgot who they were. I wonder who does the voice for the Metrobus CDS.
From nycsubway.org:
Always wanted to know whose voices are doing the automated annoucements in the subway cars? The four different voices are all personalities on Bloomberg radio. (Which surely had nothing to do with the new Mayor; the voices were recorded long prior to the 2001 election.) Who says what? Charlie Pellett ("stand clear of the closing doors, please"), Melissa Kleiner (station announcements on #5 trains), Dianne Thompson (station announcements on #2 trains), and Jessica Ettinger (station announcements on #6 trains).
They were all Bloomberg reporters at the time the announcements were recorded. Jessica Ettinger now works for 1010 WINS and goes by a slightly different name. She and I also share the same alma mater. (Thanks Google).
Melissa Kleiner's announcements have mostly been replaced by new ones by Ettinger.
Some interesting reading: http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9B07E5DA1F38F93BA25752C0A9649C8B63&n=Top/Reference/Times%20Topics/Subjects/S/Subways
I can't find the names of the voices for the lines where the R143, R160A, and R160B lines operate though.
I've never been on Ride On so heres my question- Does Ride On use the clever device system like WMATA?
Also does NYC MTA use clever devices?
NY MTA's trains don't use Clevers - Clevers are GPS-based. GPS doesn't work underground because it needs to interact with satellites. They probably don't use an out-the-box system.
Ride On's annunciator is supplied by Orbital - same as SEPTA - with in-house voices.
Quote from: Tristan on November 13, 2008, 06:30:24 PM
NY MTA's trains don't use Clevers - Clevers are GPS-based. GPS doesn't work underground because it needs to interact with satellites. They probably don't use an out-the-box system.
Ride On's annunciator is supplied by Orbital - same as SEPTA - with in-house voices.
I was talking about NY MTA's Buses not trains. I know how the CD's work.
NYCTA buses do not have automated announcements.
That's a shock. Out of all Transit Systems I thought New York's buses would have some sort of automated announcements.
They tested a CDS or something else at some point, not sure how far it went. Realize that adding such equipment to all buses would cost millions.
I think LIBus might have them.
Quote from: Tristan on November 13, 2008, 09:37:52 PM
They tested a CDS or something else at some point, not sure how far it went. Realize that adding such equipment to all buses would cost millions.
With the budget they have, can't they afford something. Also, aren't there a few buses that have Siemens systems. I can imagine trying to input BxM4C into the CDS.
The budget they have that has a $1.2 BILLION dollar DEFICIT? Yea lots of room for a multi-million dollar experiment there...
Quote from: Tristan on November 13, 2008, 11:26:53 PM
The budget they have that has a $1.2 BILLION dollar DEFICIT? Yea lots of room for a multi-million dollar experiment there...
Damn. Time to move to Europe.
My favorite
Metrobus
ANNANDALE
PENTAGON
GRNBELT CTR
WHITE FLINT STATION
Ride On
Langley Park
Friendship Heights
Silver Spring
Rockville
Only place I've been in Europe that I can think of in Europe that has automated stop announcements is Geneva. Buses in Rome display realtime info about where the bus is (sometimes) but there is no audio component.
Quote from: 79MetroExtraMD on November 13, 2008, 11:34:11 PM
Quote from: Tristan on November 13, 2008, 11:26:53 PM
The budget they have that has a $1.2 BILLION dollar DEFICIT? Yea lots of room for a multi-million dollar experiment there...
Damn. Time to move to Europe.
No. That's just New York being New York, spending like a drunken sailor drinks with no idea of a tomorrow. The collapse of Wall Street (plus its resulting layoffs) and the catastrophic decline in sales tax revenues (.0125% sales tax in the MTA member counties) also bred this. And people wonder why I'm so cynical about state/district government...
Back on topic, I thought Ride On's announcements were synthesized. I know that early on some place names were mispronounced that shouldn't have (like "Laffy" for Leafy) and the "[Road] and [Number]" setup is another red flag. Of course, Ride On then tried to fix them in house and we have what we have now.
