Waiting hall

Waiting hall in Paris-Charles de Gaulle airport

Bus shelter ( shelter ) of a train station

Former bus shelter for the BGM tram in Bonn (listed)

Waiting house at the bus stop in Werda / Vogtland

A waiting hall , waiting room , waiting room and bus shelter is a space that travelers use as a lounge until they continue their journey.

The different terms are used for classification:

The purpose of a bus shelter that is closed on at least three sides is to provide protection from wind, weather and cold; the minimum equipment is seating.

A waiting hall or waiting room with the character of a reception building , often in connection with service rooms ( signal box , travel center or ticket office , baggage handling , etc.) offers more comfort . They mostly also offered a gastronomic offer. In the past, these waiting rooms were usually only accessible to passengers with a ticket ; this was also necessary because crime sometimes developed in the waiting rooms: for example, the well-known serial killer Fritz Haarmann preferred to look for his victims in the waiting rooms of Hanover Central Station .

The luxury variant, which is only available to a select group of travelers, is the lounge . When the system of carriage classes on the railroad was even more differentiated, there were often different waiting rooms in larger stations for the passengers of the different classes, where the food and beverages offered were in accordance with the financial possibilities of the guests. There is now such a separation with the “ DB Lounge ” at some train stations.

Bus shelter

Bus shelters often serve as advertising media and are sometimes financed by advertising revenues. The smallest variants can be found in the countryside at bus stops . They are sometimes lovingly designed by the residents from a wide variety of materials (natural wood, stone, corrugated iron).

The bus shelter that is most common today is actually not a cottage , but rather a shelter made using glass . It often makes sense to design it so that a side advertising space is only on the right hand side ("in the direction of travel"). As a result, the view against the direction of travel remains unobstructed and those waiting can see their means of transport approaching or be seen by its driver without leaving the shelter.

A well- furnished stop includes a timetable board , waste paper basket , bench or individual seats and, if possible, bike racks for bike-and-ride . Its basic functions include a level contact area when the terrain slopes down next to the road, a railing to lean on, a step to indicate the limit of safe standing and to facilitate boarding, rain protection and shading from the sun through a canopy, wind protection at least through a simply angled wall. In Graz, waiting shelters are being built by the advertising company Ankünder, in Vienna by the Gewista company . Because of vandalism and theft, the attempt in Vienna to equip public transport shelters with illuminated station names was canceled after 40 stops.

Because of their protective function, bus shelters often serve as a place of residence for people without permanent residence . Since these are often perceived as threatening by waiting passengers or they are feared pollution caused by them, conflicts sometimes arise. Therefore, attempts are often made to make the bus shelter as unattractive as possible for such people through structural measures. Instead of benches with a continuous seat, individual seats with armrests in between are used, on which one cannot lie and which therefore cannot serve as a place to sleep.

Waiting room as a metaphor

The term “waiting room” is often used metaphorically in the artistic field . Here are some examples of titles:

“ Who is in the waiting room of love ”, song by the Swedish pop group ABBA
“Waiting room of dreams”, song by the Cologne dialect music group Höhner
“Waiting room for little happiness”, screenplay by Felix Huby
“ In the waiting room for great happiness ”, hit title by Walter Andreas Schwarz
“In the waiting room of history”, book title by Marion Gräfin Dönhoff
"In the songwriters' waiting room", film title by Jürgen Lodemann
“Courage to face life in the waiting room”, book title on the subject of Displaced Person by Angelika Königseder and Juliane Wetzel
“Waiting room”, trilogy of novels by Lion Feuchtwanger and the title of a magazine by Max Aub

photos

Bus stop shelter in glass construction
Sheremetyevo Airport waiting hall , Russia
Waiting room in Leipzig Central Station
Bus shelter for the Rhine ferry Ellikon – Nack on the German side
The dance of the hour , thematically matching painting in the waiting room of the Biel / Bienne train station by Philippe Robert