Passenger Questionnaire - Flight Information Displays

[rob3055]

I am a student following the Air Transport Management MSc at Cranfield University and as part of my thesis, I am conducting a questionnaire on 'Flight Information Displays' (arrival / departure boards). You may have used them either as a passenger in a departure lounge or when meeting someone in the arrivals hall. I would be grateful if you could take the survey by using the link below, (it should only take a few minutes). Many Thanks!


http://freeonlinesurveys.com/rendersurvey.asp?sid=9h1rn8ceavzycrj206345 (http://freeonlinesurveys.com/rendersurvey.asp?sid=9h1rn8ceavzycrj206345)

[firstforfirstchoice]

Hi ya,

Great questionnaire, put together in a great way and easy to follow/answer.

Hope others on here take a few minutes to answer the questionnaire for you.

Cheers. :ok: :ok:

[TSR2]

Hi there,

Your questionnaire deals admirably with the aesthetics of Arrival/Depature boards/screens located at airports.

Personally, I would prefer to see a great improvement in the quality of the data supplied particularly in terms of accuracy and timeliness, more so than the aesthetics of how the data is presented.

Arrivals board/screens are invariably used by friends/family meeting arriving passengers rather than by passengers themselves. It would be of great assistance if more accurate and timely data was available remote from the airport. Teletext or airport website data leaves a lot to be desired.

Good luck with your project.

[Hartington]

Re Q2 I believe that the question of whether meals on board are paid for, or not, is the tip of an iceberg. The boards might have to expand a bit!

Q3 Your Q about when the pax will reach the arrivals hall is followed by reasons for flight delay. I would also want reason for baggage delay (happened to me twice recently).

Q5 may be a cultural thing. I've noticed that US airports tend to order by city (then by time) whilst most other places seem to work by time. I wonder if I prefer time because I'm British?

[DrKev]

Nice Survey, well done. The only thing missing, IMO, is for the question on lower case vs upper case, to show a photo for BOTH options, not just the upper case one. The photo quality isn't the best for the one photo you have on that question and it may skew the anwers somewhat without the lower case illustration.

[striparella]

No matter how much you change the displays, some pax will see what they want to see!!!

Many times i've had pax ask me why their flight isn't on the board, yet it always is and i don't think this has anything to do with the display, more to do with airport brain!!;)

[SkyFish]

Only issue I find is 'Go to gate' vs 'Final Call'.

Pretty frustrating turning up, after rushing to get to gate on Final call to find everyone sitting in the lounge and boarding hasnt even started.

Airports already take enough time to get through with all the doc & security checks in place with having a busy schedule as a paying passenger, can't this part be more efficient?

[aw8565]

Hey rob, check your PMs

[Globaliser]

Personally, I would prefer to see a great improvement in the quality of the data supplied particularly in terms of accuracy and timeliness, more so than the aesthetics of how the data is presented.I absolutely agree with this, for both arriving and departing flight information. Data quality/accuracy is actually the biggest problem of the lot, although one not addressed by the OP's questionnaire. Frankly, if the data were always accurate and kept constantly up-to-date, I would care very little if it were still posted on handwritten cards.

[silverelise]

Pretty frustrating turning up, after rushing to get to gate on Final call to find everyone sitting in the lounge and boarding hasnt even started.
I think you just rumbled the trick for getting the "departed on time" figure better than the competition.

[rob3055]

Thanks to all those who have taken the survey so far and the constructive comments received! I have collected some interesting remarks from Q10 in the questionnaire (Has an airport's set of flight information displays struck you as performing noticeably poorly?) with some airports featuring more heavily than others!

What started me off on this thesis topic was the degree to which the displays vary between airports and even within (evidenced at LGW south!). Also I was interested in the ergonomics of the displays and if the dynamic information provided is relevant for most passengers (for example, airline logos?). While regular travellers will have few problems with inadequacies, it is the more infrequent traveller or those with visual impairments who may have more difficulty. There are some industry guidelines (IATA RP1785 and ICAO Doc 9249), but it seems these are a little outdated with some airlines petitioning for them to be updated and greater standardisation.

TSR2 and Globaliser – You comment that the quality of information is most important to you. This is a very valid point; however my thesis is dealing primarily with the displays themselves rather than the real-time system which is feeding them. I of course accept that a display which is fed with inaccurate/erroneous data is performing poorly no matter how well the flight displays are designed.

Hartington - In choosing what type on information flight information displays should include, I agree the list could be endless! An important point is that these displays are for all the travelling public and thus should be designed for the majority’s preference. I included the option for “on-board catering type (free / food for purchase)” in Q2 as many airlines are in are in state of flux as regards their in-flight catering and whether they are charging for it. Some passengers may also simply forget which type of catering service is available on their flight and may wish to eat in the departure lounge if there is no free on-board service. There is also a precedent for this with some railway stations indicating on their displays whether there will be a buffet service available on train services. Yet I agree, it is most likely that this type of information would add little for the majority of passengers and needlessly clutter displays. You also made the point about the ordering system. Yes, US airports sometimes order flights by destination (DFW springs to mind), where-as in the UK there are almost always ordered by time of departure.

DrKev – Point taken, should have included a picture of lower case in the actual question! As regards photo quality, it was often a balance between huge pictures which could have filled the screen but have taken forever to load on dial-up/slow broadband and small pictures where the text couldn’t be read but loaded fast.

[Land After]

I Don't really care about the format - though I love the nostaglia of the electro-mechanical boards....