The fact that they changed the "Stop Requested" voice from the original female voice to that overly forceful, kinda thuggish, voice at the same time was even worse. Whoever did that (and it's not Chris :)) must have been on something. :P
Quote from: Scrabbleship on November 14, 2008, 07:20:07 AM
Back on topic, I thought Ride On's announcements were synthesized. I know that early on some place names were mispronounced that shouldn't have (like "Laffy" for Leafy) and the "[Road] and [Number]" setup is another red flag. Of course, Ride On then tried to fix them in house and we have what we have now.
The fact that they changed the "Stop Requested" voice from the original female voice to that overly forceful, kinda thuggish, voice at the same time was even worse. Whoever did that (and it's not Chris :)) must have been on something. :P
Were finding all the mispronounced names and fixing them now thanks to the bus operators. As of now it will be down to 2 voices, the female voice on the exterior and a male voice in the interior. We plan to update the whole stop announcement system soon. In fact we might be adding a little something to it also if I can find the time to help them with it..... ;)
You should have voices to fit the neighborhood. :-)
For example for Potomac you have some Buffy sounding Valley Girl do the voice: "Like, this is River Road and Glen Road". "Totally this is the 47 to Rockville"
For the 59, "Yo #%$#%$#$ get the %!%$ off this bus!!"
For the 15, "Esto es Ruta 15 Parque de destino Langley"
The joys of voice announcements. :-)
Quote from: Perry on November 14, 2008, 10:00:44 AM
You should have voices to fit the neighborhood. :-)
For example for Potomac you have some Buffy sounding Valley Girl do the voice: "Like, this is River Road and Glen Road". "Totally this is the 47 to Rockville"
For the 59, "Yo #%$#%$#$ get the %!%$ off this bus!!"
For the 15, "Esto es Ruta 15 Parque de destino Langley"
The joys of voice announcements. :-)
LOL...although I do agree with making some routes (if not all routes) to be in English and Spanish. Seriously, I have been to Langley Park and it reminds me of Peru a LOT, and I have been to Peru.
If they did bilingual announcements the thing would never shut up because it would continually be talking. LOL
Bilingual announcements are extremely annoying in my experience and in my opinion, usually unnecessary. Portland has semi-bilingual announcements, in that the only thing repeated in Spanish is which side the doors will open on. The word "next stop" is not said in Spanish, so the annoucnement goes like this: "Next stop, Washington Park. Doors open on the left. Salidas a la izquierda." Announcements on the Thalys are done in 4 languages. I speak only one of the 4, but by the time the English announcement was made after French, Dutch, and German, I essesntially knew what was going to be said. When I travel to other countries, I do not expect the locals to be able to speak my language, and I expect that people in this country can learn enough English to be able to understand a prerecorded announcement about what bus stop is being approached. If I can figure out what "prossima fermata", "hatachanah haba'ah", "proxima estacion", and "arrêt prochain" all mean, someone on a Langley Park bound bus can figure out that "now approaching" means "ahora aceramos" or "proxima parada".
To piggyback on what Oren said, well sort of, I think "Now Approaching" is not even really necessary to say...if someone sees a big red sign that changes every few seconds, I think logic will say "okay this thing is rattling off the next stop". Street/place names usually aren't translated even in multilingual situations, so the only thing that would need to be translated is the road type (Street, Avenue, Blvd, etc)...and they see their street signs every day so even if they don't know what the words mean, they would know that this is where they should be getting off..........
Multilingual announcements usually only translate all the extracurricular information that these devices say...that we really don't need to know anyway. I'll give you an example - five DASH buses have next stop annunciator systems from Talking Bus, that were tested and disabled in 2001 but never removed (because, once we get some change, we'll be implementing some kind of system again).
We tested these buses on our commuter routes, which was a mistake, because they were loud and annoying AND bilingual on routes where people knew where they were going and wanted a quiet ride to work.
Doors open: "WELCOME ABOARD DASH ROUTE AT4, PROVIDING SERVICE TO THE PENTAGON BY WAY OF PARKFAIRFAX!!!!!!!!!!" (it was really loud and many times, if you were picking up one person, they'd be on and seated before the announcement was done).
