Whilst on holiday recently my wife and I visited Liverpool's Albert Dock area. As lunch time approached we checked out the various eateries and selected the Revolution Bar which had a promising menu and being a Monday they were running an offer of half price on all food which was good (though to be fair some of the others offered similar offers so it was not unique)
Entering the bar it certainly seemed popular but not what I would call full and we had no problem finding a table. Shortly after taking our seats we were approached by a waitress whose opening greeting was 'It is about a thirty minute wait for food, as we have the Monday offer on'. This was not a promising start but we decided that that would be acceptable as we could have a drink and relax after much walking. She took our drinks order and disappeared.
Foolishly we expected she would shortly return with the drinks and then take the food order - how wrong could we be! After about half an hour we had still not received any drinks and there was a distinct absence of staff to assist us.
Given that we had been warned it was a thirty minute wait for food, and our order hadn't even been taken we decided we had had enough and went to find another bar to eat in. As we were leaving we heard an American couple commenting as they were paying their bill that it had taken two and a half hours for them to get a 'quick' bite to eat. Another table were also complaining that the thirty minute delay appeared to be somewhat under quoted.
I should have checked with Trip Advisor or other review sites before we went, as the reviews are somewhat mixed and it seems to be rated highly for drinks but somewhat lower for food. In particular there are a number of people who commented on the wait for food and in some cases they had to send it back as it was cold or had some other problem.
Given that the next bar we went to also had a deal on for meals but was able to serve them in a reasonable timescale (and the food was good) it is clear that it can be done. Revolution needs to get it's act together and if the offer is to continue they should make sure they can cope with the increased custom.
The availability of sites such as Trip Advisor (to which I have no connections) mean that where once poor service was reported by word of mouth, now it can spread much faster and wider. In future I will check even for bars and restaurants - easy with modern smart phones - and not just for hotels and holiday destinations.
Lesson learned!
Sunday, September 30, 2012
Thursday, September 27, 2012
Bus Chaos
In a recent publication from our local council I was initially pleased to hear that they are proposing to add smart ticketing across the city for the bus services.
As a curmudgeon who has long been hoping for such a thing to spread as this should make life easier for people and perhaps increase the takeup of public transport I was optimistic.
Unfortunately my optimism was to be unfounded. As I could not find any details either in the document, or on the web links it gave I emailed the public transport coordinator for the council.
It turns out that phase one is for a 'smart' paper ticket! Basically a day rover ticket that will be accepted on the two major operators in the city and only valid on the day of purchase. Not exactly what I would call smart ticketing. No mention of whether the smaller operators would accept it either.
Phase two however is equally disappointing - this will consist of smart card tickets, with each operator issuing their own.
One of these operators already has as smart card ticket scheme and reading between the lines it appears they are not prepared to make any changes so the second operator will have to adopt their scheme or they will 'take their ball home'!
As yet however there are no clear plans to make them compatible between the operators, apparently this will be left to the individual companies to negotiate and the council seem to have no plans to mediate. This seems ridiculous as there is a standard navailable (ITSO) for both the hardware elements (cards and readers) and the software.
At present, we have up to two years to wait to see what develops.
As I was now in bus mode, I decided to also query the signs which are appearing at the bus stops which simply report the time of the next bus based on the timetable.
Apparently the system was intended to use real time tracking from the buses, using a system developed by another county. That county then scrapped the system forcing a rethink and partnership with yet another county.
This latest system does not yet integrate to GPS tracking from the buses and this is under development. This is why we get the timetabled times. When the GPS tracking is enabled it will display minutes to the next bus if available or the fallback is the timetable data as at present.
Having visited the county where it is running and seen it in action I can see it works. I suppose the next question I shall have to ask is why is the integration taking so long?
As a curmudgeon who has long been hoping for such a thing to spread as this should make life easier for people and perhaps increase the takeup of public transport I was optimistic.
Unfortunately my optimism was to be unfounded. As I could not find any details either in the document, or on the web links it gave I emailed the public transport coordinator for the council.
It turns out that phase one is for a 'smart' paper ticket! Basically a day rover ticket that will be accepted on the two major operators in the city and only valid on the day of purchase. Not exactly what I would call smart ticketing. No mention of whether the smaller operators would accept it either.
Phase two however is equally disappointing - this will consist of smart card tickets, with each operator issuing their own.
One of these operators already has as smart card ticket scheme and reading between the lines it appears they are not prepared to make any changes so the second operator will have to adopt their scheme or they will 'take their ball home'!
As yet however there are no clear plans to make them compatible between the operators, apparently this will be left to the individual companies to negotiate and the council seem to have no plans to mediate. This seems ridiculous as there is a standard navailable (ITSO) for both the hardware elements (cards and readers) and the software.
At present, we have up to two years to wait to see what develops.
As I was now in bus mode, I decided to also query the signs which are appearing at the bus stops which simply report the time of the next bus based on the timetable.
Apparently the system was intended to use real time tracking from the buses, using a system developed by another county. That county then scrapped the system forcing a rethink and partnership with yet another county.
This latest system does not yet integrate to GPS tracking from the buses and this is under development. This is why we get the timetabled times. When the GPS tracking is enabled it will display minutes to the next bus if available or the fallback is the timetable data as at present.
Having visited the county where it is running and seen it in action I can see it works. I suppose the next question I shall have to ask is why is the integration taking so long?
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