The Announcements (ANNC) screen provides a user-friendly interface for vehicle operators to play agency-defined Safety announcements to their passengers. Using a simple button press, the operator can play an announcement either inside, outside, or both inside and outside the vehicle.
- An announcement can be played on INTERNAL vehicle speakers for boarded passengers.
- Announcements can be played on EXTERNAL vehicle speakers for passengers boarding or waiting to board.
- An announcement can be played on BOTH internal and external speakers at the same time.
Process
To play an announcement:
- Press the
button located in the MDT top menu bar of the Home or Menu screens to display the Announcements screen.
- Press the button for the vehicle speaker locations where you want to play the Announcement: INTERNAL, BOTH, or EXTERNAL. The selected button icon will appear as pressed-in. The Internal button is selected in the image above.
- From the listed announcements, press the announcement button for the announcement that you want to play. The MDT will return to your previous screen, and the announcement that you selected will play over the vehicle announcement speakers that you selected. For INTERNAL or BOTH speaker selections, the associated announcement text will also be displayed on the internal passenger announcement sign.
However, if the operator initiates a BOTH-channel Safety announcement that starts playing just before the vehicle goes into motion, the announcement will continue to play on both the internal and external speakers until the announcement is completed.
Priority
Several announcement types can be played on the vehicle, and each type has a defined priority level that determines whether it can interrupt one that is already playing. The announcement type priority order is as follows:
- Operator microphone announcements to passengers have priority over all other announcements. Any announcements that are already playing will be immediately canceled when the operator pushes the microphone PTT button.
- Passenger Stop Request or Lift Request announcements have second priority. They will interrupt Safety and Stop Arrival announcements, but after the Stop/Lift announcement completes, the Safety or Stop Arrival announcement will replay from the beginning after the Stop/Lift announcement completes.
- Operator-initiated MDT Safety announcements are next to last in priority. They will only interrupt Stop Arrival announcements, but after the Safety announcement completes, the Stop Arrival announcement will replay from the beginning after the Stop/Lift announcement completes.
- Vehicle Stop Arrival announcements have the lowest priority.
Even though operator-initiated safety announcements can be interrupted by higher priority announcements, they will play in the order that the operator plays them. This is regardless of whether they are Internal only, External only, or Both channel Safety announcements. The system waits to play each announcement in play order so that different announcements are not played on the Internal and External channels at the same time.