Transition Culture

Totally agree with your comments. This is unashamed commercialism. Unascapably invasive. Not being able to turn them off is a step too far. It doesn’t respect a train-users right to mentally escape and collect one’s self, which often is a core reason for train travel…simply to turn off and let the world go by.

Tv’s on trains is simply outdated and out of step with current trends of mobile device watching!

Great western…think about your core values.

Great Rant. I was about to book a train to Penzance so perhaps I’ll drive instead. Oh No, that means the choice is Climate Change, more oil, Volo.TV or stay at home. Transition can be tough sometimes!

Hi, I saw your tweet. Please give me the opportunity to explain where we are coming from. Email me and I will let you have my number.

Kind regards

Paul
Managing Director
Volo Tv & Media Ltd

Also, in the meantime, please have a look at:

http://www.billgbennett.com/2010/05/volo-tv-update.html

http://www.mukaumedia.co.uk/online-reputation-management-case-study-volotv/

We are trying to do good but accept TV is not for everyone. Hope to speak to you soon.

Paul

Dear Paul,

I have checked out the links you have sent, and certainly it would appear that your customer service is very efficient. Although the posts you link to say that the ability to turn the screens off has now changed, that wasn’t my experience yesterday. Also, I’m sure that you run a company staffed by good people, but there is something, for me at least, abhorrent about the idea of TV on trains. Nobody needs it. Very few people want it, and as one of the links states, you only need 7% of passengers to use it for it to be viable. A model that assumes 93% of passengers likely won’t use it may make commercial sense, but my point is does that minority of people have the right to invade the quiet and ability to choose how I entertain myself that I expect from a train journey? Even if your company were a zero-carbon, deeply ethical organisation, it is the product you have developed that I question. Indeed, I would argue that a truly ethical organisation wouldn’t actually propose such a product. We are assaulted from all angles every day by uninvited advertising, images and media, and, until now, the train was a place you could get away from all that…. thanks for getting in touch, be good to hear your thoughts….

Sales in 2ft squares of blackout cloth could go through the roof…..

Cheers – John

I look on with interest at the outcome of this as a person very affected by visual pollution I find it harder and harder to go places (cafes pubs etc) without screens.
And just think of the environmental impact of all those screens and maintaining them!
Paul I think you should watch this http://www.storyofstuff.com/

One answer to that Volo problem is a small piece of paper just a bit larger than the screen, with a piece of masking tape on all corners–all of which gives the term “masking” a new dimension.

As for sound, locate the speaker(s) and find a way to plug them.

And if it is really obnoxious, a piece of heavy fabric that can cover the whole unit, screen and speakers as well.

The main point is that there is the democratic right to all information, and we also have the right (and responsibility) to be able to choose what we want.

Tom

Rob, the screens are programmed to go on after the train as stopped then starts again. This is in case you leave the train and a new passenger gets on.

Rob, please do email me so we can have a chat “face to face” to at least give me the opportunity to explain how the project came about and feedback from Passenger Focus who, to be fair, were not sure until they tried it. Then they were blown away. Feel free to call them.

Have any of you tried the system? I dare you to have a go. Email me and I’ll send you a free code.

This is much more that just TV in trains. By the way there is no advertising and it’s only on one carriage.

Paul

Strangely enough, Monbiot argued for exactly this kind of technology in ‘Heat’ four years ago.

Be careful what you wish for!

I do commend Paul on his fast and friendly customer service response since we expressed our displeasure with (conveniently) VoloTV-sized Post-it notes and masking tape a couple of months ago

I think we need to be clear about what’s at issue here. VoloTV may make money on 7% take-up, but at what cost?

The important question for Paul Soor is this: for what proportion of those NOT buying the VoloTV service does it overstep the mark to a point where they complain to First Great Western?

In my feedback to Paul I tried to point out very clearly how I considered VoloTV had (at the time we encountered it) crossed two very important boundaries – each of which compounded the other. The first was the unwelcome addition of a screen to an already cramped personal space. The second was a permanently ‘on’ setting. Even with the ‘back on after every station’ setting, you have the potential for a explosive customer reaction.

