Bristol Temple Meads translates platform announcements over Auracast, as RNID publishes what its station testers found

Bristol Temple Meads is running a pilot that translates platform announcements and broadcasts them over Auracast, so a passenger can hear the PA in their own language through their earbuds, headphones or hearing aids. The system comes from XRAI, which makes AI subtitling software, and Ampetronic, which supplies the Auri transmitters. It was shown to the public on Thursday 6 August 2026 on Platform 9.

A month later RNID, the UK's deaf and hard-of-hearing charity, published the results of its own user testing at the same station. Taken together, the two say a lot about where Auracast in transport is working and where it is not yet.

How the translation pilot works

The station's existing English announcements are fed to a local computer running XRAI's translation, and the output goes out over Auri transmitters housed in weatherproof boxes on Platform 9. XRAI says the platform supports up to 100 languages; the August demonstration used English plus one other. Aurahear, which attended, reported two streams to pick from in the Auracast Assistant app, English or the translation, with the translated version following the English by a few seconds.

The pilot runs for three months under the Station Innovation Zone programme, led by Connected Places Catapult in partnership with Network Rail. XRAI's chief executive summed up the idea: "Instead of asking every passenger to adapt to the announcement, the announcement adapts to the passenger." Visitors without a compatible device could borrow an Auri receiver with headphones.

Where it started

This builds on the station's 2025 trial, the first public Auri install in a transport setting. Ampetronic fitted 10 transmitters covering Platforms 9 to 12, the pedestrian subway and the ticket hall, carrying live PA audio. Ampetronic commissioned RNID to run user trials. In July 2026 Brighton station followed with the first permanent Auracast install at a UK railway station, using Auri TX2N transmitters. Both have entries in our directory: Bristol Temple Meads and Brighton.

What RNID found

RNID's testing took place in March 2026, funded by the Motability Foundation. Ten people with hearing aids or cochlear implants used Auracast in quiet conditions and on the busy station. Only one had Auracast built into their own device; the rest borrowed a neckloop or a smartphone dongle receiver.

Most could not follow the PA without help, and announcements were substantially clearer over Auracast. "I could not hear a word from the announcements without Auracast," one participant said. Testers also valued less stress and fatigue, and being free to move along the platform rather than stand near a speaker.

The problems were about implementation: finding and connecting to the broadcast, and balancing the stream against sound from the hearing device's own microphones. RNID's recommendations:

• Operators: explain Auracast on their websites, add signage in stations and carriages, play an audio alert before every announcement, and make sure coverage is adequate on trains as well as stations.
• Developers: show clearly when you are connected and when the link drops, put Auracast controls inside existing hearing aid, cochlear implant and phone apps, and make the whole thing frictionless.
• Audiologists: enable the T+M loop setting so neckloop users can balance the broadcast with their surroundings.

The either/or problem

One issue sits outside RNID's list. Aurahear noted that at Bristol you cannot listen to a podcast and stay tuned for announcements: "It's one or the other." The broadcast only carries sound when an announcement is made, but a phone joined to it is not playing your own audio in the meantime. For a passenger who is not hard of hearing, and that is most of the people a translation service is aimed at, that is a real barrier. Until phones and earbuds can mix or interrupt personal audio for a broadcast, the choice is the listener's to make.

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