A software update carried out by the ICT department of the rail infrastructure management company Infrabel resulted in train announcement being given in Dutch, French, English and German at stations across the country on Tuesday morning. Normally only international trains and trains heading for the station at Brussels Airport Zaventem are announced in four languages. All other trains are announced only in the official language, or in the case of Brussels languages, of the municipality where a station is located
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Software glitch leads to multilingual announcements at railway stations across the land
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On Tuesday morning passengers at Antwerp Central were more than a little surprised to hear train services to domestic destinations being announced in three languages other than Dutch. Meanwhile, passengers at Namur station heard announcement there in Dutch, English and German as well as in French. With language being something of a sensitive issue in Belgium the ICT department at Infrabel got to work trying to resolve the issue straight away. Infrabel was keen to assure passengers that rail services were in no way impacted by the software glitch.
Infrabel’s Thomas Baeken told journalists that “A software update was carried out yesterday evening. There was a bug in the programme, which means that more trains than usual are being announced in four languages. This is not the case everywhere, but in a large proportion of stations”.
More or less back to normal by 9:30
By 9:30 things had returned to normal in most of the country’s stations. Speaking at around 11am on Tuesday, Mr Baeken said "Since 9am the announcements in Dutch and French have been back to normal. Half an hour later the announcements in German at the stations in the German-speaking areas were back to normal too”.
The language used for announcements at railway stations is determined by the language laws. In Flanders they are only in Dutch, in (most of) Wallonia in French, in a small area of Wallonia where German is the official language in German and in bi-lingual Brussels in Dutch and French. Announcements in four languages are usually only used for international trains and trains bound for Brussels Airport Zaventem.