The Metro Rail has always been a convenient way of transportation to work and back for me. It's fares are cheap, it's only been 2 dollars each way. The parking of cars is free at the train station, so it's very affordable. Last summer I was a regular passenger on this train. It helped me save gas, and I could sit and read the paper during the ride. So it has been very convenient for me to take this train to work.
The only problem I have is not being able to understand all the announcements being made on the train. It is said over a speaker and since I'm deaf, I don't know what they are saying. Sometimes it's hard for me to know when it is time to get off this train whenever they don't close caption certain announcements. Though I haven't been on it since November, I'm not sure what changes were made up to this day . All my life I have gone through this, so it is nothing new. I have learned to get used to it. One time the train got stuck and broke down. Some major announcement was made and it was a very important one, but I didn't understand one word of it. In the future it would be helpful if they would close caption every single word being said during the announcements especially when the train breaks down or has some kind of problem. This would certainly be useful for the deaf and for the elderly that are losing their hearing. What do you think?
Hi Susana: I cam empathize with your position, at least somewhat, as when I travel abroad and don't know their language--it is really ocnfusing. Here in Shanghai, though they have addressed this by putting up a scrolling text screen as well as announcing the stops. At least they do some announcements in English and Chinese and show the text in English also. IT is easy to miss the number of stops while reading, so I am grateful for that text, especially if all I heard was the Chinese announcement and my Chinese street name pronunciation is so poor.
ReplyDeleteWow, that sounds a bit complicated unless you know Chinese pretty well! It's a good thing they do have the scrolling text screen up, that's helpful! :)
DeleteI agree. There should be some scrolling announcement somewhere for Deaf/HOH people. There need to be accommodations, if there is an important message you won't know what is going on.
ReplyDeleteVery frustration!
Exactly! I agree with every word you said here and I wish all of this will happen in the future!
ReplyDeleteHere at Oz, all trains atleast have the display of the upcoming stations. In fact I always rely on them because I hardly get to hear the announcement over the din.
ReplyDeleteYes, it's good the they display the stops. I can never hear any of the anouncemets. :)
DeleteI agree with the above comments, I think putting a scrolling text screen is a good idea. But they have to make sure it's working all the time. They could also use different colors to indicate the importance of the messages displayed on the screen. For example, use red for very important announcements and green for ordinary announcements.
ReplyDeleteYou gave some fantastic suggestions. I think your ideas are very good! You're right sometimes these close captions screens don't work the way they should be working at times.
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