The one thing that really is a bugbear to me is the multiple display of code shares - one flight should be one line in the display, with the flight number rotating. That way we could get more than 4 flights per VDU in some airports (MAN?).

The other point is the accuracy - the boarding/final call must be accurate. If not, the displays get the same level of trust at motorway matrix signs.

[PAXboy]

Q 5 has an incorrect illustration. The question states "On the example below, flights are ordered by time of departure." and the picture shows an 8-monitor display in LGW South Terminal arrivals. However, I answered the question not the picture!

On that question, listing departure by Time/Destination/Airline: As far as I have noticed, Time is the universal and changing that might be confusing. Also, if by destination, then three flights on different carriers to the same Dest could be listed underneath each other. :uhoh:

Land After good comments. One of the main advantages of the electro-mechanical flip-flap boards was that you could read your paper and know when the information was updated, when you had that rain shower cascade!!! Nowadays, you have to keep glancing up from your paper every ten seconds just in case it is new info.

Given that we are never going to go back to those kind of displays, perhaps the display might emit a qentle beep signal when everything moves up one row? Obviously there are many electronic signals in a departure/arrivals area but - if there is going to be international agreement - then let's have a sound. One example of such an agreement: In using a telephone, it is now standard that if your call cannot be connected you hear (what is known in the trade as) Tri-Tone. Three tones on a quickly rising scale, followed by an announcement. If there was a simple - universal - tone, then it would draw attention to the update screen. This would be of particular interest in those airports that do not have public announcements of flight departures.

I also agree about those flights that have multiple flight numbers, being restricted to a single line.

Lastly, as always, make the screens Big and high up.

[Indianzz]

I don't know why airlines cannot just be honest with their passengers and provide accurate information particularly as regards rescheduled departure times.

If I know the inbound flight that I am subsequently travelling outbound on I will check the arrivals board (which is usually more accurate that the departures board) and see if the inbound is running to time.

Almost invariably if the inbound is showing as late the departures board will still be showing an on time departure - even at times when the inbound is going to arrive later than the scheduled departure time!

[SkyFish]

Also often I notice the actual time is not on the display either

Maybe its like one of those casino things where they dont want you to realise how much fun youre having....

[1DC]

I like to see an arrivals board and departures board alongside each other.I'm always interested to know if my incoming aircraft is arriving on time at my departure gate...

[aw8565]

I know what you mean about the whole honesty thing. Often airlines stop us from updating the screens. They say, " Oh November Charlie needs a brake unit change, but don't show anything yet."

As if a brake unit change is not going to delay the flight?

Or maybe pax won't notice the're still in the airport 30 mins after they should have arrived?

The only time it is ok to do this is if staff need time to write up refreshment vouchers or make other preparations like clear a gate lounge. Otherwise delays should just go straight in the screen. I'm getting a bit fed up with it now so if I hear of a delay, I'll just bang in my best guess (which is normally not far out thankyou very much) and wait for some half wit rep to moan about it then show what they want.

Unless I disagree in which case I'll argue with them about it.

Oh and to the Excel Captain that swore at me over the radio last night, expect a phonecall from your Chief pilot sometime soon....

Now I'm going to bed after the night shift from hell...

Night

[WHBM]

The greatest issue I have is with systems that display information without any reference to what is actually going on.

Stansted is a particular culprit here. Changes from "go to gate", to "boarding", to "final call", all the time the incoming aircraft has not even arived on stand yet. I get the impression this inaccuracy is getting worse as years go by.

Another issue, don't clear the arrival information off just 5 minutes after the flight arrives. One of my few, very few beefs with London City, where they do this.

Don't show "stupid" information, like by mid-evening most of the boards being taken up by next mornings' flights (and the terminal closes overnight anyway), often without any indication they are such. You may work in 24-hour clock but many pax still work in 12-hour and get thrown.

Would be good if arrival information worked through from "landed" to "passengers disembarking" at to "baggage delivered".

"Time to walk to gate" information is invariably misleading, because people walk at such different speeds a single figure for this is so misleading and overstated I invariably ignore it.

I too like to see arrival information at departures (where it is rarely provided) to get a feel for how things are going overall.

Code Shares are a confounded nuisance, completely cluttering up the boards (and especially Teletext) as a morning BMI departure from Glasgow works through its flight numbers for United, Air Canada, Singapore, UncleTomCobbleyAirlines and all. Can the things just be taken right off ? Likewise change-of-gauge pseudo-destinations used by US carriers to pretent they have through flights to places they really don't.

Displays that rely on 2 scrolling pages on a single TV screen to give the relevant information take too long to assimilate the data. If they are rolling over between say destination and gate it can take a long look to understand.

Sequencing of displays by destination can be confusing, as there are many places (especially international) known by different names to different people. Particularly bad is when working two languages away from home (eg a flight from Frankfurt to Italy showing "Mailand"). Do by departure time and flight number.

I like the current time to be displayed because sometimes it is hours wrong and the only indication that the display datalink is broken !

Airline logos are invariably too small for the resolution of the monitor.

Please do not waste valuable flight information monitor space on anodyne messages such as "keep all your luggage with you" when they could be providing proper flight information.

[lexxity]

Please do not waste valuable flight information monitor space on anodyne messages such as "keep all your luggage with you" when they could be providing proper flight information.

I actually agree with this because if you wrote the message in 10ft high dayglo pink letters people would still leave their luggage unattended. The scrolling between departures/no smoking/keep bags with you and back to departures again is just daft, people need the departure information the other signs can be just that, signs on the wall.