Favorite destination voice?

[WMATAGMOAGH]

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.

[Scrabbleship]

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. 

[rideonrulez]

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. 

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..... 

[Perry]

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. :-)

[NewFlyer9736BCT]

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.

[Perry]

If they did bilingual announcements the thing would never shut up because it would continually be talking. LOL

[WMATAGMOAGH]

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".

[Tristan]

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!

[Tritransit Area]

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.

[WMATAGMOAGH]

WMATA 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.

[LandoverDivision]

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?

[79MetroExtraMD]

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.

[OrionFlyer]

Yeah. The T18's New Carrollton voice sounds different from the others. Not just on Orions but on every Landover bus.

[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.

[OrionFlyer]

The same thing with GREENBELT STATION. R3 is different than others