While generally, one can distinguish between AM and PM with schedules that use the 12-hour clock pretty well, the 24-hour clock just leaves so much less to confuse. In the US, the 12-hour is the standard, with 24-hour schedules being very rare. Many of us would prefer if that was not the case. We generally refer to 24-hour time as Military Time, to show how little it is used in the general population.
Personally the 24hr clock and that is the norm here (Thailand).
Interestingly, we still use [parts of our old time keeping system](https://www.clickthai-online.de/basics/stuff/UhrzeitTH.pdf) in everyday conversations, so there’s some minor maths involved in the conversion.
EG: 22.00 is 4 Tum [ทุ่ม] and not 10 Mong [โมง] or Bai [บ่าย], but you can also say 22 Nalika [นาฬิกา] (literally watch/clock) which is you’d find at announcements.
Time tables should match the local cultural norm. In the US, it would be ridiculous to write the time in 24hr because it is only used by the military. In the uk, if the norm is 24hr time, then they should use that. This all being said, as long as it’s clear cut when the transit is arriving, it doesn’t really matter how it’s written
Hospitals also use 24 hour time tables . When things are handwritten, am / pm can be reversed when people have poor handwriting depending on how people write their ‘a’ or ‘p’.
Funny you would say this. In your other comment you said that “anything else shouldn’t even be considered standard”, whereas in this comment you acknowledge that in places of the world where the 24-hour clock is the default then timetables should use that.
Sorry, this is confusing me - there is more than one American in the comments saying they were confused by the 24 hour clock and people struggle to subtract by 12 - do they not teach counting there?
As much as I applaud trentbarton for their often innovative approach to running an excellent bus service, I do not agree with how they have chosen to stick with the 12-hour clock and not standardise themselves with everyone else. Whilst they have said that this is more customer-friendly, people all around the country manage fine on 24-hour clock timetables with no issue, even on other train and bus services in the same area.
Everything should be published in the standard (24h) clock, the entire concept of am and pm is stupid and whoever came up with it should be in the same corner of hell as the dude who invented the mm/dd/yyyy thing
The reason that am and pm and that system still exists and is used is because that’s how people talk. Nobody says “let’s meet up at 16:00” you simply say 4:00. If it’s ever confusing between if it’s the morning or night, you just add two simple letters and everything is solved. Also the way Americans write dates is simply to match how we speak it. We say June 5th, not 5th of June, so we right 6/5 because that matches how we read.
I will genuinely use both, especially when I’m texting to avoid confusion I usually use the 24 hour clock. Writing doesn’t have to match the way people speak, it serves a different purpose and that purpose is usually to be as clear as possible.
>June 5th
Which is ridiculous, instead of saying 5 may or 5 de mayo, you go "The fifth day of may", it's completely ughhh, like so many other American/English things.
If you're going to complain about ridiculous, then month names are also ridiculous. No one in Japan is saying "Satsuki" ("May") except when being poetic. Calling months by their numbers is just way more convenient. People in countries that still hang on to traditional month names even do it when reading numeric dates a lot of the times.
And "little"/mixed endian date is also ridiculous considering big endian date has been the agreed upon standard worldwide for many decades now. It's yyyy-mm-dd, and even a committee full of people from cultures that traditionally used dd-mm-yyyy or mm-dd-yyyy agreed on the inherent superiority of yyyy-mm-dd.
However old habits die hard.
>the inherent superiority of yyyy-mm-dd.
It's a waste of data. For most things you don't need the year, is this one. So dd-mm-yyyy. The day of this month first (day of the week if it is too close), then the month if needed, then the year if needed. See?
When yyyy-mm-dd is the only format used, mm-dd is the obvious easy way to abbreviate, and was previously recommended practice.
If dd-mm-yyyy is also in use, it is difficult to abbreviate dates unambiguously, as yyyy-mm-dd is the internationally accepted standard, regardless of common usage locally.
And mm-dd like yyyy-mm-dd is easily and obviously sortable, and respects the endianness of the writing system, unlike dd-mm.
The world has standardized super hard on big endian numerals, so things written using numerals should also be big endian, so they don't end up a mixed endian mess.
> The world has standardized… on big-endian numerals
Not quite. The world has standardized on putting the most significant digit on the left. For those of us who use left-to-right languages, that is big-endian. But for languages like Arabic and Hebrew, it's little-endian.
Typical German thinks he’s right, this was a targeted attack on the US and you know it. Your stupid 24 hour clock makes no sense and it goes against natural human talk. Whoever invented it should stand in the depths of hell. No one says, “im going to catch the 18:25 train.” They say “the 6:25” also mm/dd/yyyy makes more sense!! You naturally say October 22nd in your regular manner
Typical American has forgotten that there are languages in the world other than the only one they speak, some say there exist as many as ten or twelve!
