German district seeks locals to be new voice for bus announcements

A local authority in Germany has called on residents to step forward for the chance to become the voice of its bus service. If you live in Prignitz it might be your time to shine…

Prignitz bus service looking for its voice

The district of Prignitz in northwestern Brandenburg is about to bring its buses back under the control of the municipality. Prignitz isn’t just getting new buses, but also a new announcement system.

The municipality has announced that it doesn’t want to use AI, or even a trained voice actor, to create the new messages which will accompany passengers on their daily journeys. Instead, they are appealing to locals to be the new voice of the bus service.

“We don’t want to hear a standard voice, but the real voice of the people who live here,” Prignitz representative Gina Werthe explained, according to a report by rbb. Applicants should be at least 18 years old, or require written permission from their parents, and should live in Prignitz.

Interested parties should send the municipality a voice message via Instagram or WhatsApp. The messages will be collected and considered by Verkehrsgesellschaft Prignitz, the local transport association.

What makes an excellent transport announcement voice?

Prignitz has some tips for locals aspiring to be immortalised as the local bus service voice. “It is important that the announcer is understandable and has a pleasant voice,” the municipality explained.

Prignitz is also open to the idea of introducing transport announcements in dialect, but says this will be decided on a case-by-case basis. The municipality plans to select more than one person to voice the announcements, and ideally one per commune. Ideally, as the bus rolls through Wittenberge, someone from Wittenberge would be making the stop announcements.

Once the new voices of the bus service are selected, the municipality must record announcements for around 700 stops before August 1, 2026. “Prignitzers should be a part of bringing the buses back into municipal control,” Werthe added, “so that they can see themselves reflected in the public transport system.”