I am sitting on a Voyager as I type this. It would appear that XC have finally consulted some humans on how their reservation screens should work. They have replaced the scrolling 'This seat is not reserved' with a static 'Available' and 'This seat is available until #' with 'Reserved from #'. This is much better as you can easily see what seats are free without standing in the aisle for half and hour while it scrolls past and they had got rid of the unessisaraly long wording from the other. What I don't understand is why so many of the screens are blank. Is this because both seats are available (although I see a few lit ones which are both available) or are they just broken? Why has it taken XC do long to change these as they have been a problem for ages and are are they rolling out the changes slowly?
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XC Voyager reservations done right - finally
- Thread starter ajdunlop
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eastwestdivide
Established Member
Funnily enough I was thinking about this the other week. The advantage of the old style cards is you can glance down the carriage and see where the unreserved seats are. Disadvantage now is that many seats backs are so high that you can't see the unoccupied ones.
Off-the-wall suggestion, how about tiny traffic light LEDs for each seat, green for unreserved, amber for reserved for part of the journey and red for reserved for all the journey. Plus sensors in the seats which change unreserved greens to amber when they're being sat on.
Off-the-wall suggestion, how about tiny traffic light LEDs for each seat, green for unreserved, amber for reserved for part of the journey and red for reserved for all the journey. Plus sensors in the seats which change unreserved greens to amber when they're being sat on.
route:oxford
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Or when a heavy case is on them.
heart-of-wessex
Established Member
Yay about time! I hate standing in the aisle for half an hour waiting to see if it's reserved...I always get to the screen in time to see the last letter roll off!
Then I end up causing a tailback waiting for each screen to show what is and isn't available
Then I end up causing a tailback waiting for each screen to show what is and isn't available
Although the paper ones are easy to see the electronic ones do have advantages for the TOC in terms of them being set up automatically and reservations can be added enroute. The problem is how poorly the Voyager ones where implemented. Scrolling and especially at that speed was a terrible idea and that's where the Pendillino ones are better. I think ideally a non scrolling display on the top of the head rests would be the way to go as they would be in a more obvious location and it does make it more obvious if they are referring to the window or aisle seat.
These are advantages for the TOC, but not necessarily the passenger!
I don't know how true this is but according to an email response from XC I had about their reservations, sometimes the data doesn't download properly due to "reception"! And this causes blank screens. This is a particular problem in Plymouth apparently and they are working on a solution.
They can be advantageous to the passenger too, if disruption leads to a quick turn around then reservations can still be shown rather than being abandoned and adding enroute allows for making reservations after the train has left its departure point.
If the displays where better then it would be easier (than paper slips) to quickly find a seat which isn't reserved until later in the journey than your destination or reserved for an earlier part of the journey without having to go down the train struggling to read each of the reservation slips. This is mostly a problem on a heavily reserved train with a long journey with many calling points, e.g. Most of XCs routes.
DarloRich
Veteran Member
I have one they can have for, oh lets say £100K:
1) Man in office takes pen
2) Man then Writes on bit of paper all of the reservation detials
3) Man gives gaurd said reservation recording system
4) Gaurd (or man - flexible working in action!) inputs data!
For £250k they can have a high tech solution - almost the same but using a computer, MS Word and a printer
This consultancy lark is easy!
The viyager system is most annoying!
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