If this reaction appears unreasonable to Paul, it may be because he underestimates the cumulative effect of those two issues. That’s understandable. When you’re behind a project and really want it to work, it can be very hard to see it from someone other peoples’ points of view.

I still don’t think the ‘on after every station’ is a good move (sorry, Paul, I know the pressure you’re under to keep it that way), nor will be extending this system to other carriages (if that’s what is planned). It’s not a good move from my personal perspective (I don’t personally need or want the service) or, potentially, for the majority of passengers who also do not want it.

Being commercially realistic here, the fact is that Paul will continue to install this system when and wherever he can get more than his 7% return and where an operator will permit it. As a businessman, why wouldn’t he? Ultimately, therefore, it will be down to First Great Western to decide whether VoloTV will extend beyond coach D and then whether the majority of passengers who don’t want VoloTV in the seat back in front of them switching on after every station feel it adds value to their journey experience or not.

Much as I enjoyed meeting Paul and respect his professionalism and customer service, the answer for me is still ‘no’.

I share Nicole Brammy’s concerns about the environmental impact of all those screens, especially if 93% might never be used. Everyone should watch the Story of Stuff. This is just another reasons for seeking out the quiet carriage but having been forced to hear the buzzing from brain dead/illiterate travellers listening to their hifi through cheap headphones, I’m not sure if these are always that quiet. Do they not realise their music is echoing round their skulls and still getting out.

@Paul Soor as this conversation began in an open social space it seems correct, that if you wish to carry it on, that you carry it on on this space.

Easy. Get a huge white stickers and stick them over several of the screens

Duct Tape, my boy… Duct Tape!

Having had a lot of hospital treatment over the last year I’ve been ranting about TV’s in hospital waiting rooms, no one’s watching them, you can rarely hear them, they’re just an irritating interuption to reading time. An easy way to cut some money from NHS funds, switch them all off.

Lovely rant. I do agree about the annoying intrusion of these things. It is almost impossible not to be drawn to the colored moving images on the screen. It’s hypnotic and addictive and extremely unhealthy. You have to be brain dead to require “entertainment” of any sort. But modern young people are weaned on this stuff and know no other life, and they expect to find gadgets like this wherever they go.

Hello James, fair point.

I have been working on this project for many years to get to this stage and all of us in the business are passionate about rail – I joined British Rail 20 years ago. The project is funded by us so there will never be any effect on the ticket price or the safe and reliable operation of the trains by FGW. We are nearly half way through the fleet installation (one “entertainment carriage” per train set) so are getting lots of feedback good and bad. To some extent what I think does not matter, but what you guys think does. So however you word your feedback, it is welcome and needed. I do listen and I do care what you think, so please keep it coming. Thankfully we have designed the system such that we can easily make changes to react to customer feedback. Indeed in a couple of week we should have a new interface where we will remove the rolling video because it annoys people. There will also be other improvement based on customer feedback.

I was hoping to speak to Rob to explain this and more about Volo because I’m not the best at sitting and tapping away at the keyboard – I’m old fashioned and happier talking to people. But, hey, in this new world of on-line social media, what do I know!

If any of you think you may want to try the system to see what all the fuss is about, please get in touch and I’ll send you a free code. To date, everyone who thought they knew what it was all about, has been surprised when they actually use it. That’s not a dig at you guys, but the fact this kind of system/service has never been done on trains before must mean it’s different. Hope that makes sense. I must get this in because I’m very proud of it – the ease of use, picture and sound quality is way better than any in flight entertainment system, or dare I say it, an iPhone!

I look forward to more feedback, especially ideas.

Kind regards

Paul

I saw this last week on a train from Reading to London, it was horrible. I only figured out how to turn it off at the end, then it came on again.

I was thinking of how to make it stop annoying me, a piece of cloth is a much better idea than what I was thinking, stop sit without vandalising.

Would it be worth paying the money just to get it to stop? Perhaps Paul should give us a code to make it stop. Please.

I should add that when if you buy a train ticket in advance (up to 3 hours) on the phone or ticket office, you can choose, or not, to be in carriage D. When all carriages are complete (around November) then you will be able to do the same on-line. Until then I do appreciate that sometimes you don’t have a choice especially as a commuter. I take on board what you say.

