In message , at 13:45:47
on Wed, 16 Sep 2015, David Cantrell remarked:

It gets even more amusing when they run out of time to put the slips out

Virgin's LCD displays above each seat are a great improvement.

No they aren't. You can't see from the platform how many seats are
reserved in the carriage, and once seated you can't see what the
reservations are.
--
Roland Perry

Someone Somewhere wrote:


That it might be, but it's such a significant discount that it would be
annoying to rock up and pay the full fare only to get on to find the
train full of smug pensioners who had paid a mere pittance who would
normally go a different route to save money at a cost of time.


Or maybe they'd just go the same route and pay more. In any case they don't
get reserved seats, so you've just got to beat them through the door when
the train arrives.

What is does do is destroy the case for taking the Heathrow Connect.


Heathrow Connect is intended (or was originally, at any rate) for local
traffic to the airport.


Anna Noyd-Dryver

In article , (Roland Perry)
wrote:

In message , at
13:45:47 on Wed, 16 Sep 2015, David Cantrell
remarked:

It gets even more amusing when they run out of time to put the slips
out

Virgin's LCD displays above each seat are a great improvement.

No they aren't. You can't see from the platform how many seats are
reserved in the carriage, and once seated you can't see what the
reservations are.

Totally agree with Roland. You don't know if they are only reserved for part
of a journey or if they are a no show. Also very hard to read from any
angle. It was a good idea to have an electronic system for labour saving
maybe but this implementation is abysmal. It seems far too common that
reservations are not downloaded until after passengers have started
boarding, as I found out at Euston once.

--
Colin Rosenstiel

On 2015-09-16 20:51:31 +0000, said:

Totally agree with Roland. You don't know if they are only reserved for part
of a journey

You do, because they say so.

or if they are a no show. Also very hard to read from any
angle. It was a good idea to have an electronic system for labour saving
maybe but this implementation is abysmal.

The problem with it is that it's an IT system designed and built in the
late 1990s, and so is 20 years out of date.

Neil
--
Neil Williams
Put my first name before the @ to reply.

In message , at 10:14:20 on Thu, 17
Sep 2015, Neil Williams remarked:
Totally agree with Roland. You don't know if they are only reserved for part
of a journey

You do, because they say so.

Yes, I think they do.

or if they are a no show. Also very hard to read from any
angle. It was a good idea to have an electronic system for labour saving
maybe but this implementation is abysmal.

The problem with it is that it's an IT system designed and built in the
late 1990s, and so is 20 years out of date.

When I was at Heathrow T2 last week I was surprised to see that there
was a CCTV camera for *every* space in the car park. One of the side
effects (although they could do it with less intrusive technology) was
that empty spaces had a green light above them, so you could see from
afar, down each aisle, whether or not there was somewhere to park.

Trains could have some system linked to checking if a seat was occupied
(although their are issues if people put bags on seats) and have
coloured lights above indicating (eg) Green for empty, Orange for
empty-but reserved, and nothing for occupied. Or maybe red for occupied
and in the foreseeable future a reservation pending.
--
Roland Perry

On 2015-09-17 10:01:22 +0000, Roland Perry said:

When I was at Heathrow T2 last week I was surprised to see that there
was a CCTV camera for *every* space in the car park. One of the side
effects (although they could do it with less intrusive technology) was
that empty spaces had a green light above them, so you could see from
afar, down each aisle, whether or not there was somewhere to park.

That's "sensor parking". The camera is probably just detecting
presence, rather than being recorded. There's a similar one in Milton
Keynes, the sensors are just metal detectors and feed back (a) which
spaces are free, and (b) direct wardens to overstayers.

Trains could have some system linked to checking if a seat was occupied
(although their are issues if people put bags on seats) and have
coloured lights above indicating (eg) Green for empty, Orange for
empty-but reserved, and nothing for occupied. Or maybe red for occupied
and in the foreseeable future a reservation pending.

Would be an option I suppose.

Neil
--
Neil Williams
Put my first name before the @ to reply.

In message , at 13:11:49 on Thu, 17
Sep 2015, Neil Williams remarked:

When I was at Heathrow T2 last week I was surprised to see that there
was a CCTV camera for *every* space in the car park. One of the side
effects (although they could do it with less intrusive technology) was
that empty spaces had a green light above them, so you could see from
afar, down each aisle, whether or not there was somewhere to park.

That's "sensor parking". The camera is probably just detecting
presence, rather than being recorded.

Yeah, right.
--
Roland Perry

On Thu, 17 Sep 2015 11:01:22 +0100, Roland Perry wrote:
Trains could have some system linked to checking if a seat was occupied
(although their are issues if people put bags on seats) and have
coloured lights above indicating (eg) Green for empty, Orange for
empty-but reserved, and nothing for occupied. Or maybe red for occupied
and in the foreseeable future a reservation pending.

TfL have something similar for bus top deck seat occupancy in trial:
http://metro.co.uk/2015/04/09/good-n...-seat-5141564/

Shorter seat backs though.

On Thu, 17 Sep 2015 13:11:49 +0100, Neil Williams wrote:
On 2015-09-17 10:01:22 +0000, Roland Perry said:

When I was at Heathrow T2 last week I was surprised to see that there
was a CCTV camera for *every* space in the car park. One of the side
effects (although they could do it with less intrusive technology) was
that empty spaces had a green light above them, so you could see from
afar, down each aisle, whether or not there was somewhere to park.

That's "sensor parking". The camera is probably just detecting
presence, rather than being recorded. There's a similar one in Milton
Keynes, the sensors are just metal detectors and feed back (a) which
spaces are free, and (b) direct wardens to overstayers.

The Westfield Stratford version OCRs your numberplate so it can tell
you where you have parked if you have forgotten.

On 2015-09-17 12:59:19 +0000, Roland Perry said:

Yeah, right.

Not all CCTV cameras record things. To suggest they do is paranoia.

They may not even be cameras, they may simply be ANPR or presence detection.

Neil
--
Neil Williams
Put my first name before the @ to reply.