Metro News Release

For immediate release: January 28, 2005

Metro announces a new enhancement for the Passenger Information Display monitors

Multiple predictions for Metrorail trains take effect on Monday, January 31

The Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (Metro) today announced a new enhancement to the passenger information display system monitors (PIDS) located on the platform levels of Metrorail stations.

Customers may start to see these changes as early as this weekend when the final phase of testing takes place. During that time, Metro employees will be seeking customer feedback to make future refinements.

The new feature, to be implemented on Monday, January 31, calls for simplified customer information by combining information currently on multiple displays into one display. This will include multiple predictions for up to three incoming trains, and this will replace all current prediction messages. An example follows:

Line	Dest	Min
Orn	Vienna	2
Blu	Franconia	5
Orn	Vienna	8

The display will feature the line color, the destination, and the number of minutes the train is expected to arrive. When a train is expected to arrive at a station, and is about 30 seconds away, the letters "AR" will appear under the arrival section, signaling that a train is arriving at the appropriate station. When a train is at the platform, the arrival time for the train will be shown as "BD" for boarding.

The passenger information display signs have been providing train arrival information, elevator/escalator outages, emergency information, and the time of day since they were launched in October 2000.

During the last year, Metro staff have been upgrading the system to make it more user friendly to customers who have grown accustomed to relying on this service. These changes included a departure message for trains leaving from the end of a rail station prior to entering the train station, and the elimination of the term "approaching."

"Last year, our Board of Directors suggested a number of improvements to the PIDS system," said Jim Gallagher, Metro’s Deputy General Manager for Operations. "These improvements included fine tuning the approaching and arriving train messages at Metrorail stations; displaying line train information; displaying more than one arrival time for a train; and displaying the frequency of our trains. We think these enhancements will improve the flow of information to our customers who rely on these signs everyday for important and accurate information."

The new feature will not change the current train departure messages from the end of each rail line. An example follows:

RED LINE
SHADY GROVE
6 CAR
10 MINUTES

News release issued on January 28, 2005.