Allow me to recommend the tv-b-gone, a keyring remote control with just one button: off.

I used mine every day walking through a shopping centre on the way to work, in the station foyer, and in Dixons’ window. Cheered up the commute no end.

I won’t try and find a link, but you can buy them online for about a tenner.

I ‘experienced’ these intrusive screens on a train recently and I tried to turn it off but couldn’t. The train was packed and interestingly the only spaces were in the TV carriage, which I’d inadvertantly got into.

Mr Soor is obviously running a slick PR campaign but I agree with the previous posters these screens are completely unecessary and debase the travelling experience.

In response to Jeremy, Amazon sell it for £12.52 I don’t want to necessarily recommend them and there are other places also selling TV-B-Gone. The guy who invented it, Mitch Altman, said in a BBC interview ‘I just don’t like TV, I’d like people to think more about this powerful medium in their lives’ Fair enough!

No worries – the screens will soon be tagged by graffiti types.

We already have these little screens on aircraft, but please keep the idea you write about to yourselves in the UK, otherwise some idiot here in Sydney (namely, the lame and soon-to-be-discontinued state government) will want to do the same on our trains and buses – but wait… they probably couldn’t because the public transport authority couldn’t even manage to install a smartcard ticketing system! Now they are to try again.

The seat screens would be put to better use by equipping them with Bluetooth so you could connect your smartphone to them to watch video you have downloaded, like TED Talks. Even better would be a wifi connection on the train, so, connected to your smartphone, you could use the screen to read your mail and go online to http://transitionculture.org

How does the sound work on these? Do you use headphones or do they all have speakers?

Hi Tom…. I assumed you need to have your own headphones…there is a socket for them, but no headphones available. But surely if you have brought your own headphones you have probably also brought your own ‘entertainment’ to plug them into? Also, I take back what I said about England… they finally seemed to recall the basics of football, passing etc.

Apparently you should never clean these screens with acetone according to this site:

http://www.lcdtvbuyingguide.com/lcdtvcaring.shtml

Just turn each and every screen into a handy coathanger

Great to see energy efficiency working well on a transport system promoted as the alternative to flying. It’s about time trains stopped imitating planes! They should be designed with travel for the community in mind. Face to face seats, room for bikes, and room to stand and gaze at the view. Why do we all sit squashed with our backs facing each other! Is there something wrong with real people that means your space has to be invaded by a TV, taking you into to an unreal world and for ever flogging you stuff you don’t need. They want to charge for this non service? Bring back a modern version of the old compartment carriages. As a child I sat up in the parcel rack, you can’t do that anymore!

Chris, you are talking about less seats on trains and more space that we would all like – first class for all. But then the trains will have about 50% less capacity. That’s a political issue because it’s the government (representing the “community”) who sets the franchise specification covering capacity. Compartments were removed because lone women travelling late at night did not feel safe which was not acceptable. Regarding seats, modern seats are designed with safety in mind, that’s why new seats have high seat backs to “contain” people in that space in the event of an incident – otherwise people would become missiles and injury/death would be far greater. Believe it or not, the careful design of this “containment area” is safer for you than introducing seatbelts. If you are interested have a look at http://www.ukintpress-conferences.com/conf/rail07/pdf/dayspecial/tonypayne.pdf . Most things are done by good people for good reason. By the way, we tested our screens to destruction on the seat back at the Motor Industry Research Association (MIRA) with “crash test dummies” to prove we would not compromise passenger safety.

I’m trying to highlight that we have done a huge amount of work to deliver our system/service to trains that is far more than just “crappy TV”. We are not trying to make a quick buck dot com style otherwise me and the private shareholders would have pulled out many years ago. But, you will never know that unless you try it – don’t knock it until…. Would you like a free code?

