Duplicate seat reservations possible?

[Talent]

Sitting in a TPE train with my Advance Single paper ticket someone sat in my seat. After asking him to leave he showed me a ticket on the Trainline app with the same seat (time, coach and seat number, although I didn't see the date).

Is it possible that duplicate seat reservations are issued (especially if the Trainline app is used)?

 

[Deafdoggie]

I have been on an XC train where someone was in 'my' seat. I had reserved it through XC support, and had the reservation details provided by them, the person in the seat had a paper reservation ticket for it.

 

[robbeech]

There was a post on social media about this last week. Someone had booked (incidentally on Trainline) and been given a seat that was already occupied with a reservation before all of part of the journey. They showed both peoples tickets / reservation information and there was clearly no doubt that there was a duplication.
For reference the person booking by Trainline had purchased their ticket last.

 

[E_Reeves]

I've had this on XC too and the guard had no idea how it happened. The train was fairly empty so I just moved to another seat.

 

[jopsuk]

it happens occasionally with computer errors. It shouldn't, but nothing is perfect

 

[Esker-pades]

I've had it quite a few times. Once (on a Voyager travelling from London to Bangor), no other seats were available so I was given a first class journey for free. Fun!

Computers will mess things up sometimes. It's not that rare.

 

[CyrusWuff]

Seemingly "duplicate" reservations were more common in the days of CRS and APTIS, as they required ticket sellers to write the reservation details on the ticket by hand.

Shouldn't happen with fully computerised systems, but it evidently does.

 

[adrock1976]

it happens occasionally with computer errors. It shouldn't, but nothing is perfect

There is no such thing as computer errors at all.

A computer will only do what is asked by means of what has been input and what has been programed by a human being.

 

[adrock1976]

Seemingly "duplicate" reservations were more common in the days of CRS and APTIS, as they required ticket sellers to write the reservation details on the ticket by hand.

Shouldn't happen with fully computerised systems, but it evidently does.

Before the advent of online booking, I remember reservation details for traditional Intercity and limited stop inter regional journeys being handwritten on the reverse of APEX and SuperAdvance tickets (these were the cream and blue ticket stock).

 

[DynamicSpirit]

it happens occasionally with computer errors. It shouldn't, but nothing is perfect

True, nothing is perfect. But duplicate seat reservations, if they are happening, is really not the kind of error you should be getting in reasonable quality software. I'd interpret that as an indication that some software group somewhere within network rail or ATOC is not doing their testing/debugging properly.

 

[FOH]

Before the advent of online booking, I remember reservation details for traditional Intercity and limited stop inter regional journeys being handwritten on the reverse of APEX and SuperAdvance tickets (these were the cream and blue ticket stock).

And IIRC correctly from training, the screen showed the reservation details but needed another keystroke then to confirm the reservation. Forgetting to do this, combined with handwritten details, was a really common way of causing duplicates.

 

[Jonny]

There is no such thing as computer errors at all.

A computer will only do what is asked by means of what has been input and what has been programed by a human being.

I should point out that the concept of a computer bug came about after a moth was found to be causing the erroneous operation of an early computer! Also there is the slight matter of accidental corruption/degradation of software or hardware which, although very rare, is possible given enough opportunities.

 

[CyrusWuff]

And IIRC correctly from training, the screen showed the reservation details but needed another keystroke then to confirm the reservation. Forgetting to do this, combined with handwritten details, was a really common way of causing duplicates.

It's been a long time, but if memory serves it went something like this:

CQA/PADSWI/020518/1215 - Check Quota Availability - In this case on the 1215 from Paddington to Swindon on the 2nd of May - Shows you how many of each quota remain for that journey.

There was then another command you could use to select the appropriate quota straight from that list, or alternatively you could do something like:

CTS/PADSWI/020518/1215/02/OB - Requests 2 seats from Quota OB. For reservations for flexible tickets you'd usually leave the quota off to reserve from the default Standard Class quota on that train.

Assuming you were happy with the seats, you'd then issue:

CTC - This also took the ticket number, name and contact number as optional parameters (Compulsory for Sleeper reservations)

Failure to do that means the reservation wasn't confirmed, and someone could get those seats once it timed out.

 

[Tetchytyke]

There was a spate of issues a year or two ago, especially on GC, all caused by issues with Train line. Good to see nothing changes.

Don't forget a delay repay claim for no reservation!