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Author Patrick Waterson |
| Abstract Auditory safety and security announcements in UK rail stations are regularly broadcast to dissuade passengers from actions that compromise personal and collective safety, yet passengers continue with risky behaviours. The effectiveness of these interventions is minimally evaluated. A survey of passengers (n = 37) at two UK mainline rail stations, semi-structured interviews of station management and customer service experts (n = 9) and a focus group of rail human factors and operations experts (n = 7) were conducted; the study had a total of 53 participants. Uses of SAs and passenger behaviours at the two stations were observed. We found that most passengers found a safety or security SA helpful if it gave or inspired them to take an action or was memorable. Only 16% of passengers ignore SAs. Sixty-two percent of passengers found at least one SA helpful; ‘See it Say it Sorted’ (22%) and ‘Keep your luggage on you at all times” (11%) were most popular in this group. Passengers find security SAs more useful than safety SAs, though most do not recognise they are also responsible for station security. Passengers and experts agree specific, timely announcements get more attention, which is why manual SAs are preferable to automated safety and security SAs that can fail to be contextually congruent and cause habituation as a result. |