Paul

This fascinating debate reminds me of my years living in south India when you could not get on to a medium-or long-distance bus without being assaulted for the whole journey with incredibly loud Tamil film music. Anyone who is familiar with this art form knows just how high-pitched those female singers can get. No amount of remonstration in my inadequate Tamil could get the conductor to turn it down even a little bit. Everyone else seemed fine with it. It was hell! So I would definitely support moves to make this at-seat TV turn-offable at all costs. it’s not so bad on a plane because you want something to take your mind off the fact that you are flying…

I stand corrected on the safety issue and do not pretend to be any kind of expert about the design of seating on trains. But I am still not happy about TV’s on trains although I never said the design was ‘crappy’.

I assume you are a product designer or something like that? Can you design some way for more bikes to access train travel more often? That would fit in with the Volvo ethos! Have you read Design for the World (Human Ecology & Social Change) by Victor Papanek? Are TV’s on trains for the real world and who thinks they are? Or is it a way to market more stuff to to us via adverts? Do you know what the energy consumption in production, day to day operation and disposal (end of life) of all these TV’s is?

Sorry that Volo not Volvo!

Chris, I’m the MD of Volo and a Chartered Engineer by training. The product design was done by http://www.creactive-design.co.uk/. They know all about bike racks too. The energy consumption is 19 watts per screen when on and 16 watts for the server – this is class leading by the way. I don’t have the figure during production or end of life yet but it’s many times less than a Toyota Prius!

Caroline, the system uses headphone. Last time I was in India the constant noise everywhere drove me crazy. Every night I slept with ear plugs.

Apart from Sam, has anyone tried the Volo system?

Paul

Chris, there are no adverts.

Paul

I can hear the defendant now: “Honestly, Your Honor, I was only trying to blow up the little TV!”
Seek the advice of John Prine in an old folk song called Blow Up Your TV.

Turning the screen off… isn’t choice a characteristic of market economies and freedom to choose a characteristic of democracy? If so, then an ‘off’ switch on the screen would reflect this.

As I said in my earlier comment, I can see uses for the screens but mainly as communications devices coupled to the various personal digital devices people carry. Perhaps there’s value in screening movies for bored travelers too.

Are you supplied headphones as in air travel?

Russ, I have made some mistakes with the interface. One was introducing the video that plays all the time and not being able to turn off the screen. But then – within two days – I enabled the off button albeit the screen comes back on after the train stops at a station. That’s in case you get off and someone new gets on (which does not happen mid air on an airline!). I completely accept that has not been entirely successful. As we speak a new interface is being developed with a more subtle “less is more” approach. I hope you can understand that there are no precedents of for Volo and one of the ways I learn is by making mistakes. I don’t mind admitting that. The new interface, based on customer feedback, should be ready to roll out in about two weeks.

With respect to communications (WiFi internet connection within the trains) there are many trains that have this all over the world. They use a combination of technologies depending on the train and the country including satellite, GPRS/3G, WiMax and hybrids. Volo has an internet connection to our trains but it is not for public use – we use it for live RSS feeds (Live news, travel info etc), support and maintenance down to every screen. If you want to allow passengers to view Youtube, BBC iPlayer etc. in good quality without drop outs etc., a serious wireless connection would be required to potentially meet the needs of 400+ passengers. Let’s say we need a the equivalent of a 20mb broadband connection to the train 365/24/7 – just like many people have at home – how would we get that quality of connection to a train travelling at 125mph through cities, country side, cutting, tunnels etc? How would we do that without new bespoke track side infrastructure working a high frequencies and power? Where is the data capacity in light of all the mobile phone companies (worldwide) removing unlimited data packages (Google stories on the iPhone4)?

You are not the first to suggest “this is what passengers want” including many “mobile comms experts” who “do this with their eyes closed”. But when I explain the train antenna can’t be higher than 100mm (so as not to hit the tunnel), total system power consumption must be no more than about 1000 watt, the safety approval process for UK trains (arguably the most stringent in the world), and I’m not paying £20,000 per month for the connection on top of all the development cost, the conversation fizzles out. I don’t know of any “mobile” system in the world that meets the requirements above. By the way, I’ve actually tried to do it, my argument is not an academic one. If you know of any different, and can rewrite the laws of physics lets speak. I’ll help you and we’ll be very rich this time next year!

Yes some people do get bored on trains and want something else to do. Volo is an alternative and convenient offering. If you search the internet, you’ll find papers I have delivered on the subject.

