Announcements at old railway stations are often garbled, because of echos, around buildings designed of vaulted stone and ironwork.

To solve this:- link the announcer's microphone to a voice-recognition system, then display the captured speech on a dot matrix banner screen (normally, used to advertise stuff in public places).

n.b. The voice recognition should achieve a high degree of accuracy given the limited vocabulary used in these broadcasts.
-- riposte, Jan 10 2002

Or use a display screen for announcements with a voice synthesizer attached.
-- angel, Jan 10 2002


Or, as has been done at UK airports, have no voice announcements at all. If you want to know what's happening, read the screen.
-- hippo, Jan 10 2002


Or, as the Washington, DC Metro Rail system uses, LED screens broadcast announcements, automated voice repeats it.
-- phazed, Mar 24 2002


I think riposte has new announcements in mind. Not those same damn announcements that say "Train arriving" or "Please stand back from the platform edge, especially when trains are entering or leaving the station" (NYC MTA), but those that report a train delay, detour, or any other sudden problem that requires a real person to announce it. Automated announcements would be ill-prepared to deal with these capricious events. Voice-recognition sounds good.
-- Spread, Jun 02 2002



random, halfbakery