Wu Dan and I agreed to meet up at a Costa Coffee in the Grand Gateway (港汇) mall at Xujiahui on our way to attempt the audit of the Shanghai South Railway Station. We did this mostly because we had heard that additional security in preparation for the Expo meant that there were armed police at the station now and that we might well not be able to get into the building at all without a ticket, never mind the central area that was already reserved for ticketholders only before. I deliberately did not bring a camera, because I didn’t want any hassle.

However, Shanghai is always changing, and when I got to the mall they told me that the Costa had closed down since I was last here a few months ago. I had also been warned to expect bags to have to go through X-ray machines on the subway as part of the new security drive. But, although that went on at all the major hubs we went through, it didn’t happen where I got on the subway at Siping Road.

And when we did get to the railway station at about 12.45, it seemed to be open for business as usual. On the way in at ground level, we noticed an LED destination screen with lots of malfunctioning/failing lights and colours. We wondered why they don’t fix it. The only change we found was that the Italian café overlooking the action has also closed. (Clearly, some businesses don’t last long here!) So, we went and ate at a Chinese dumpling place (DN Dumpling), also on the upper level, so that we could unobtrusively do a fair amount of the audit from there.

We decided to cover about a third of the outside ring of the station from pillar 2 at the Northeast entrance to pillar 7. The restaurant we were eating in was above pillar 6. We also decided to add the half of the middle circle beyond the ticket inspector’s entry points that was closest to us and visible from where we were. After observing and noting all we could from above, we went downstairs and added in the rest. No one seemed that bothered by what we were doing.

UPPER LEVEL

1. Samsung LCD 50 x 70 cm. On side of service console in dumpling shop. Not turned on.

CENTRAL RING (only directly accessible to those with tickets)

2-13. Central ring, down the middle, 6 pillars with 2 back-to-back flat screen LCDs at the top, all playing the same channel. All the LCD screens in the whole station were playing the same thing. Closer observation revealed this channel to be Mega Info Media (兆讯传媒公司), and that it belonged to the All-China Railway Bureau (全国火车站电视广告联播网). At the bottom of the screen was a blue tickertape with white lettering that carried news headlines and weather forecasts. The material above it on the channel appeared to be all ads or paid-for programming, e.g. from Disney. When we observed the central ring LCDs, the third from the left from where we were sitting in the dumpling store on the east side of the station and the seventh were not on/broken.

14-19, running down the middle avenue of the inner ring are 6 relatively small LED screens on the top of pillars, and sticking out into the avenue like flags, indicating the entrance to the various waiting areas off to the side by the train number. If you enter this central area, you go down a ramp, so you see these screens first. This then directs you to the correct waiting area.

20-27. As you enter each of the waiting areas to the side you will find one of 8 single-sided quite large (perhaps 1.5 x 1 m?) LED screens facing you, each one with details concerning the particular train the waiting area is currently serving. If you turn around and sit down, you will be facing one of the nos.2-13 LCD screens.

28-33. Beyond screens 20-27 are ramps leading down to the platform areas. At the top of each of these is a relatively small LED with the train number, like nos.14-19.

OUTER RING (from pillar 2 to 7).

At Pillar 2 is the SE Entrance to the station.

34. As you approach the entrance, there is a very large (3 m by 2 m) LED with all the details of the trains, the waiting areas etc. These LEDs are in 3 colours — red, orange and green. At first, we thought that red was for the things that did not change, words such “train” or “platform”, that orange was used for things like the specific train numbers or platform numbers that would change as the day went on, and that green was for high attention messages such as “now checking tickets” (i.e. go into the boarding area). The latter would also flash sometimes. But then, later on, we noticed that green could be used for the day of the week, so the logic of the colour deployment became less clear to us.

35-38. There are two security gates in at the SE Entrance, each with an X-ray machine for baggage. Each X-ray machine has two TV monitor screens, one in colour and one in black-and white. (We don’t know why!)

39. LED screen, perhaps 1 m by 70 cm. At first we thought the information on this was different from the information on 34, but then we realized it had the same information but in a different order all its own. (Who knows why?)

40-42. 3 CCTV globes, hanging low down on pillars 2, 4 and 6. In other words, there is one of these every two pillars.

43-50. Underneath the dumpling shop is the soft-seat waiting room. We couldn’t enter this, but as far as we could make out, there were 4 pairs of back-to-back LEDs hanging from the ceiling with train information.

51-58. Next to them were 4 back-to-back pairs of LCD flat screens with the railway TV channel playing.

59 At the end of the waiting room nearest pillar 7 was one more flat screen LCD playing the railway channel.

60. From the soft seat waiting area is a special entrance (东软席动车组专用检票口), with its own ramp leading down to an LED screen which directs soft-seat passengers to the left (for platforms 6-11) or the right (platforms 1-5), and lists the relevant train numbers underneath. Underneath there was a message playing with advice about minding the gap and not getting lost:
严禁携带危险品上车。(It is strictly forbidden to carry dangerous items onto the train.)
开车前五分钟停止检票。(The gate closes 5 minutes before the train leaves.)
确认站台，避免走错。(Check your platform number and avoid going the wrong way.)
站台与车厢有间隙，小心踏空受伤 (Mind the gap between the platform and the train.)
A1候车室在 北面下一层 (The A1 waiting room is one floor below in the north.)

FAR OUTER RING

Before you go through the SE Entrance is Ticket Office No.1, facing the street level, but still inside the station.

61-2. Above the ticket windows are 2 large LED screens with information about trains and how many tickets are still available in each category.

63-71. Above each window is a smaller rectangular LED with information about what you can do at that window (or if it is closed temporarily).

OUTSIDE THE AUDIT AREA

72. We noticed that in the central avenue, at one end, on the side from the area we were auditing, there was one stand-alone LED with red letter slogan-like messages to encourage people to behave in a civilized way and so on. It’s odd that there’s just one of these. The rest of the equivalent spaces down the central avenue are taken up with lightboxes (also often with public service style information), but there’s only one screen like this. So, we included it even though it was just outside the audit territory. Here is what was on it:

笑迎四方宾客，送上一片真情 (A sincere welcome to all passengers.)
共建和谐铁路，共享美好旅途 (Let’s all build a harmonious railway, to create a beautiful journey.)
城市，让生活更美好 (Better City , Better Life
创建和谐之旅，服务精彩世博 (Create a harmonious journey, serve a brilliant World Expo).

Finally, we did not see any of the touch-screen stands with information about the station in our audit area. We did notice one elsewhere in the station, abandoned, and turned off. Perhaps they have given up on these?

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