Regarding headphones, we find most people already have headphones that they can use with the Volo screens – our headphone jack is a standard one as on MP3 players. If you don’t have headphones they can be bought on the train for just £1.50.

Paul

Paul,

You seem like a reasonable person and I wonder if you sometimes have doubts about this product and how much it’s going to contribute to our quality of life in the 21st century.

We are facing unprecedented difficulties: climate change, resource depletion and the financial crisis. This product adds (albeit in a very tiny way) to all of these problems- resources are needed to make it, run it, at some point it’ll need disposing of and people will have to pay to use it.

As a Chartered Engineer it would be great to have people like you putting their brains towards working out how we can best adapt to what the future will bring.

You asked if anyone had used it and it seems as though no one has. Even if it were free rather than three odd quid to use, I wouldn’t use it, because when I’m travelling I like to gaze at the scenery, chat to my travelling companions, read, listen to music etc. Watching telly will never feature on this list.

By offering free trials you are assuming that some of us would ‘like it if we tried it’. We all know what watching telly involves so I think we can all imagine what telly on a train would be like. Which is why none of us have tried it.

Also it is quite insulting to assume you can persuade people of the validity of your product just by force of argument and offering people a free go. Generally transitioners are a thoughtful, intelligent group of PR resistant people so that approach probably won’t work.

Hi Paul

I don’t think you can comprehend what a nightmare the commercial media encroachment of public space is for many people. For that matter so is the the individualisation of public space in general by mp3 player and mobile phone noise. And for me, this is not a matter of minor product tweaks.

I used to love taking the train. Staring out the window at the scenery, relaxing with my own thoughts, reading a book, perhaps chatting with a fellow passenger. Then came the maddening noise (mp3 players and mobile phones). Even on trains where one can reserve a seat in a quiet coach, at least half the time people have no respect for this at all.

And then comes TV in trains and busses (not to mention restaurants – was in a pub on Wednesday when a customer finally stood on a table and turned of the noisy set that no one was watching).

Sometimes, I think I will go mad with this sensory overload. I know a lot of other people feel this way too.

Thans Rob for your rant. There is an enormous latent frustration out there. Glad to voice it collectively.

p.s.

1. Even though there are no commercials now on the train service, they are there everywhere else where I have seen TV used in trains, busses and taxis. I fear it is only time before one will be tempted by the extra revenue of commercials.

2. Using head phones. Many, many people already find the maddening noise coming from mp3 players annoying, now we have the residual noise from headphones plus images to contend with.

It’s time for me leave this debate. I’m happy to continue on a one – one basis and even better, I’m more than happy to speak to any of you on the phone or face to face if you happen to be passing through Paddington station. You can find my office number from the website.

I have enjoyed the opportunity to converse with you and perhaps give you some insight.

All the best.

Paul

Thanks Paul for your engagement in this discussion. I admire your openness to discussion. I did want to just make clear, given the nature of a few of the comments here, as well my own dramatic license in my original post about “Cast these abominations from train windows across the counties of Devon, Cornwall and Somerset!”, Transition Culture does not condone vandalism in any way, at least not in any way that leads to actual damage (the protest that covered them in Post-Its appears to have actually been quite effective…). It would be my desire that First Great Western remove them themselves, not that people actually in any way damage these sets. Just to make that clear! Thanks… and thanks Paul for your ongoing engagement…
Rob

I was in coach D again last night, by accident, I have to say. Normally I’d be in the ‘Quiet Coach’ so it was englightening to look around and see what people in coach D were doing.

First of all, I didn’t see anyone watching VoloTV. I heard a couple of travellers opposite me talking about it, but one turned to her book and the other worked on his Mac.

They and a surprisingly large number of others were far more interested in getting drunk. The pissed up young man in the seat next to me had just qualified that day to the Fellowship of the Royal College of Anaesthetists. Not that I talked to him, you understand – I learned everything (and more) from his loud, slurred conversation with his colleague across the aisle and a succession of phone calls in which he celebrated his achievement so loudly that it cut through my headphones and drowned out Humphrey Bogart in ‘The Maltese Falcon’ that I was trying to watch on my MacBook.

