TransWikia.com

‘call at’ vs ‘stop at’ vs ‘serve’

English Language & Usage Asked by andrewsh on December 9, 2020

I work part-time for a local public transport company translating diversion notices and other announcements to English to help foreigners in general and tourists stay up to date with the changes, road works etc.

I often struggle when choosing a particular expression to use: in general I prefer the UK English in my everyday communication and also this is what I tend to use when doing this work, but I do acknowledge some terms used in the UK are UK-specific and are not widely recognised or known outside of it.

One of such terms is call at. I’ve not used it yet for describing route changes, because I (as a non-native English speaker) remember myself being a bit confused about it when I heard it for the first time, so I usually write:

services to X are diverted via Y and Z stopping at Stop 1, Stop 2 and a temporary stop Temporary Stop

Sometimes I use the verb serve:

diverted via X serving all stops along the diversion route

the following stops are only served by services to X: …

Sometimes I use both:

Services to X don’t serve Y, stopping at the Z stop

However, when I check announcements e.g. TfL publishes, they often use terms such as calling at X, Y, Z, missing P, Q, R (I use skipping for this one).
Should I continue avoiding calling at (and maybe missing) or are my fears of the readers not understanding this unsubstantiated?

Add your own answers!

Ask a Question

Get help from others!

© 2024 TransWikia.com. All rights reserved. Sites we Love: PCI Database, UKBizDB, Menu Kuliner, Sharing RPP