Atos WebTIS bug (cycle reservations)

[yorkie]

I've discovered that if you plan a journey including any train that has 'counted places' for Advance fares (ie, it shows as "reserveable" even though reservations are not available) then you cannot obtain a cycle reservation for any part of the journey.

For example:

York to Bullwell
Depart 22 August at 16:02
I can get a seat on 16:02 York-Retford, but not a cycle reservation; it says "There are insufficient or no bicycle spaces available to reserve for your chosen ticket on the outward service".

York to Retford
Depart 22 August at 16:02
I can get seat and a cycle reservation. In fact, I searched for 3 passengers and I could get three reservations, so there's no issue with the quota running out.

Does anyone know of any booking sites, other than Atos WebTIS powered sites, that offer cycle reservations, to get around this problem?

 

[erk]

I reported this problem to VTEC in March last year. I explained that I thought it to be a side-effect of the presence of a "countable place" train in the journey, as Yorkie has also discovered.

Sadly, they just sent a standard-ish reply, telling me that "For future bookings on the website on the journey summary page you'll see an option to add a bicycle reservation space." They ignored my request that they read my question properly and answer it.

So, more than a year on, the bug still exists.

It's frustrating that if we could only get the information to the right person they would probably be grateful and able to fix it quickly.

 

[yorkie]

Did you write to Customer Services? If so, it probably won't have been read by anyone in a position to change anything.

 

[greatkingrat]

Is there any way for the system to distinguish between a reservable train that is fully reserved with no available remaining seats and a "reservable" train never had any seats available to reserve in the first place?

If not, it may be difficult to fix this bug without running the risk of passengers with bikes getting stranded if the second train is genuinely full.

 

[Haywain]

My guess, without looking into this in detail (yet), is that the problem occurs because of looking for a non-existent cycle reservation place or quota on a pseudo reservable train. Further investigation may be required!

 

[Haywain]

If not, it may be difficult to fix this bug without running the risk of passengers with bikes getting stranded if the second train is genuinely full.

If the second train is non-reservable for bikes there is no control in any event.

 

[greatkingrat]

If the second train is non-reservable for bikes there is no control in any event.

Yes, but the system doesn't know that. It sees that the train is reservable, tries to obtain a reservation, fails, and then shows an error message.

 

[gray1404]

Is your issue here the bike reservation issue? My understanding is that trains with counted places for Advance tickets do show as reserveable as standard online.

 

[yorkie]

Is your issue here the bike reservation issue?

Yes. I am am able to get a seat on the VTEC train but not a cycle space.

My understanding is that trains with counted places for Advance tickets do show as reserveable as standard online.

That's right; the 'reservations available' diamond symbol is (misleadingly) shown for these trains.

I am looking for walk-up fares and simply require a cycle reservation (& seat reservation) for the VTEC train, and the fact that a connecting train has an Advance quota really shouldn't be preventing the cycle reservation.

 

[erk]

Did you write to Customer Services? If so, it probably won't have been read by anyone in a position to change anything.

I wrote to the web support contact and got a contact from someone describing himself as "Customer Service Advisor- Web Support". They ought to be able to understand the problem and refer it to someone who can fix it.

I believe the problem is that the "countable place" trains have zero reservable places for bikes. A quick solution would be to set this to some non-zero number for all such trains. A better solution would be for the booking system to recognise that it's possible for some parts of a journey to require seat reservations but not cycle reservations, whilst other parts require both.

Even better, for a walk-up ticket like Yorkie's it wouldn't even attempt a seat reservation for legs where that's just a counted place.

 

[causton]

Perhaps this is why you can book a cycle reservation for London Midland trains without them actually requiring cycle reservations

Even better, for a walk-up ticket like Yorkie's it wouldn't even attempt a seat reservation for legs where that's just a counted place.

The problem is, the system does not know the difference between a counted place and a seat. Many people pick up tickets they have booked online at my window and they print out an Off-Peak Return, Anytime Day Single etc with ** *** reservations!

 

[erk]

The problem is, the system does not know the difference between a counted place and a seat.

Even if the booking engine cannot know before making a reservation if the train is "counted place" or full reservable, it certainly knows after it is allocated a seat/place. So it could then return the reservation if it serves no purpose and (to return to topic) then decline to request a bike space.

 

[Haywain]

I wrote to the web support contact and got a contact from someone describing himself as "Customer Service Advisor- Web Support". They ought to be able to understand the problem and refer it to someone who can fix it.

Well, if you wrote to VTEC it's not really surprising that there wasn't much they could do as the train causing the problem will not have been a VTEC train, and the reserveable status of that train will be outside of VTEC's control. However, it is possible that VTEC may now be in a position to look into this and establish whether a solution is possible (I have my doubts FWIW).

 

[Paul Kelly]

Even if the booking engine cannot know before making a reservation if the train is "counted place" or full reservable, it certainly knows after it is allocated a seat/place. So it could then return the reservation if it serves no purpose and (to return to topic) then decline to request a bike space.

