Station announcements at Bristol Temple Meads are to be made available in multiple languages, through a new pilot combining Bluetooth\u2019s Auracast technology and artificial intelligence from the tech company XRAI.<\/p>\n
The new passenger information system, which will have its first public demonstration on Thursday morning, expands upon assistive listening technology known as Auracast<\/a>, which streams high-quality audio into compatible hearing aids, headphones and earbuds.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, XRAI\u2019s translation platform can support up to 100 different languages.<\/p>\n Dan Scarfe, XRAI\u2019s CEO, said: \u201cFor more than a century, public announcements have followed the same model: one voice speaking to everyone at once.<\/p>\n \u201cThis project shows what\u2019s possible when you combine AI with the latest broadcast technologies. Instead of asking every passenger to adapt to the announcement, the announcement adapts to the passenger.<\/p>\n \u201cWhether you\u2019re visiting the UK for the first time, travelling on business, or using compatible hearing technology, being able to hear important travel information in your own language has the potential to transform the passenger experience.\u201d<\/p>\n The latest pilot \u2013 part of the Station Innovation Zone project<\/a> run by Connected Places Catapult \u2013 follows\u00a0an initial trial of Auracast at Bristol Temple Meads<\/a>\u00a0in July last year, which was also overseen by the innovation agency.<\/p>\n Connected Places Catapult\u2019s rail director, Alan Peters, said: \u201cIt\u2019s exciting to see this project build on last year\u2019s successful Auracast trial, bringing together multiple innovators to demonstrate how AI and next-generation audio technology is helping industry partners evaluate innovation in real operational environments.\u201d<\/p>\n Located around eight miles from Bristol Airport, Bristol Temple Meads is the busiest station in southwest England, with an estimated 10.9 million entries and exits from 2024 to 2025, according to\u00a0the Office of Rail and Road<\/a>.<\/p>\n The latest Auracast trial at the station comes a month after Brighton station\u00a0became the first UK rail station<\/a>\u00a0to implement the technology permanently.<\/p>\n In a joint statement commenting on the pilot, Network Rail\u2019s Brian Wortman and Andy Rhodes said: \u201cAs our railway welcomes more international visitors and increasingly diverse communities, we\u2019re always looking for ways to make passenger information more accessible.<\/p>\n \u201cThis pilot shows how emerging technologies like AI and Auracast could help remove language barriers and improve the travel experience, while giving us valuable insight into how these innovations could be applied across the wider rail network in the future.\u201d<\/p>\n Demonstrations of the new technology will take place at Bristol Temple Meads on Thursday, between 10am and midday.<\/p>\n More information, including how to\u00a0book a test slot<\/a>, can be found on\u00a0XRAI\u2019s website<\/a>.<\/p>\n Images: <\/strong>Supplied (Ampetronic).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Station announcements at Bristol Temple Meads are to be made available in multiple languages, through a new pilot…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1133229,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[8818],"tags":[45634,308382,381,748,92263,347,393,4884,12,53,1263,16,15],"class_list":["post-1133228","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-bristol","tag-accessibility","tag-auracast","tag-bristol","tag-britain","tag-deafness","tag-disability","tag-england","tag-great-britain","tag-news","tag-technology","tag-transport","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/117046849390442537","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1133228","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1133228"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1133228\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1133229"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1133228"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1133228"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1133228"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}