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The Palm Beach, Florida Post

Tri-Rail testing audio feature on tickets

By Jenica Lopez,
Palm Beach Post Staff Writer

Sunday, July 14, 2002

Tri-Rail riders are now greeted by a male voice that explains how to buy
tickets -- a trial system aimed at helping blind patrons.

"At first, I didn't know where the voice was coming from," Robin Thomas
of Delray Beach said Friday when she found herself listening to the
ticket vending machine's new audio instruction system after a year of
using Tri-Rail. "I like the new system. It's easy."

The system has been installed at five Tri-Rail temporary testing
locations at the Mangonia Park, Delray Beach, Deerfield Beach, Hollywood
and Miami Airport Tri-Rail stations. It was designed to guide the blind
and visually impaired through the buying steps.

Dennis Hodos, who is legally blind, appreciated how easy it was to follow
the instructions he heard and to find the new elevated black buttons on
the vending machine.

"The major difference is that the directions are very clear," said Hodos,
who uses the audio system at the Hollywood Tri-Rail station to go to his
job at Big Brothers/Big Sisters in Fort Lauderdale. "I use the Tri-Rail
now almost every day."

The National Federation of the Blind and members of the American Council
of the Blind are satisfied with the new system.

"I don't think it is the best machine, but it is the best adaptation,"
said David Evans of Boca Raton, transportation chairman of the National
Federation of the Blind of Florida.

The audio system is in its second month of operation of the six-month
trial period. Once the testing phase is completed, permanent changes, if
necessary, will be made at that time.

If the trial system is adopted, Spanish and Creole translations for the
audio instructions will be considered by Tri-Rail's planning team, said
Bonnie Arnold, marketing director for Tri-Rail.

"It will depend on the level of usage by passengers," Arnold said. "If
the demand is there, then we will certainly look at it very closely."

The audio feature was designed to supplement the existing Braille and
elevated letters on the ticket machines.

"In general, most people said that the audio instructions helped them use
the machine where it was impossible to use before," said Evans.

Arnold believes the audio system also will benefit seniors and other
consumers who find the ticket vending machines difficult to use.

"It is the most difficult machine to use," he said. "There are three
different places to insert money. A bill goes in one place and change
comes at another all the way at the bottom."

The new machines have a large button under the speakers that activates
the audio instructions. The audio instructions provide the user with
step-by-step buying directions.

First, the machine announces all Tri-Rail stops and indicates which
button to press on the machine. Then it describes the different buying
options -- coin, cash or credit -- and its location in inches from the
button. The machine notifies the person of the wait for the transaction
and lets them know when everything has been processed. Finally, it
directs the ticket-buyer to the lowest slot in the machine to pick up the
ticket and change.

The National Academy of the Sciences awarded an $85,000 grant to KRW
Inc., Tri-Rail's disability consultant, for the project. The grant
covered only the production of an adaptation to the existing machine, not
production of a new machine.

Tri-Rail also hopes to receive another grant to engineer a sensor to
prompt the ticket machine to begin its audio greeting as soon as a
customer approaches.

Users of the new system can visit the Tri-Rail Web site and fill out an
evaluation form of the new audio instructions at
http://www.tri-rail.org/tvm/. Engineers will use the responses to find
flaws and improve the machines.

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