Bristol tests from Ampetronic showcase Auracast’s bright future

Trial of new Bluetooth technology promises a leap forward in station accessibility

As we have covered already, Bristol Temple Meads is currently the testbed for an Auracast trial. 

If deployed across the UK railway network, the new assistive listening technology could significantly enhance the way passengers hear announcements, particularly those with hearing impairments.

The trial project at Bristol Temple Meads is organised by Network Rail, and funded by Connected Places Catapult, which organises Innovation Acceleration projects across the country. It has picked eight different projects to showcase different aspects of making railway journeys easier for people; these include accessibility, sustainability, personal safety, and overall passenger experience. 

Two of the projects tested at Bristol Temple Meads, a Grade I listed building created by that original railway innovator, Isambard Kingdom Brunel: Auracast and Journey Alerts, a ‘virtual companion’ to guide anxious passengers with real-time, step-by-step instructions from start to destination. 

For the Auracast trial, Ampetronic’s Auri system is being pressed into use. 

We shared our experiences of the setup at Bristol in this article here. 

In essence, the Auri transmitters – each about the size and shape of a WiFi router – have been installed in weather- and pigeon-proof boxes installed across the station. They work in relay to each other, ensuring a wide coverage. 

Announcing the project, Brian Wortman, Senior Programme Manager at Network Rail, said: “This programme provides Network Rail with a chance to push the boundaries around testing and adoption of innovative technologies to improve the station experience for passengers.”

Passengers can use an Auracast Assistant to hear the announcements regardless of where they are in the station. 

Each Auri transmitter has a circular range of up to 100m radius in open environments (or line of sight), and this means coverage is strong across the entire complex. 

Auri is designed to replace or supplement traditional telecoil loop systems – and they don’t just have to be used in a railway setting. The system is already in use in stadiums, theatres, lecture halls and places of worship across the world. 

Ampetronic’s project lead is Jonathan Hoskin, who says the goal is to future-proof audio systems in stations and the built environment while reaching a far wider audience than legacy induction loops. 

Its Auri system allows backwards compatibility with telecoil-enabled hearing aids, thanks to a nifty transceiver that can be converted into a miniature loop by plugging in a wire to its 3.5mm jacks. These ports can also be used to plug in up to two sets of headphones, ensuring anyone can use Auracast.

How Auracast breaks through the limits of telecoil loops

For nearly 100 years, the mainstay of assisted listening in public spaces has been the induction loop, comprising cables installed in floors, ceilings or counters that transmit audio to a telecoil-enabled hearing aid. 

While effective in specific settings, loop systems have notable limitations, not least in terms of sound quality. 

“A passenger with a hearing impairment can find it quite difficult to access audio information in a station environment, due to a number of different reasons,” Jonathan says. 

“Announcements can be very reverberant in these cavernous-type environments. They can lack quality and be difficult to gather an intelligible signal from them. Even those without hearing impairments can find it difficult to access.”

And if a loop has some dead spots where it can’t reach, well, fixing that can also be problematic. 

“For most installations, people are required to install cables within the materials of the building, typically underneath the carpet or in a ceiling void,” Jonathan explains. 

“In a train station, installing a loop can mean major refurbishment. Once the cables are in place, perhaps underneath the concrete screen, it’s very difficult to scale that any larger because it means running more cabling, which is often impractical.”

Another challenge is reach. 

Only about half of hearing aid users have a telecoil-enabled device, be it the hearing aids or an assistive listening device, and those without one are excluded from loop-based audio entirely. 

“With an induction loop ecosystem, we’re serving a niche within a niche,” Jonathan says. “With Auracast, we’re talking about serving the majority of people, including those who use hearing aids, cochlear implants, smartphones or earbuds.”

That’s assuming that manufacturers make Auracast a standard technology in their hearing aid and cochlear ranges. We have shared a list of current hearing aids with Auracast built in here, and as new launches happen we will update this list. 

Jonathan is hopeful, pointing out that thanks to Android devices having Auracast as standard from Version 16 of the operating system onwards, it is projected that by 2027, around 80% – that’s four in five – devices coming to the market will have Auracast enabled. 

And this will have benefits for everyone, not least those who work at the railway station. 

“If we can give people much more intelligible audio on demand, we can hopefully reduce the burden on the station staff,” Jonathan says. 

“And it ensures passengers can access the audio on demand when they want to. That will hopefully increase passenger satisfaction.

“Poor audio can reduce passenger satisfaction. Good audio can hopefully increase it.” 

Auracast is a wireless, scalable solution

Perhaps the easiest way to think of Auracast is to consider it as similar to Wi-Fi, but for audio, and using Bluetooth LE Audio, a standard codec from version 5.2 onwards. 

Transmitters – powered over Ethernet – can be mounted in ceilings or on walls, with coverage extended simply by adding more units to the network. Audio is delivered over IP, and any compatible device can receive the stream without requiring special hardware.

