Voice Control: An Acoustic Ecology of Stations and Trains

Although visual signage is a dominant part of railway life, so too is audible signage. It takes the form of announcements, whistles, train sounds and so on. Indeed, railway sounds, especially those of locomotives, have exerted a particular fascination, more so, than the sounds of other modes of transporta fact reflected in the prevalence of musical compositions and poetry endeavouring to simulate them. This chapter’s principal subjects of analysis are those sounds that are deliberately reticulated through trains and stations as part of the larger scale technology of passenger administration and regulation. It is argued that the development of public address systems (PAs) was a seminal development in the evolution of such technology, enabling passenger control to be conducted at a distance, invisibly, without direct human involvement. The development of recorded message technology and digital sound systems further extended the machinery of population administration. It enabled more sophisticated forms of action at a distance to be instituted, ones that in the main were exercised asynchronously. At the same time, the sound behaviour of passengers, especially that associated with mass adoption of portable technologies such as mobile phones and tablets, has been subjected to increased regulation through the proclamation of quiet carriages.

Keywords: Ensoniment, Muzak, noise, passenger information systems, public address systems, railway announcements, schizophonia, sound administration, soundscape.