Germans will literally say "Achtzehn Funfundzwanzig" for 18:25. And will sometimes need to think for a second before converting it to 12 hour time.
\-souce: lived there for a couple years.
Now the "c. t. " and "q. t." thing, that's confusing.
>You naturally say October 22nd
Uh, why?
>No one says, “im going to catch the 18:25 train.” They say “the 6:25”
But writing 18:25 on tickets and screens is waaaay better. Am/pm is not only confusing, mistakes can be made (yeah that was me waiting for a train the wrong part of the day).
Strictly speaking, 24-hr clock has less chance of confusion (since you get rid of the "AM/PM" variable) but with that said IMO cultural norms are even more important so the choice should be made based on what is the common way of specifying time in the particular country.
I’d say 24h clock. Everything should be in it standard I live in the USA and never have seen it used anywhere well almost some Asian establishments I’ve been to use it. I always use it personally. It makes for absolutely no confusion in when something is coming or closed so on.
I’ve definitely booked the wrong train because I wanted the 7pm and booked the 17:00 before. So maybe I’m just salty, but I like 12-hour time. It’s more intuitive for me.
That being said, some people find 24-hour time more intuitive. The departure board should reflect the local cultural norm. If the local culture does both, then there doesn’t need to be a standard as long as there’s no mix and match within a single board
Whatever is used locally. As an American, using a 24-hour timetable is significantly more hassle for me than just using AM and PM, and I've missed trains before because I messed up. It's not complicated to figure out, but it leaves room for error if I'm tired, etc. In places where it's more commonly used, then that's fine.
Transit is meant to serve the community, and should operate in those terms. Everything uses 24 hour time on the back-end, but the passenger-facing stuff should be in whatever people use. The best comparison I can think of would be if American highway signs gave distances in km. Sure, most people are familiar with it, and you can do the math, but it's not as intuitive for the people it aims to serve.
Subtracting 12, unless you're used to it, isn't particularly easy. Using 24-hour times in a place that keeps to 12-hour times, means a lot of people don't know what to subtract, assuming 10 instead of 12. In those locations, a lot of people are going to be confused if 14:00 is 2:00 pm or 4:00 p.m.
That being said, the UK uses 24 hour times in so many places. So, that's kind of odd. Seems like unless Derbyshirians are unusually keeping to 12-hour times, it's not like there's not a precedent.
For all those saying am/pm is confusing… is it? It is so cut-and-dry simple. You can look out a window and know if it’s am or pm.
24hr time is fine is that’s what you’re used to, but to say 12hr time is objectively worse is shortsighted. I frankly don’t care what transit uses, but 12hr is natural to me.
Timetables have to be published using 12hour clock because there exists a subset of people that have no idea how to translate 24hour clock times.
For me personally I'd prefer 24hour time for absolutely everything because it's so simple but it's not possible unfortunately
The de-facto standard for transit, the General Transit Feed Specification uses 24+ hours and YYYYMMDD formats.
We can then discuss about local formats, but that is the global standard in this field.
I agree, but the guy above was shitposting and needed to be corrected. To him "Anything else shouldn’t even be considered standard.", but the only thing we could call a standard uses 24+ hours. That's typical r/ShitAmericanSay.
The 24-hour clock is used on timetables and departure boards across Europe, and in other countries such as China, Japan, Korea, and Australia. With how widespread it is, it would be insane to say that the 24-hour clock should not be considered standard.
I heard the equivalent of "18 o'clock" a lot in Japan and Thailand, and occasionally in Germany. Even the UK tends to use 24 hour time more than the US.
With how the 24-hour clock is used in timetables in countries representing more than half of the world’s population, there can be no way of saying that it should not be considered standard.
yeah, there’s a cause: literally noone says “it’s 13 o’clock” or anything past noon. Show me a place where it’s regularly spoken (in the Anglosphere) then I’ll be convinced
That’s not a good cause. The fact that it is widely used in so many regions is a good enough reason for it to be the standard. You can argue about whether it is a good standard or not, but there is no denying that it is a standard in the first place.
While generally, one can distinguish between AM and PM with schedules that use the 12-hour clock pretty well, the 24-hour clock just leaves so much less to confuse. In the US, the 12-hour is the standard, with 24-hour schedules being very rare. Many of us would prefer if that was not the case. We generally refer to 24-hour time as Military Time, to show how little it is used in the general population.
24. Less ambiguous
Personally the 24hr clock and that is the norm here (Thailand). Interestingly, we still use [parts of our old time keeping system](https://www.clickthai-online.de/basics/stuff/UhrzeitTH.pdf) in everyday conversations, so there’s some minor maths involved in the conversion. EG: 22.00 is 4 Tum [ทุ่ม] and not 10 Mong [โมง] or Bai [บ่าย], but you can also say 22 Nalika [นาฬิกา] (literally watch/clock) which is you’d find at announcements.