“It’s scalable and modular,” Jonathan says. “We can cover complex spaces like stations without tearing up floors or installing kilometres of cable. It’s also robust, using adaptive frequency hopping across 40 Bluetooth channels in the 2.4GHz band to avoid interference.

“What does that mean? Ultimately, it’s a more robust system that finds the strongest possible signal at any one time. There shouldn’t be dropouts or missed packets of information.”

Robustness is crucial in a station environment where public address systems must compete with echo, reverberation, train noise, and electromagnetic interference from overhead power lines. 

“In some stations, loop announcements can be completely washed out when trains arrive or depart,” Jonathan says. “Auracast delivers audio free from those issues, at any time.”

Auracast offers more than hearing assistance

While designed with accessibility in mind, Auracast has wider benefits. Jonathan points out that many groups, not just those with hearing loss, struggle to understand public announcements.

First-time travellers, non-native speakers, and passengers with neurodiverse conditions can all benefit from clear, personalised audio direct to their own devices. 

One of Auracast’s party tricks is being able to offer a range of audio streams to tap into. 

That could mean announcements in another language, and it could mean setting up streams for each platform. 

It also means being able to offer one-to-one Auracasts at ticket booths, using a secure, password-protected connection that can only be accessed by the passenger and the person they are buying a ticket or seeking advice from.

“Auracast allows for assisted listening across public transport networks where induction loops simply weren’t possible. Imagine you’re travelling a route for the first time, and you can get the announcement in your language, straight to your earbuds, without background noise,” Jonathan says. 

“I think those with neurodiverse conditions will appreciate Auracast. Some people can have trouble focusing on the specific audio that they want to listen to, or can find it easy to be distracted by ambience and background noise. 

“Being able to use your own device without looking any different to anyone and being able to access that audio clear from any of those distracting issues could be a real game changer for those individuals.”

The Bristol Temple Meads trial of Ampetronic’s Auri system

As one of the world’s oldest railway stations, Bristol Temple Meads presents a challenging test environment. It’s a large, historic station that is currently undergoing construction works, with significant ambient noise and complex passenger flows.

Ampetronic is running the Auri system across selected parts of the station. 

During the trial, passengers and stakeholders will be able to experience the difference first-hand over the coming months.

One of the primary objectives of the trial is to assess the technical performance of Auracast, specifically its ability to deliver consistent, high-quality audio within a busy rail environment. Another focal point is passenger interaction: understanding how travellers connect to and use the system, as well as what additional content they might desire beyond the standard public address announcements.

The trial also investigates whether Auracast can reduce the dependency on manual assistance and visual signage throughout the station, and it considers the commercial potential of the technology by evaluating whether it might increase customer satisfaction and loyalty.

Jonathan says: “Not only are we looking at the technology, but also seeking an understanding of what’s important from the passengers’ perspective and whether that is reflected in what is on the public address system. 

“We will ask if we need to include anything else, are there any other markers required on an assisted listening announcement, and explore issues such as speed and tone and delivery. 

“We will ask what would be important from Network Rail’s perspective, including the impact it has on station staff, and if it reduces reliance on manual assistance and display for sign language. 

“Can Auri help improve that efficiency across the station?” 

Part of a bigger accessibility picture

The trial aligns with Network Rail’s Accessible Travel Policy, which commits to making UK rail journeys “as easy and stress-free as possible” for passengers with additional needs. 

A key part of that strategy is improving wayfinding and communication for passengers who might otherwise struggle to hear announcements.

The Office of Rail and Road has also set out clear expectations for “reasonable adjustments” in passenger communications, including offering equivalent information through multiple channels. 

Auracast meets this requirement by enabling clear announcements and, potentially in the future, supporting multiple languages or formats.

A smooth path to rollout

From an operator’s perspective, adopting Auracast is much simpler than installing new telecoil loops, as the system can piggyback on existing Ethernet cabling and power infrastructure, with minimal physical disruption. 

In many cases, an Auri installation can be carried out quickly, such as overnight when station footfall is at its lowest, without impacting services.

This ease of deployment, combined with its flexibility, means Auracast could spread quickly once proven. 

Jonathan sees particular potential for integrated travel hubs where buses, trams, and trains converge: “Auri allows for assisted listening across public transport networks, whereas induction loops simply couldn’t.”

This could include passengers receiving a seamless audio experience as they move between modes of transport, without needing to reconnect or change devices. It’s clever stuff … and the sound is distortion-free.

If the Bristol Temple Meads trial proves successful, Ampetronic and Network Rail could explore rolling Auracast out across the UK’s major stations. From there, the technology could reach other public venues – airports, theatres, stadiums, lecture halls – anywhere intelligible speech matters.

“The technology is here,” Jonathan says. “Now it’s about proving it works in the real world and showing operators what a difference it can make.”

For passengers at Bristol Temple Meads over the coming months, that difference could be as simple as catching every word of a platform announcement, no matter the background noise, no matter the device in their pocket.