NEWS:

Better informed in Lincolnshire

Passengers using some of Lincolnshire’s smaller railway stations are to be kept better informed than ever before following investment in new passenger information displays (PIDs) designed and manufactured by Infotec.

For some of the East Midlands Trains stations concerned it will be the first time they have had real-time information provided to platform areas. This has been made possible by technological features purpose-designed to meet the needs of stations with low footfall and/or in remote locations.

At Metheringham, Ruskington and Saxilby stations, for example, a 3G mobile phone network connection is being used to deliver data to the displays, removing the need for costly cabling to be installed. At Heckington station a cabled data connection was already in place, removing the need for a 3G display.

Infotec’s Text to Speech (TTS) technology to speak the words as well as deliver them visually is also being deployed.

This is already in use at hundreds of UK stations to provide train service information and security details as spoken words as well as written ones. TTS can be installed into any Infotec platform displays including the FM32W (small format), FM42W (standard format) and the FM52W (large format) displays.

The displays provided for the Lincolnshire stations are FM42W-DYT and FM42W-DY, both introduced last year as part of the new full matrix LED range and offering a set of features as standard including ambient light sensors to optimise both readability in all lighting conditions and to control power consumption.

In terms of the stations where displays are being replaced rather than introduced, Infotec’s equipment is backwards compatible with existing steelwork to make installation both time and cost-effective.

The work in Lincolnshire is a contract awarded to Infotec by Input Group which has seen eight displays going to four stations.