NewsBiscuit

Rural versions of the latest electronic bus stop information signs are being fitted with a basic voice facility that will automatically sympathise with travellers who are facing a long wait. Aware that country buses are far less frequent than city buses, the display’s developers have perfected voice software that distracts impatient passengers with seemingly idle chit-chat. They have hired retired Dorset postmistress Edna Day to record a series of conversational gambits designed to break news of delays and cancellations more gently.

Among the messages are ‘Oh, you’ve not long missed one, my love’, ‘Dear me – in a hurry, were you? That’s a shame’, and ‘Best you come back tomorrow love – no point in getting soaked, is there?’

Designer Darren Hanson said that concealed pressure pads detect when waiting passengers start to shift from one foot to the other and look at their watches more frequently. He said: ‘The bus stop’s communications module will begin a series of subtle interactive exchanges that are calculated to make the waiting passenger feel that there is always someone worse off than they are.’

Topics stored in the system’s memory range from the poor to the fate of an aged relative ‘who lay dead for three days before he was found, poor soul’. If however, the customers persist in remaining at the bus stop, the chat becomes a little more menacing with comments such as ‘Yeah, I’ve seen you about the village quite a lot, I see you’ve bought yourself a nice new telly’ and ‘So you’re always out on a Thursday afternoon then?’

Posted: Jul 6th, 2008 by smudge