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SCMP Reporter

Five days a week I commute from Tung Chung to Causeway Bay on the MTR. 
I am concerned about the  constant verbal announcements in the carriages.
At each station there is one announcement which is repeated. 
One-way, that means  12 announcements  in three languages - Cantonese, Putonghua and English.  
Including the return trip, that adds up to 24 announcements a day.
There is also the 'Please stand back from the door' appeal and passengers are told on which side of the carriage the doors will open.  
I have calculated that all this amounts to a total of 55  announcements per day. 
In one year this comes to 14,300 announcements. 
Add the weekend trips, and that is more than 15,000 times that passengers are subjected to the same messages through the loudspeakers. I think this is excessive.  
Why does the MTR Corp feel the need to announce the stations and interchanges when 95 per cent of the commuters are local people who regularly use the lines and know they have reached the station where they will alight. Even for tourists using the system, they can read the network map in the carriages.  
Does the MTR management not agree that there is no need to tell passengers to stand back from the doors?
The distinctive blinking sound will suffice.  
Other mass transportation  systems in other  large cities that also have a few million passengers a day do not have so many announcements.  
When the door is about to close there is a distinctive sound and that is enough. Commuters in cities like Shanghai, Tokyo, Singapore, Paris and London are not stupid.  
Closer to home, the former KCR line, the East Rail,  is free of all these announcements and it feels so peaceful.
I should add that when I reach my apartment block a voice announces the floors and another one says whether the lift is going up or down. 
My building is managed by the MTR Corp.  
D. Orelice, Tung Chung



MTR Corp has gone over the top with stream of announcements