Displays for all to see

From Saturdays SCMP

Displays for all to see

We refer to Alan Sargent's letter on the English used in LED displays on Kowloon Motor Bus vehicles ("Blink and you'll miss it", June 5).

KMB's Electronic Bus Stop Announcement System, introduced in 1998, informs passengers of upcoming bus stops with voice announcements in Cantonese, English and Putonghua and corresponding LED displays. The length of the Chinese and English LED displays correlates with the length of the voice announcements, and the Chinese version is shown twice to match the Cantonese and Putonghua.

The system is checked regularly and any abnormalities are rectified promptly. Passengers who observe any malfunctions should note down the bus registration number and call the KMB hotline on 2745-4466.

To help passengers, names are also displayed at bus stops and detailed route information is available on the KMB website.

SUSANNE HO, head of corporate communications, KMB

Ms. Ho has clearly not read the original letter very clearly. He wasn't complaining about the displays not working, he was complaining that they show the English name for about five seconds, before staying in Traditional Chinese until the next bus stop. (If the announcement is being made in Putonghua, why aren't Simplified Characters used?)

While it is very useful to have the next stop displayed like that, it surely wouldn't be much of an inconvenience to have the display cycle between both languages all the while. Perhaps KMB think that only people who can read Chinese use their buses?