Like many people on this thread, I prefer to avoid visual and aural pollution. I have to say, though, that of the two intrusions, having to listen to that guy’s phone conversations last night was far worse than sitting with the VoloTV screen for the whole journey.

Added to that, it’s a real shame, as Deborah rightly pointed out earlier, that even the Quiet Coach isn’t quiet any more.

Being an online reputation consultant, I have great fun with people who are indiscreet on the train. I play a game called ‘vector in’. As soon as they start shouting off on their phones, I use my iPhone to Google in on key bits of information until I can work out who they are, who they work for and who they’re talking about. It’s great fun – and surprisingly easy. Armed with that information, I could do just about anything I wanted with them especially if they’re drunk too.

Thanks, Paul, for your comments. I wanted to know about the technicalities of broadband on public transport and your comments have helped here.

Deborah, I must agree with your comments about TV in restaurants, though most of those in Sydney restaurants turn off the sound and turn on the closed captions. Still, movement attracts attention and even when the thing makes no sound it continues to be disruptive of conversation. I was happy when I found that a restaurant I liked to go to finally turned off the TV after having it installed for only a few months.

There was at one time a natty little electronic device on sale here for surrupticiously turning off TVs in pubs and other places.

I do find a little questionable your comment about “individualisation of public space in general by mp3 player and mobile phone noise”. It can be annoying, I know, when people shout into their mobile phones rather than conversing quietly. Yet surely noise from personal digital devices is minor compared to that commonly encountered in public places? Traffic etc is what I mean.

Technologies like mobile phones and other devices traditionally have a rapid uptake in Australia and they have here become part of the urban matrix we live within. They enable people to do new things or to do existing things better than they did before, and it is this, I believe, that accounts for their popularity.

Mobiles are being used to reduce poverty in developing countries and prepaid mobile phone credits have become an alternative currency in some places. Mobiles are now part of our everyday and, for me, the use of a mobile in public places has been a boon in my work as spokesperson for an urban agriculture organisation because the media and other enquirers can contact me readily.

I think that there might be a risk in allowing our annoyances at the way that some people use personal digital devices to become seen as a technophobia. If this happens, then Transition risks alienation from the younger demographic for whom personal digital devices are an ordinary part of life.

In regard to my earlier comment about a remote electronic device to turn of offensive TVs in public places, here’s a report fresh from the Cult of Mac blog:

“TV-B-Gone is a small, portable device that allows you to remotely turn off televisions, and consequently it’s easily one of the most irritating, selfish and pretentious gadgets on Earth. Now it looks like an iPod.

I’ve always hated the philosophy behind this particular gizmo: it’s made for people who think that they — as the self-appointed protectors of media and culture —have every right to walk into a bar filled with people watching a sports game or relaxing with a beer while they watch the evening news and turn off the bar television so they can sip their creme de menthe and squint at a volume of Sartre in peace and quiet. As opposed to, you know, going somewhere without a television.

Hating television is fine, of course, as is wanting to have a drink in peace and quiet, but I’ve always felt that there is absolutely zero difference between using a TV-B-Gone to shut off a television someone is watching in a bar and someone walking up to you reading at a table and smacking the book out of your hands, or someone interrupting a conversation you are having with a friend at a cafe and incessantly blasting a vuvuzela in your face. Either way, you’re selfishly ruining a complete stranger’s attempt to relax and have a good time by imposing your arbitrary definitions of acceptable public ambience upon them.

Given the preceding rant, it should be pretty obvious that my hate for this gadget runs pretty deep already, but now I have a reason to hate it even more: its latest iteration makes it look almost exactly like a third generation iPod Nano, which is still my favorite Nano. Great. So now TV-B-Gone is trying to conflate being an iPod owner with being a total dick.

Otherwise, you’re getting the usual TV-B-Gone functionality: namely the ability to turn on and off almost every television model out there. It costs $50, even though acting like a complete jerk isn’t really something that requires a down payment.

Posted by John Brownlee in Hardware, News, iPod | Comment on this article…”.