Approaching major stop: "NOW APPROACHING BRADDOCK ROAD METRO STATION. AHORA dadada (George, you translate, I didn't learn enough in Beginning & Intermediate Spanish classes to do this)"
The boarding announcement could be simplified to "DASH AT4 to Parkfairfax & Pentagon" All you could translate is A-T and .. and. And that's not necessary.
Stop Announcement: "Braddock Metro Station" (as our drivers say). All you have to translate here is the word "station", and again, that's not necessary either.
So, conclusion, I think multilingual announcements are pointless not only because "people should learn english", but because the stuff that's usually being translated is all this ancillary information that we just don't need to hear in the first place.
WMATA got their annunciator right - just give us the facts! No date, no time, no other garbage!
Interesting question! I never really thought about it, but when I rode Ride-On last time, the announcement of the route was interesting. She seemed so excited about the route people were about to board. :).
On the SEPTA system, there tends to be two voices announcing the stop as well, particularly where the announcement is updated. Such as arriving in Norristown, 131 is nice and clear sine that was updated from the original announcements.
I do like the SEPTA announcer man and the NYC Subway man.
QuoteWMATA got their annunciator right - just give us the facts! No date, no time, no other garbage!
I wouldn't mind more transfer information, like what SEPTA gives. But otherwise you are right, WMATA is short, simple and to the point, which is usually best in these cases.
Quote from: 79MetroExtraMD on November 13, 2008, 11:34:11 PM
Quote from: Tristan on November 13, 2008, 11:26:53 PM
The budget they have that has a $1.2 BILLION dollar DEFICIT? Yea lots of room for a multi-million dollar experiment there...
Damn. Time to move to Europe.
My favorite
Metrobus
ANNANDALE
PENTAGON
GRNBELT CTR
WHITE FLINT STATION
Ride On
Langley Park
Friendship Heights
Silver Spring
Rockville
I actually enjoy the way she says White Flint Station. Can someone, anyone, answer the question of why the T18 New Carrollton's voice sounds different from the other New Carrollton destination voices?
Quote from: landoverdivision
I actually enjoy the way she says White Flint Station. Can someone, anyone, answer the question of why the T18 New Carrollton's voice sounds different from the other New Carrollton destination voices?
Depends on the bus. Some of the Orions still have their old IVN system while I've been seeing some IVN 2s on some of the Orions.
Yeah. The T18's New Carrollton voice sounds different from the others. Not just on Orions but on every Landover bus.
Quote from: 79MetroExtraMD on November 15, 2008, 09:02:26 PM
Quote from: landoverdivision
I actually enjoy the way she says White Flint Station. Can someone, anyone, answer the question of why the T18 New Carrollton's voice sounds different from the other New Carrollton destination voices?
Depends on the bus. Some of the Orions still have their old IVN system while I've been seeing some IVN 2s on some of the Orions.
Like what Eric just said. It's not a particular bus, it's the T18 in general. She says it different then in the other destination voices. Like for example, the F4. She would say Route F4 destination New Carrollton Station in a kinda deep voice, but the T18, her voice is a little high pitched. Like she sound excited.
The same thing with GREENBELT STATION. R3 is different than others
Original SEPTA would be my favorite. It didn't announce every stop, instead highlighting points of interest, and the way it was announced was clear and to the point, something like (I know this is totally wrong info, but is just for illustration):
"Fifty Second Street, for routes G, 52, and Parkside Memorial Hospital."
Most irritating one I've encounted so far is on the Baltimore Metro. It is constantly announcing the next stop every 30 seconds or so and is a bit indistinct in pronunciation so a ride from Owings Mills is constantly peppered with what sounds like:
"The Next Station is....
Food Court!"
I'm pretty sure the original SEPTA system had all the stops. The only problem is it was driver activated, and many drivers didn't press the button before each and every stop.
I've seen buses where there was no announcement unless someone pulled the cord...USELESS!