As anyone who’s travelled by train knows, most platform announcements these days are automated. There’s nothing especially wrong with this, since the male and female voices are clear and concise. The system at the stations on my regular route are very listenable.
However, we, the passengers, do realise that it’s a recorded voice. So when I heard an announcment for a delayed train the other day, the wording really made me sit up.
“I am sorry to announce that the 18.47 train for Stevenage is approximately 13 minutes late…. I am sorry for this delay.”
The initial apology is just about bearable, but the end remark, “I am sorry for this delay” is just bizarre. Maybe I need to run a Turing test on the station announcing software. Everyone on the platform realises that some automated software package kicked in to tell us this information – in fact it came a few seconds after a human announcement telling us about the delay. So why include it?