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Station Master Tokyo

New York and Paris may be on our radar once we’ve published every conceivable piece of information about the London transport system – seems maybe though that the Tokyo market may not be one we would have success in though.

“No need for the Station Master App in Tokyo”, our friend Anthony shared with us this week as he’s on a trip over there.  There are screens above every door in all carriages which show you where the exits, escalators and lifts are in relation to the whole length of the train.

Tokyo Subway Display

Tokyo Subway Display

This is something that LU could/really should consider doing to trains here – except I’d take it even further.  It should be possible at interchange stations (e.g. Oxford Circus) if that you [let’s say] approach on the Bakerloo Line, you can see as you approach Oxford Circus if the next Central Line train that you might be changing on to is an Ealing Broadway train or a West Ruislip one.  i.e. if it’s in two minutes (the train that you want) then you wouldn’t dawdle on the interchange. If you can see it’s in 6 minutes, you can take your time walking.

Best of all, if you could perhaps see (by showing 4 or 5 instances of the next train – which is what all platforms need anyway) by the service pattern if it was broken or not, and if it wasn’t you could stay on the Bakerloo Line train and change elsewhere, instead of only discovering this when you got to the Central Line platforms.

How about it TfL? ‘Next train’ information displays INSIDE all other trains please! Or make them touchscreen so you can choose different lines, and not just the one you’re already on or are about to change to at the next station.