(The following story by Steve Ritea appeared on the Newsday website on October 19.)
NEW YORK — Making good on a promise to improve communication with customers, the Long Island Rail Road Thursday unveiled five 60-inch monitors at Penn Station that will alert riders to service updates — news until now announced over the din on loudspeakers.
“I think it’s great. Our biggest complaint with these guys has been communication, or lack thereof,” said Gerald Bringmann, president of the LIRR Commuter Council. “It’s nice to know there’s a good use for a 60-inch screen other than watching football.”
Information on the screens, strategically located around the station, will mirror information posted on the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s Web site and in e-mail advisories sent to commuters, alerting riders to delayed trains or other service changes. A sixth monitor is to be installed later this month.
Rob Vogt, 19, of Glen Cove, who regularly takes the train to visit friends and family in the city, said the new monitors could be helpful.
“You miss announcements all the time because you can’t hear anything in Penn Station,” Vogt said.
The MTA has said it is working on a plan to begin text-messaging service alerts to riders’ cell phones by the new year.
More than 224,000 LIRR customers, 85 percent of all riders, travel through Penn Station, the railroad said.
“We wanted to do something that we consider a really important goal, which is to improve the customer service,” said Helena Williams, the railroad’s president. “Customers are better served by hearing and seeing information.”
LIRR officials said the monitor system cost about $100,000. Williams said she hopes by next year to place similar screens at the railroad’s two next-busiest stations, Jamaica and Flatbush/Atlantic avenues.