That sounds like a really good idea, but it would imply the reservation needs to be made in two stages (first humans, then bikes). Changes like that typically need a fair bit of software re-writing if they weren't designed with that in mind in the first place, so it may not be an easy job.

 

[Jon S]

Came across this whilst trying to work out why I couldn't get a bike reservation online. It's a bit frustrating it's not been fixed after 18 months, but has anyone found away around it, other than buying two separate tickets which costs significantly more and leads to uncertainty with missed connections?

 

[Bletchleyite]

Came across this whilst trying to work out why I couldn't get a bike reservation online. It's a bit frustrating it's not been fixed after 18 months, but has anyone found away around it, other than buying two separate tickets which costs significantly more and leads to uncertainty with missed connections?

It might lead to badly informed staff getting awkward, but unless you split across London with nothing in the middle splitting your ticket does not change your entitlement to assistance in the event of a missed connection.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Perhaps this is why you can book a cycle reservation for London Midland trains without them actually requiring cycle reservations

Which is a big problem, as one might then plan around certainty of a space (unless the train is cancelled) and find they turn up and cannot board and are not entitled to chuck anyone off to get one.

 

[yorkie]

Came across this whilst trying to work out why I couldn't get a bike reservation online. It's a bit frustrating it's not been fixed after 18 months

I don't think Atos are bothered. Their booking engine is riddled with multiple bugs. They are aware of them, but are not prepared to put the resources in to fix them. There are loads of anomalous tickets you can buy due to bugs in their routeing engine. Many TOCs have moved away from them; it's only FirstGroup who use them now. If FirstGroup move away then that's surely the end for that booking engine.

but has anyone found away around it, other than buying two separate tickets which costs significantly more and leads to uncertainty with missed connections?

I book through other websites (usually Trainsplit these days as it lets me choose multiple via/avoid points and use different options for the return journey) and take my tickets to York station which are very good at issuing cycle reservations (or alternatively I will send a message to a member of the forum who works in a ticket office; there's a few I can call on! ).

If you are worried about the reservations no longer being available, you could book the tickets when you are at the station using a mobile device. Alternatively some TOCs telesales departments will issue cycle reservations, as will some TOCs Twitter teams, so you may not need to visit a station. They will give you a reference you can quote. But you might prefer to have physical coupons.

 

[Paul Kelly]

Just re-reading this again, I'm wondering is the problem really that the train has counted place reservations - or rather is it simply that the train doesn't have any cycle places available to reserve, and there is no way for the booking engine to know that? In which case the solution pointed out by causton where (if I'm understanding correctly) on London Midland trains you were given a cycle reservation even though there were no specifically reservable cycle spaces, would appear to be quite a good workaround.

So maybe isn't a bug anywhere, it's simply a limitation of the system that a booking engine can't know whether a train requires reservable cycle spaces or not. Perhaps the TOCs should agree amongst themselves a way of indicating this in timetable data? A better intermediate solution might be for the booking engine to allow you to select whether to reserve a cycle space or not for individual trains in your itinerary?

 

[Bletchleyite]

A proper solution is that trains with counted places are flagged differently from trains without, which would also fix the issue of the timetable showing services as reservable which in actual fact aren't.

 

[Paul Kelly]

A proper solution is that trains with counted places are flagged differently from trains without

That wouldn't help things though if a train with counted place reservations actually did allow (or even worse, require) cycle reservations. I'm starting to wonder if the counted place thing is a red herring here.

 

[Bletchleyite]

That wouldn't help things though if a train with counted place reservations actually did allow (or even worse, require) cycle reservations. I'm starting to wonder if the counted place thing is a red herring here.

Fair point - or there could be trains that offer seat reservations but not cycle reservations (are there any?)

I do wonder if cycle reservations just need to be completely separate.

 

[Paul Kelly]

Perhaps the TOCs should agree amongst themselves a way of indicating this in timetable data?

It's worse than I thought - there is actually an agreed way of representing "cycle reservations essential" in the schedule data - quoting from the Network Rail spec document for the Common Interface Format (used to transfer schedule data between industry systems):

RESERVATIONS
A Seat Reservations Compulsory (R symbol in white box).
E Reservations for Bicycles Essential (Inverted black triangle)
R Seat Reservations Recommended (R symbol in black box).
S Seat Reservations possible from any station (white diamond symbol).

It's just that since there can only be one reservation symbol per train it's impossible to also add the "E" symbol if, say "S" is already in use. I think some heads just need banging together to get some agreement in place as to how this could be used...

 

[superalbs]

It's worse than I thought - there is actually an agreed way of representing "cycle reservations essential" in the schedule data - quoting from the Network Rail spec document for the Common Interface Format (used to transfer schedule data between industry systems):
It's just that since there can only be one reservation symbol per train it's impossible to also add the "E" symbol if, say "S" is already in use. I think some heads just need banging together to get some agreement in place as to how this could be used...

Could they add new codes, or is that not possible?