please empty your brain below
'Next train indicators'? Luxury. At Edgware Road the indicators have no idea when the next train is coming, nor where it might be going, and they never have.

Citimapper, however, has full details, so I could carry on sprinting recklessly down the stairs, if only I wasn't completely happy to wait a few minutes for the next one.

peter | 26.04.18 - 8:42 a.m. | #

The displays on the Shanghai system tell you to the second how long until the next train - accurately!
London bus 'Countdowns' mix real time information and (where they are situated near a departure terminus) timetable information. Therefore if you are close to a main terminus such as Stratford little of the information is real time.
Maybe too difficult to separate the two flows of information I thought - until I went to Dudley.

scrumpy | 26.04.18 - 8:54 a.m. | #

Yes, the bus Countdowns are completely useless if you're only one stop away from the start of the route. The X26 at East Croydon is notorious for showing as "4 minutes" for 15 minutes straight.

Chz | 26.04.18 - 8:59 a.m. | #

But what we all really want to know: What's the display like at Bus Stop M?

Jon Jones | 26.04.18 - 9:17 a.m. | #

The X26 does exactly the same thing at Hatton Cross, one stop out from its Western origin.

So do 33s out of Fulwell Garage.

David | 26.04.18 - 10:05 a.m. | #

I always find myself baffled for several seconds when trying to work out at Aldgate which of the three possible platforms has the next train for stations to Baker Street. During this time I suspect I stop suddenly and block everyone's way in the busiest part of the station. It really needs a big arrow to light up at the top of the stairs, not just at the bottom if you've already decided to turn left.

Edwin | 26.04.18 - 10:50 a.m. | #

The bus stops in Portsmouth count down to '1 min', then go to 'due'. However I have noticed that minute indicators stay displayed for more than 1 minute sometimes! Sometimes also a 'due' bus disappears from the screen and a bus fails to turn up..

Adrian | 26.04.18 - 11:24 a.m. | #

The next-train indicators that impressed me the most were the ones in Taipei Metro. When a train was, say, 1 minute from arrival, the displays declared the train as "entering the station" -- and *asked whoever watching to WAIT FOR THE NEXT at the same time*. These indicators did NOT show further arrivals though -- at least that's what it was like 10 years ago.

Patrickov | 26.04.18 - 12:09 p.m. | #

Departure screens are often very poor and can sometimes be worse than useless.

The screens at my local bus station don't know whether it's a schoolday, and they don't warn that there's no real time info: if the bus is a minute or two late a casual traveller arriving just after the scheduled time is wrongly told that the next service is in half an hour or whatever, so they miss it. Similarly, if the info disappears off the screen as you are waiting, you conclude mistakenly that it's been cancelled or diverted.

£6 billion has been spent on the flagship London Bridge station, but it's an information disaster. The screens at the exit from the Underground and those in the main concourse area need to show all the stations in A-Z order, but penny pinching means that A-Z screens are few and far between and in the wrong places. Irritatingly, many screens only show departures in chronological order which means that occasional users and visitors need a good knowledge of Kent's rail geography and have to scan multiple screens, causing needless congestion.

Bizarrely, the train I must NOT catch is the one that shows my local station as its destination: it would take forever because it stops at all stations !

The displays on the high level Kent platforms are also disappointing because they show only the next trains leaving from the same platform island. They've made the mistake of designing the new station to be like an airport, where the plane is guaranteed to be waiting before passengers are directed on their one-way journey to the boarding gate. That principle fails miserably at London Bridge whenever there's any disruption or delay, and when your train is short or too full to board: if you don't have a smartphone, you have to waste a lot of time trudging back down the very long escalators to find an A-Z display.

Gerry | 26.04.18 - 3:02 p.m. | #

The most primitive next train indicator must surely be the one on the overbridge at Upminster. Basically it's a lightbox with three bulbs inside which light up to indicate only that the Next Underground Train is from either platform 3, 4 or 5. No mention of how many minutes you have to catch it from the bottom of a long steep flight of steps! Often one or more of the bulbs has failed thus rendering the bit of kit utterly useless. It's no good asking the gate line staff for information - they work for c2c, so will tell you that TfL is nothing to do with them.

Bob S | 26.04.18 - 11:06 p.m. | #

Believe it or not, the light box display on the footbridge at the other end of Upminster is even worse, lights out, sun at the wrong angle to read the display, and not even any c2c staff in sight. Many’s the time I’ve got to the bottom of the stairs when changing from the c2c, just in time to watch the District line leave, then it’s a case of either playing pot luck on which train will leave first or going back up the stairs to look at the light box again.

Ken F | 27.04.18 - 4:08 p.m. | #

Continuing the Upminster saga, it's interesting to compare with the other end of the District Line at Richmond. Whilst the electronic display indicators at Upminster only ever show departures of c2c and Romford bound Overground trains, Richmond's indicators display departure times for SWR, Overground AND DISTRICT LINE! What's good enough for Richmond should also be applicable to Upminster in this age of advanced technology.

Bob S | 27.04.18 - 7:39 p.m. | #











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