Every day, 3.5 million commuters in the Paris region take the train. We keep passengers informed about their trains, safety guidelines, incident management, and more. And the employees in our 25 passenger information units (PIVIF) across the region are there for them, day in and day out. Their motto? “Deliver users the reliable information they need as quickly as possible,” explains Assetou Aparicio.

Ms. Aparicio is the 41-year-old manager of the passenger information and assistance unit. Assisted by her deputy, Nolwenn Prigent, she’s led a team of 79 employees at the Asnières-sur-Seine PIVIF in the Hauts-de-Seine department since 2016. 23 of those staff are team leaders in charge of local passenger information. You’ll hear their voices 24 hours a day, 7 days a week in the 37 stations that dot the western Paris region served by the Transilien L and RER A lines.

It’s 6 in the morning when a passenger information manager posts to the operations log—the clearinghouse for traffic info—that there’s a technical problem with a train near the town of Houilles, in the Yvelines department west of Paris. Time for the PIVIF teams to jump in. “Passengers are particularly eager for information about these kinds of disruptions,” says Ms. Aparicio. “There’s no time to waste, because we have 3 minutes to deliver ‘Announcement Zero’, which is how we alert passengers about an incident.” Five minutes later—making 8 minutes since the incident began—employees must announce an estimated time for traffic to resume. That’s one of the commitments in SNCF’s First programme.

“Your attention, please. A replacement bus is available and traffic is expected to resume at 7:20 am.” Suggestions for alternate itineraries, incident updates, general and specific notices—the team has already delivered around 30 announcements since the Houilles incident began. Asnières-sur-Seine PIVIF employees definitely don’t hold back, making an average of 300 audio announcements during each 7-hour 43-minute shift.

In addition to the operations log, teams stay on top of the news with reports from their colleagues in stations and monitor social media with care. “If we hear from a customer on X that they don’t have enough information or that they can’t hear the announcements, we take immediate action,” says Ms. Aparicio. PIVIF employees also have access to images from video surveillance cameras. Each workstation is able to make announcements in 5 to 7 different stations in the sector.

To bring a human touch to our announcements, SNCF employees receive training from journalists experienced in public speaking. As the PIVIF manager explains: “We do personalised, one-on-one coaching sessions at our various workstations to define each RLIV’s vocal style”.

We work on announcers’ intonation, volume, speed, posture, and word choice to make sure announcements fit the moment. This is especially true when there’s been an accident involving a person, when we need to inform passengers without upsetting them. This natural, neighbourly speaking style owes a lot to how familiar the teams are with the stations they serve. “No one stays in their ‘ivory tower’,” says Ms. Aparicio. “PIVIF team members regularly visit the stations so they can visualize who’s there and what’s happening.” Every station has its own quirks and customers, and messages might be delivered differently for each one.

Once the Houilles incident is resolved, team members gather around a whiteboard to review how they handled the episode and listen back with fresh ears to the announcements they made to assess whether the announcements were timely and relevant, what worked and what didn’t. The team also meets every week or so to review recent events in coordination with the Transilien operations centre. 13.43: Shift change. Each day at the same time. “But there’s no such thing as routine,” notes Ms. Aparicio. “This job is non-stop adrenaline, and every day brings something new.”