Source: http://www.cultofmac.com/tv-b-gone-now-looks-like-a-3rd-gen-ipod-nano/48416?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+cultofmac%2FbFow+%28Cult+of+Mac%29

TV B Gone … great idea…but are there infra red ports on the tv’s

i would doubt it

I love this page! No-one wanted his free code hahahaha! I look forward to gaffa taping a screen or two.

No-one should worry, things like this will become too expensive to run within our lifetimes I should think.

Before we gaff tape screens and click our TV-B-Gone, shouldn’t we ask whether we are interfering in the rights of others to use those things?

Isn’t Transitions about collective decisions rather than preemptive personal action?

I’ll ungaffa it when I depart, no harm no foul.

Thanks all. While I do hope this discussion continues, I did want to say that in my role as moderator, I will not be allowing any more comments which advocate the actual vandalisation of the volo.tv screens…. I think those of us who feel they are a bad idea can be a bit more creative than that! Thanks…
Rob

While I am clearly biased, as I personally like the Volo system, I cannot fully comprehend the extreme negativity being shown here.

OK, so here is a large bunch of people who really dislike the way in which Volo TV interferes with and distracts passengers on a train journey. Fair play – I’ll certainly respect that. However, First Great Western are installing them across their high-speed fleet in *one* carriage, coach D. Therefore it is not at all difficult to avoid the screens.

Even if the rest of the train is packed, and you have to sit here, it can be turned off. Of course, having read this page, I see that there have been difficulties in the way in which this works, but according to Paul Soor this is now fixed. Regarding them switching on again after a station – is it *really* that much effort to switch them off again? I seriously don’t think so. It’s hardly as if FGW high-speed trains call at that many stations anyway – these aren’t local-stopping services.

It seems a lot of people on here are against the way in which they perceive the screens to be removing choice – surely having them removed would remove the choice of using them from people like myself, who actually quite like the system.

As soon as First Great Western announce plans to roll out the system in all carriages of their trains, I would fully back anyone who throws their arms up in despair at how their ‘mental environment’ is being invaded. Until then, why not just pick another carriage?

Paul Soor of Volo writes:

“picture and sound quality is way better than any in flight entertainment system, or dare I say it, an iPhone!”

I tried a demonstration of the Volo system yesterday on the Reading train. The only headphones I had to hand was my Nokia headset, which includes a microphone. So I plugged those in – and got very difficult to hear, almost inaudible sound from the several Volo screens I tried. Seems the earth grounding is in the wrong position to handle (and ignore) the microphone ring on a 3.5mm jack. This is a fatal flaw for a system that expects mobile phone users to text to pay, when the mobile phone headset can’t be used. They’ll just go back to watching stored content on their phones. As Paul says:

“our headphone jack is a standard one as on MP3 players.”

The 3.5mm jack standard has moved on.

Also, on the way better than any in-flight system – United Business Class has larger screens with 16:9 ratio (though the content is hit-and-miss), with provided noise-cancelling headphones… and the screens can be turned off. Virgin’s screens – larger, 16:9. Can be turned off. Volo’s screens are 4:3. Cheaper?

I was in a mostly-empty carriage gazing at a bunch of unused glowing screens. They should have turned themselves off after a few minutes. I don’t have a problem with the presence of the screen; I do have a problem with the presence of continuous glowing advertising, or worse, mandatory safety videos. A train is not a plane, and far safer. (The safety videos on the Heathrow transfer/Express subways are surreal).

Interestingly, in the many first class carriages there were no screens – but they were giving away copies of The Times, which is no longer available for free online.

Two questionable business models on one train! Three, if you count the buffet service…

Volo should xonsider Australia, where there are *long* train journeys and nothing to look at out the window.

Train journey’s tend to be boring. Some people can’t afford iPods. Some people can’t afford laptops. £3.50 to make your journey pass somewhat quicker sounds fair enough. Is other people talking in a restaurant a breach of your conversational rights? No, you shut them out and talk to whomever you’re with regardless, how can you claim the televisions implore your gaze? There’s more of an argument that people will now neglect to appreciate the countryside, but that also happens to be crap.
Only thing I agree with is that you should be able to switch them off permanently. Thats as far as it goes for me.