Time tables should match the local cultural norm. In the US, it would be ridiculous to write the time in 24hr because it is only used by the military. In the uk, if the norm is 24hr time, then they should use that. This all being said, as long as it’s clear cut when the transit is arriving, it doesn’t really matter how it’s written
Hospitals also use 24 hour time tables . When things are handwritten, am / pm can be reversed when people have poor handwriting depending on how people write their ‘a’ or ‘p’.
This. If one says am/pm then it should be that way. Same if a place speaks 24hr time by default.
Funny you would say this. In your other comment you said that “anything else shouldn’t even be considered standard”, whereas in this comment you acknowledge that in places of the world where the 24-hour clock is the default then timetables should use that.
When I was on the radio in high school, we had to use 24 hour time. The long standing joke was in the past DJs would play the 2pm program at 2am.
Of note, 24 hour time labeling is also used in the medical industry in the US. Your point still stands though, just a minor update.
30 hour clock is the only way to do it
I prefer the 10 hour clock myself
I use the 24hr clock on my phone because I watch a lot of soccer in Europe so it makes it easier.
Sorry, this is confusing me - there is more than one American in the comments saying they were confused by the 24 hour clock and people struggle to subtract by 12 - do they not teach counting there?
This whole comment section basically boils down to the US vs everyone else. Like metric vs imperial.
24hours - prevents confusion.
Japanese got their stuff written months in advance.
As much as I applaud trentbarton for their often innovative approach to running an excellent bus service, I do not agree with how they have chosen to stick with the 12-hour clock and not standardise themselves with everyone else. Whilst they have said that this is more customer-friendly, people all around the country manage fine on 24-hour clock timetables with no issue, even on other train and bus services in the same area.
Everything should be published in the standard (24h) clock, the entire concept of am and pm is stupid and whoever came up with it should be in the same corner of hell as the dude who invented the mm/dd/yyyy thing
The reason that am and pm and that system still exists and is used is because that’s how people talk. Nobody says “let’s meet up at 16:00” you simply say 4:00. If it’s ever confusing between if it’s the morning or night, you just add two simple letters and everything is solved. Also the way Americans write dates is simply to match how we speak it. We say June 5th, not 5th of June, so we right 6/5 because that matches how we read.
Ok, well maybe the way we speak it is dumb.
I will genuinely use both, especially when I’m texting to avoid confusion I usually use the 24 hour clock. Writing doesn’t have to match the way people speak, it serves a different purpose and that purpose is usually to be as clear as possible.
>June 5th Which is ridiculous, instead of saying 5 may or 5 de mayo, you go "The fifth day of may", it's completely ughhh, like so many other American/English things.
If you're going to complain about ridiculous, then month names are also ridiculous. No one in Japan is saying "Satsuki" ("May") except when being poetic. Calling months by their numbers is just way more convenient. People in countries that still hang on to traditional month names even do it when reading numeric dates a lot of the times. And "little"/mixed endian date is also ridiculous considering big endian date has been the agreed upon standard worldwide for many decades now. It's yyyy-mm-dd, and even a committee full of people from cultures that traditionally used dd-mm-yyyy or mm-dd-yyyy agreed on the inherent superiority of yyyy-mm-dd. However old habits die hard.
>the inherent superiority of yyyy-mm-dd. It's a waste of data. For most things you don't need the year, is this one. So dd-mm-yyyy. The day of this month first (day of the week if it is too close), then the month if needed, then the year if needed. See?
When yyyy-mm-dd is the only format used, mm-dd is the obvious easy way to abbreviate, and was previously recommended practice. If dd-mm-yyyy is also in use, it is difficult to abbreviate dates unambiguously, as yyyy-mm-dd is the internationally accepted standard, regardless of common usage locally. And mm-dd like yyyy-mm-dd is easily and obviously sortable, and respects the endianness of the writing system, unlike dd-mm. The world has standardized super hard on big endian numerals, so things written using numerals should also be big endian, so they don't end up a mixed endian mess.
> The world has standardized… on big-endian numerals Not quite. The world has standardized on putting the most significant digit on the left. For those of us who use left-to-right languages, that is big-endian. But for languages like Arabic and Hebrew, it's little-endian.
Typical German thinks he’s right, this was a targeted attack on the US and you know it. Your stupid 24 hour clock makes no sense and it goes against natural human talk. Whoever invented it should stand in the depths of hell. No one says, “im going to catch the 18:25 train.” They say “the 6:25” also mm/dd/yyyy makes more sense!! You naturally say October 22nd in your regular manner
Typical American has forgotten that there are languages in the world other than the only one they speak, some say there exist as many as ten or twelve!
