Deriving Improvement Elements of Speech Announcements in Subway Stations through a Survey for Elderly and Young Adults

Hansol Song; Jongkwan Ryu

doi:10.21086/ksles.2025.10.32.5.553

All Issue

2025 Vol.32, Issue 5 Preview Page Next Page

Research Article

Deriving Improvement Elements of Speech Announcements in Subway Stations through a Survey for Elderly and Young Adults 고령자 및 청년자 대상 설문조사를 통한 지하철 역사 음성 안내음의 개선요소 도출

31 October 2025. pp. 553-558

PDF XML

Abstract

This study aims to investigate the current status and user perception of speech announcements in subway stations to improve mobility convenience for elderly people, whose importance is increasing with the entry into an aging society, and to derive characteristics of speech announcements for elderly people through comparison with a younger group. For this purpose, a survey was conducted in Seoul and the metropolitan area targeting 84 elderly people (aged 60 and above) and 138 young people (aged 19 to under 39). The questionnaire was composed of 5-point scales covering general information, physical abilities, auditory and visual capabilities, subway usage status, acoustic environment of subway stations, and experience and perception of speech announcements. The research results showed that elderly people had lower satisfaction with the acoustic environment of subway stations (noise and reverberation in platform and concourse) compared to young people, and showed differences in importantly recognizing speed and intelligibility as dissatisfaction factors of speech announcements. Both groups responded that improvement of noise in subway station was most needed for speech announcement. In particular, the main influencing factors for elderly person’s intelligibility of speech announcements were noise in space and loudness of speech announcement. The results of this study are expected to be utilized as basic data for establishing standards for speech announcement in subway station that consider the auditory and cognitive characteristics of elderly people.

Keywords

Elderly people

Subway stations

Speech Announcement

Survey

References

BS 5839-8:2008, Fire Detection and Fire Alarm Systems for Buildings - Part 8: Code of practice for the design, installation, commissioning and maintenance of voice alarm systems.

ISO 7029 (2017). Acoustics — Statistical distribution of hearing thresholds related to age and gender.

Jeon, J. Y., Jang, H. S., & Heo, J. Y. (2013). Suitable speech announcements on subway platforms for the elderly. Journal of The Korean Society of Living Environmental System, 20(4), 126-133.

Kim, S., Song, E., Kim, J., Lee, S., & Ryu, J. (2021). Characteristic of room acoustical parameters with source-receiver distance on platform in subway stations. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of Korea, 40(6), 615-625. https://doi.org/10.7776/ASK.2021.40.6.615

10.7776/ASK

Lee, Y. S., Jeon, J. S., Kim, D. Y., Kim, M. Y., Shin, J. Y., & Jang, S. Y. (2001). Study on the sound and vibration level of subway in seoul area. Korean Society Of Environmental Engineers, pp. 131-132.

Sato, H., Motimoto, M., Wada, M., & Sato, H. (2006). Objective measures for estimating listening difficulty ratings for young and elderly listeners in public spaces. Paper presented at 2006 The 9th Western Pacific Acoustics Conference, Seoul, Korea.

Sato, H., Sato, H., Morimoto, M., & Ota, R. (2007). Acceptable range of speech level for both young and aged listeners in reverberant and quiet sound fields. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 122(3), 1616-1623. https://doi.org/10.1121/1.2766780

10.1121/1.2766780

Shimokura, R., & Soeta, Y. (2011). Evaluation of speech intelligibility of sound fields in underground stations. Acoustical Science and Technology, 32(2), 73-75. https://doi.org/10.1250/ast.32.73

10.1250/ast.32.73

Song, E., Kim, S., Kim, J., Lee, S., & Ryu, J. (2022). The distribution characteristic of noise and signal guide sound in subway platform. Transactions of the Korean Society for Noise and Vibration Engineering, 32(1), 11-21. https://doi.org/10.5050/KSNVE.2022.32.1.011

10.5050/KSNVE.2022.32.1.011

Song, H. S., Ryu, J. K., Jin, M. G., & Sung, C. J. (2017). Signal to noise ratio of the announcement from reinforced sound system and background noise in transportation facility. Journal of KIAEBS, 11(5), 355-363. https://doi.org/10.12972/jkiaebs.20170008

10.12972/jkiaebs.20170008

Statistics Korea (2024). Elderly Statistics. from the Web site. https://kostat.go.kr/

Transportation Ecology & Mobility Foundation (2010). Basic Research Report on Cases of Transportation Hub Movement Support Using Audio Signals. from the Web site. https://www.ecomo.or.jp/

Information

Publisher :The Korean Society of Living Environmental System
Publisher(Ko) :한국생활환경학회
Journal Title :Journal of The Korean Society of Living Environmental System
Journal Title(Ko) :한국생활환경학회
Volume : 32
No :5
Pages :553-558
Received Date : 2025-09-09
Revised Date : 2025-10-05
Accepted Date : 2025-10-13
DOI :https://doi.org/10.21086/ksles.2025.10.32.5.553

Journal of The Korean Society of Living Environmental System ISSN:1226-1289(Print) 한국생활환경학회

All Issue