Meet 'Cal North,' the Imaginary Direction-Giver of 511

Would you trust city directions from this man -- or someone who sounded like him?

​As a daily 511 caller, your humble narrator always finds himself pondering two questions while waiting for his morning train:

1. Who is this person telling me the next N-Judah is 18 minutes off?

2. Why is there music playing behind him that sounds like the opening bars to "Material Girl"?

After putting in a call to 511 -- the people who run the service, not the number -- I'm pleased to tell you that the answers to these questions are coming in 1 minute, 3, minutes, and 14 minutes. Sorry. Had to do it.

It turns out the persona of the automated voice telling you when your train isn't arriving was created -- like the universe itself -- via a focus group.

"The idea was that people told us they wanted to be able to tap into this resource like a trusted uncle or friend," explained Carol Kuester, the program manager for 511. That inspired the fictional character "Cal North," who is "an older gentleman, a boy scout, a retired person who is knowledgeable and trustworthy."

Wait -- it gets more detailed. "Cal North" -- again, not a real person, but the persona of the voice you hear when calling 511 -- is "an ex-Highway Patrol officer with 20 years experience. Cal is the epitome of the knowledgeable source of all transportation information," according to Jim Macrae, 511's senior program coordinator. To top it off, "Cal" has "a hint of a rural California accent" and is "warm [and] persuasive without ever being pushy."

Most of the older, retired transit mavens I know would be more likely to tell me what line I could have taken to get to someplace that's no longer there. But we digress. Cal's doing a fine job. Though, since your humble narrator used to do voice work himself, it rankles when Cal hears our stop ID number -- 14448 -- as 14480. Of course, if he really is an older gent, then maybe he has an excuse (though we'd feel better if he said things like "What, my hearing aid's batteries are dead. You want to go where?").

Finally, while Cal North is a focus-group creation, his voice-provider, Bob Hesse, is not. In fact, Hess has parlayed his success as the voice of the Bay Area's 511 into becoming the voice of San Diego's equivalent and gigs back east, too.

One more question, though: Since Cal North is supposedly and old, retired cop, what's with the throbbing 1980s music behind him?

"Our interactive voice recognition (IVR) vendor, Nuance, made the recommendation," says Macrae "They said it was standard for IVR systems to have some type of music. The purpose is to make it clear to the caller that he is using an automated system and not calling a live person."

Fair enough. But we wouldn't trust directions from someone who listened to music like that.