I'm impressed

[smileyeagle1021]

I promised I'd start posting positive sightings and this is definitely one of them.
A blind guy got on the bus at the community college, the bus driver was very helpful with him, guiding him to his seat etc... that's not the part that I'm impressed with... the blind guy told the driver where he wanted to get off because the bus driver asked... but it turns out that he didn't have to... he actually pulled the stop request cord himself

That's right, he had learned the route well enough that he knew when he had to pull the stop cord by nothing other than keeping track of the motions of the bus as it went through corners and accelerated/braked

that my dear friends is impressive.

[Blade_Raver]

Darn right that's impressive. Does the bus driver for SLC buses still call out the stops over the PA speaker?

[smileyeagle1021]

they kinda sorta do... there is an automated system that announces major time points...

[rerant]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qLziFMF4DHA

[Chromatix]

The Helsinki Metro has an automated announcement system. It announces the stations just before it arrives at them, usually in two languages (Finnish and Swedish). Sometimes the two languages' names for a stop sound the same, so it is only announced once - and one of the stations is also announced in English ("Central Railway Station"). There is an additional bilingual announcement (incomprehensible to an Anglophone) at terminii.

Very occasionally, it gets confused. I was on one recently that was announcing two stops late, probably because it had gone through the railway equivalent of a contraflow earlier. After it had gone through the contraflow in the reverse direction, it came back in sync.

There is, regrettably, no such announcement on the buses and trams. However, on the trams it is quite easy to figure out where you are by following the curves. Buses move in slightly less predictable ways, but it should still be possible. And in both cases, you can ask the driver.

I forget whether the trains have announcements. I suspect that the long-distance expresses might, but on the commuter services I suspect not.

[Munkie]

Theres only two bus routes in my city that I have memorized - the number 3 and the number 9. The number 3 departs from starting point, and takes about 20 mins to reach my stop - and when i'm reading a book, I usually end up putting my bookmark in my book 2 stops before I get off. The number 9 is a north-south bus, and i've memorized it from a station at one mall to the first stop past the bridge to the south side of the city. i don't need to worry about other buses, as I have access to a car (or two) and can usually drive/am driven where i need to get to otherwise.