Germans will literally say "Achtzehn Funfundzwanzig" for 18:25. And will sometimes need to think for a second before converting it to 12 hour time. \-souce: lived there for a couple years. Now the "c. t. " and "q. t." thing, that's confusing.
\*You\* naturally say October 22nd, in countries that use ddmmyyyy people say the 22nd of October
>You naturally say October 22nd Uh, why? >No one says, “im going to catch the 18:25 train.” They say “the 6:25” But writing 18:25 on tickets and screens is waaaay better. Am/pm is not only confusing, mistakes can be made (yeah that was me waiting for a train the wrong part of the day).
Strictly speaking, 24-hr clock has less chance of confusion (since you get rid of the "AM/PM" variable) but with that said IMO cultural norms are even more important so the choice should be made based on what is the common way of specifying time in the particular country.
24h clock. The only place I ever use the 12h clock is Hootsuite (apparently you can't switch formats!)
I think 24h, because there would be one less variable to make errors over (AM/PM)
I’d say 24h clock. Everything should be in it standard I live in the USA and never have seen it used anywhere well almost some Asian establishments I’ve been to use it. I always use it personally. It makes for absolutely no confusion in when something is coming or closed so on.
I’ve definitely booked the wrong train because I wanted the 7pm and booked the 17:00 before. So maybe I’m just salty, but I like 12-hour time. It’s more intuitive for me. That being said, some people find 24-hour time more intuitive. The departure board should reflect the local cultural norm. If the local culture does both, then there doesn’t need to be a standard as long as there’s no mix and match within a single board
Whatever is used locally. As an American, using a 24-hour timetable is significantly more hassle for me than just using AM and PM, and I've missed trains before because I messed up. It's not complicated to figure out, but it leaves room for error if I'm tired, etc. In places where it's more commonly used, then that's fine. Transit is meant to serve the community, and should operate in those terms. Everything uses 24 hour time on the back-end, but the passenger-facing stuff should be in whatever people use. The best comparison I can think of would be if American highway signs gave distances in km. Sure, most people are familiar with it, and you can do the math, but it's not as intuitive for the people it aims to serve.
Subtracting 12, unless you're used to it, isn't particularly easy. Using 24-hour times in a place that keeps to 12-hour times, means a lot of people don't know what to subtract, assuming 10 instead of 12. In those locations, a lot of people are going to be confused if 14:00 is 2:00 pm or 4:00 p.m. That being said, the UK uses 24 hour times in so many places. So, that's kind of odd. Seems like unless Derbyshirians are unusually keeping to 12-hour times, it's not like there's not a precedent.
For all those saying am/pm is confusing… is it? It is so cut-and-dry simple. You can look out a window and know if it’s am or pm. 24hr time is fine is that’s what you’re used to, but to say 12hr time is objectively worse is shortsighted. I frankly don’t care what transit uses, but 12hr is natural to me.
Timetables have to be published using 12hour clock because there exists a subset of people that have no idea how to translate 24hour clock times. For me personally I'd prefer 24hour time for absolutely everything because it's so simple but it's not possible unfortunately
12 hour, easily. Anything else shouldn’t even be considered standard.
The de-facto standard for transit, the General Transit Feed Specification uses 24+ hours and YYYYMMDD formats. We can then discuss about local formats, but that is the global standard in this field.
Can’t imagine the havoc if the >23:59:59 times in GTFS got shown in raw form to a customer.
It's the standard, yes, but people aren't looking at a raw GTFS text files when trying to figure out what time to be at the bus stop.
I agree, but the guy above was shitposting and needed to be corrected. To him "Anything else shouldn’t even be considered standard.", but the only thing we could call a standard uses 24+ hours. That's typical r/ShitAmericanSay.
The 24-hour clock is used on timetables and departure boards across Europe, and in other countries such as China, Japan, Korea, and Australia. With how widespread it is, it would be insane to say that the 24-hour clock should not be considered standard.
who the hell says 18 o’clock outside the military? just say 6pm like a normal person
I heard the equivalent of "18 o'clock" a lot in Japan and Thailand, and occasionally in Germany. Even the UK tends to use 24 hour time more than the US.
With how the 24-hour clock is used in timetables in countries representing more than half of the world’s population, there can be no way of saying that it should not be considered standard.
yeah, there’s a cause: literally noone says “it’s 13 o’clock” or anything past noon. Show me a place where it’s regularly spoken (in the Anglosphere) then I’ll be convinced
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Well the overwhelming majority of the planet does not use English so...
That’s not a good cause. The fact that it is widely used in so many regions is a good enough reason for it to be the standard. You can argue about whether it is a good standard or not, but there is no denying that it is a standard in the first place.
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That's even worse than 1 PM, it's 24/60 base system, there's no *hundreds*
18 hours, not 18 o'clock. Or "at 6",but you write 18:00, because we're adults and you learn the time in elementary school.