Train travel can be a stressful experience at the best of times. Auracast can help make it easier, especially for travellers who need some assistance.
Like many deaf people, I struggle to ask for help in many everyday situations. From pretending I’ve heard what a shop assistant has said when they are scanning my shopping to nodding sagely in agreement when a boss says something I may or may not have heard, getting by is the default setting.
And so it is with public transport.
Regular readers will know that I have a loathing for Telecoils in public transport for the simple reason that they rarely work. They tend to be switched off, or staff don’t know what they are or how they work. If they are working, they are catching electrical interference, so there is a constant buzz, which is sometimes the main noise. Alternatively, the voice you are trying to hear sounds more like a Dalek than a human, and the experience is so humiliating you wish they’d come along and exterminate you pronto.
Asking for help? Well, that can feel awkward. After all, there are signs and wonders on the platform that help people ascertain where they are and where they’re going, so why ask for help?
In recent weeks, I’ve been doing just that. It’s not getting any less awkward, but it has its uses.
Take this journey I’m writing about. I had to catch a rail replacement bus to get to my destination. Normally, my commute is straightforward: catch a train from Reading to London Paddington, then take the Elizabeth Line to Farringdon, and a short walk to where my day job lives. Easy.
Throw in a rail replacement service and, well, it’s a different kettle of fish. Stopping at strange stations, trying to find platforms, buses and exits, while listening to garbled public address system announcements … it’s not a lot of fun, especially when there are connections to make in a hurry.
Auracast can help.
What happened, and why Auracast is needed
For this journey, I booked assistance in advance so staff knew that I was coming. It’s a small thing but it enables them to know some little extra help is needed. This can be reserved by creating an account at the Passenger Assistance Website at: https://booking.passengerassistance.com. They need at least two hours to alert stations, but the more notice the better.
The ticket office often has a Telecoil built in, and I tried to use it via my ReSound MultiMic+, which has a Telecoil receiver built in. Unfortunately, I’ve no idea if it was working or not – there was a queue building behind me, so buying the ticket was done quickly, and the small talk was neither here nor there.
Most staffed railway stations in the UK now have a help point section on a platform. It’s a place where passengers can access a special machine that lets them speak to staff even when they’re not on the platform, and it has a Telecoil area for those with hearing aids.
On this occasion, as I was making my way to it, a station staff member intercepted me, checked on my needs and requests and reassured me that everything would be OK.
Because I was going to catch a rail replacement bus, they called the stations to alert them I was on my way. On arrival at the station, one of their colleagues was waiting and escorted me from the platform to the area where the replacement buses were waiting. They then informed the bus driver they needed to tell me when we had reached the station where I needed to get off and called ahead to that station.
You can hopefully see a chain building – at each station, staff call ahead to alert them that I’m coming and need a bit of help and reassurance. At no point was I made to feel like an inconvenience, nuisance or trouble to them, nor made to feel like I was abusing a service that some may feel is for visible disabilities.
We don’t live in a perfect world, though.
The final destination in the bus service was the weak link in the chain. No staff member was available to me, and the loop at the assistance point was not working. It was on: just that awful white noise hum. I boarded a train in a hurry, hoping for the best, and thankfully it was the right one.
At my journey’s destination, a station guard was on duty and, because this was a journey I’d made before, said he had remembered me and was looking out for me, even though the previous station hadn’t called ahead to let them know I was coming.
Seeing his friendly face made all the difference.
At each stage of the journey, Auracast would have made an impact on my travels and reduced the need to ask for physical help, especially during busy periods.
Auracast announcements to give clarity when travelling
At the ticket office, I had no confidence that the loop was working. At the first station help point, the Telecoil was on but picking up interference, so announcements were not clear enough to give confidence. On the trains, announcements are indecipherable to me. There are no announcements on the buses, and given the weather, the view from the window was of condensation.
At the station at the end of the rail replacement service, the Telecoil didn’t work even though I was standing in the section marked as the place to pick it up. And the announcements on the train I caught to get to my destination were just like the first leg: a mystery to me.
My journey was only saved by the kind staff members who went out of their way to help me.
But as we’ve seen from the Bristol Temple Meads trial, having announcements Auracast in clarity makes all the difference. No anxiety over which platform and which train. No worries about whether your bus or train has made the right stop. No concerns as to whether the you’re on the right carriage or station.Â
It’s there, straight in your ears, be it via headphones, hearing aids or ear buds.
Or, if you have the right gadgets, it’s there as a live caption in your phone, tablet or laptop. No ambiguity. No stress. No hassle.
To be really effective though, the loops at the Help Points need to be updated to include Auracast. Opus is the first company to offer a system that includes both a Telecoil and Auracast, and this is worth exploring. After all, it’s one thing to hear a platform announcement, but quite another to receive personalised help in a way you can hear.
I do enjoy a train journey, but Auracast can take away the stress and fear that comes with using new stations, or having your regular journey broken up with a rail replacement service. The sooner the Bristol Temple Meads trial is extended the better.Â
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