Anti-noise campaign attacks PA announcements

The Noise Abatement Society (NAS) has launched a dedicated campaign to reduce the volume and frequency of public address announcements at various public spots.

The UK has seen a five-fold rise in complaints against “nuisance” public address announcements in the last two years, says the NAS.

The British public has been increasingly bombarded with PA messages at spots like train stations and supermarkets, and many consumers now feel this is going just too far.

The NAS points out that aboard some trains and at some train stations, PA announcements can sometimes go out once in every two minutes. The South West Train service has been identified as having 50 messages aired on its 80-minute journey between Reading and London Waterloo.

Shops and supermarkets are climbing onto the PA bandwagon with gusto, and the sheer frequency and volume of many of these addresses are annoying many consumers. The NAS says that announcements that people find especially off-putting include messages that seem to simply state the obvious.

Messages like requests to ensure that aisles are left free and stressing the importance of having valid tickets are among these. At supermarkets, announcements advising customers to use the shortest check-out queues were also identified as particularly irksome.

NAS conducted volume tests that showed that most on-train announcements go out at volumes between 80 and 85 decibels, which, it points out, is similar to volumes levels emitted by road construction equipment.

So by rolling out the new Quiet Life campaign, the NAS hopes to significantly reduce the nuisance value of PA announcements in the UK.