This chapter describes how to define in-vehicle announcements in the myAvail system, which includes stop announcements, external route announcements, and public safety announcements. If you have permission to define announcements, myAvail displays the Announcements top-level tab, which is shown below.
myAvail defines an announcement as one or more linked audio recordings and sign text that it associates with an ID number and a name. Each announcement belongs to a category. The following table describes each category.
|
Field |
Description |
|
Route |
Route announcements are the announcements that are played on the external speaker of the vehicle when the door is opened. Generally, these announcements include the route name and its destination. These announcements allow riders boarding the vehicle to be sure it is the correct vehicle. |
|
Safety |
Safety announcements are announcements that are stored in the vehicle and can be played at any time by the operator by selecting the announcement on the mobile data computer. Safety announcements generally have corresponding text that displays on the internal sign. |
|
Stop
|
Stop announcements are the announcements played in the vehicle as the vehicle is approaching a major stop or transfer point. These announcements generally include the location of the stop (such as Main & 1st Street) along with transfer information and/or points of interest. These announcements can also include a preamble such as “Now approaching”. Stop announcements generally have corresponding text that displays on the internal sign. |
Importing Recordings
Before defining announcements, you must import the set of recordings that you will use to create the announcements. You can import WAV files, MP3 files, or WMA files. Generally, properties make these recordings in a studio using a professional voice actor for the best results. Recordings are made in snippets and you piece these snippets together to make full announcements. In this way, you do not need to record the same thing, e.g. “Main”, for each stop on Main Street, such as Main and 1st, Main and 2nd, etc. Avail recommends making a list of the full announcements that you need and then we can help you break them down to the appropriate snippets for recording.
To import recordings, click the Import Recordings icon , which displays the following window.
The Available Recordings is the list of recordings that have already been uploaded. Use the search box to find a recording. Click the Play icon to play a recording.
To upload additional recordings, click Browse. This displays a screen that you can use to navigate to the directory containing the files you need. Select the required files and click Open. The selected files are displayed in the left-hand list as shown below.
To complete the upload process, click Upload. The upload progress for each file is shown on its line along with the total progress in the progress bar at the bottom of the list. Part of the upload process includes normalizing and converting the files to the WMA format (if necessary). Consequently, you might see the total progress bar stop for several minutes while this conversion process completes.
After the upload is complete, upload additional files or close the window by clicking the Close button in the upper right.
Defining Announcements
After you click the Announcements top-level tab, myAvail displays the list of existing announcements, as shown at the beginning of this chapter. Click Play next to an announcement to listen to that announcement. Click Edit to edit an existing announcement. Click Delete to delete an existing announcement. To define a new announcement, click the Add icon at the top of the list, which displays the following screen.
To define a new announcement, select the announcement category and click the Apply Category button. If your property has standard features for a particular category of announcements, such as always including the audio snippet of "Now approaching" at the beginning of every stop announcement, or the “Now approaching” text on the sign for every stop, you can define these common elements in the system. If you do so, myAvail automatically adds these elements to the announcement or sign sections after you click Apply Category.
After selecting the category, enter a name for the announcement. This name should describe what the announcement says. Each announcement must have a unique name. Then enter an announcement ID. Announcement IDs are used, for example, when assigning stop announcements to trigger boxes in Geographic Tools. Each announcement must have a unique ID. You might want to set aside a range of IDs for each announcement category.
To string together the recordings for this announcement, select the recording in the Available Recordings list and either drag it to the Selected Recordings box or click the Add button next to the recording. You can drag the recordings within the Selected Recordings box to rearrange their order. To play an individual recording, click the Play icon next to the recording. To play the completed announcement, click the Play icon in the Selected Recordings box.
If you want to define sign text to display with this recording, click the Add icon in the Sign Text box. This icon adds a line to the Sign Text list. Type in the text for this line. If you enter more than 16 characters, the text scrolls on that line. If you want to display more than 16 characters and want it to page rather than scroll, then add multiple lines. Duration specifies how many seconds the sign will display that line. Order specifies the sequence to display the lines. In the Sign Type field, select the type of sign that you have in your vehicles. You can delete any line by clicking the Delete icon on that line.
When you are done defining the announcement, click the Save icon in the upper-right of the window. You can cancel at any time by clicking the Cancel icon.
Exporting Announcements
To distribute announcements that you created, you must export them.
Click the Export Announcements icon . A popup window indicates that myAvail will create an export package. After the system creates the export package, contact Avail Support to move all necessary files to the appropriate locations on the deployment server.
After the export is complete and Avail Support notifies you the announcement file transfer is complete, use the Deploy features in the Build and Deploy tab to distribute the announcements to the vehicles.
Adding Announcements to Stops
After the announcement is defined in myAvail, the user can assign it to a stop.
- Open Geographic Tools, then use the Trigger Box menu to locate the trigger box needed for the newly created announcement.
- Use the drop-down menu.
