EMR seat reservations

[chrisp37]

We caught the 19.32 from St Pancras to Derby on Friday evening (18 Oct) and are travelling with the 20.10 from Derby to St Pancras this evening. On both services we had reserved seats but all the seats in the respective carriages were showing as “not reserved”. This caused a bit of an issue on the Friday evening service (which was very busy) as it meant my partner and I couldn’t sit together. Made no difference on this evening’s service as it’s not that busy.

I thought it was a bit odd that there was no announcement/apology that seat reservations weren’t working, which I’ve had before on LNER and Avanti. Curious whether this is usual for EMR or were we just unlucky?

 

[LowLevel]

The 222s can be very hit and miss with reservations unfortunately, they're getting rather elderly and it's not at all unusual for them to struggle to download them.

 

[duffield]

The 222s can be very hit and miss with reservations unfortunately, they're getting rather elderly and it's not at all unusual for them to struggle to download them.

Absolutely, but it is pretty unusual for there to be no announcement, typically the train manager etc. will apologise and tell passengers to take any seat in the class of their ticket (that's my experience anyhow).

 

[dosxuk]

In my experience any announcement is that you should still sit in your reserved seat, and if you don't have a reservation to move if someone comes along with one for the seat you choose.

 

[duffield]

In my experience any announcement is that you should still sit in your reserved seat, and if you don't have a reservation to move if someone comes along with one for the seat you choose.

EMR have taken the "sit anywhere in your class" approach the last few times I've encountered this (most recently two weeks ago), but maybe that's not typical. Maybe the train manager decides on a case-by-case basis based on how full the train is - if it's pretty empty the "sit anywhere" approach seems more sensible, perhaps the reverse if it's full.

 

[Andy Pacer]

In my experience any announcement is that you should still sit in your reserved seat, and if you don't have a reservation to move if someone comes along with one for the seat you choose.

Interestingly in my experience the announcements tend to be to suspend reservations. Seems logical as you can't blame someone for sitting in a seat marked "Not Reserved".

 

[chrisp37]

I’m doing the same journey now that I did on 18 October (19.32 St Pancras to Derby) and yet again the seat reservations aren’t working. At least there was an announcement and apology this time. If EMR can’t get their seat reservation systems to work then they shouldn’t bother offering reservations at all. Just make it a free for all like SWR. But perhaps I’ve just been unlucky.

 

[duffield]

I’m doing the same journey now that I did on 18 October (19.32 St Pancras to Derby) and yet again the seat reservations aren’t working. At least there was an announcement and apology this time. If EMR can’t get their seat reservation systems to work then they shouldn’t bother offering reservations at all. Just make it a free for all like SWR. But perhaps I’ve just been unlucky.

I wouldn't expect any significant improvement until the new class 810 trains take over; the on-their-way-out class 222 Meridians appear to be pretty much on life support, with frequent faults, some of which are apparently unfixable (e.g. some of the internal door buttons have permanent seeming notices to use the floor stud instead). The incidence of non-functioning reservations would probably have to get a lot higher before they abandoned reservations altogether though.

 

[chrisp37]

Not sure why I’m surprised but I’m on the 17.05 EMR service from St Pancras to Loughborough and the seat reservations aren’t working. It’s not a busy service so it’s somewhat academic but I find the failure rate really quite astonishing!

 

[Andy Pacer]

Not sure why I’m surprised but I’m on the 17.05 EMR service from St Pancras to Loughborough and the seat reservations aren’t working. It’s not a busy service so it’s somewhat academic but I find the failure rate really quite astonishing!

I made a few journeys yesterday, one the reservations seemed to be working but not quite correctly, and in the afternoon I caught 222001 from Derby to Leicester and was advertised as "no seat reservations" - makes things so much easier!

 

[duffield]

Not sure why I’m surprised but I’m on the 17.05 EMR service from St Pancras to Loughborough and the seat reservations aren’t working. It’s not a busy service so it’s somewhat academic but I find the failure rate really quite astonishing!

No reservations on the 1535 St. Pancras to Nottingham either. Usually when that happens the screens are either blank or displaying "not reserved" but this time they actually had a message saying the reservations were not working - I think it's the first time I've seen that.

 

[eastwestdivide]

No reservations at all across EMR at the moment. I booked some Sheffield tix a few days ago and they had "no specific seat reserved".
Checked in person at St P where they said IT problem since 1 Jan, and all the departures on the screen had an extra line to that effect. They didn't know for how long.

 

[Bletchleyite]

I wouldn't expect any significant improvement until the new class 810 trains take over; the on-their-way-out class 222 Meridians appear to be pretty much on life support, with frequent faults, some of which are apparently unfixable (e.g. some of the internal door buttons have permanent seeming notices to use the floor stud instead). The incidence of non-functioning reservations would probably have to get a lot higher before they abandoned reservations altogether though.

It's not entirely unlikely that they might temporarily abandon them while phasing in the 810s as it then means they can swap the units around without messing up the reservations. I'd imagine they will return after that, though admittedly on Greater Anglia and TfW they have yet to do so.

 

[eastwestdivide]

Yes, what with that and the unreliability of the res on the current fleet, everything's conspiring against them!

 

[bib]

There's an article on the LeicestershireLive website claiming that EMR have stated that reservations will be unavailable till 2nd Feb.

East Midlands Railway (EMR) passengers will be unable to access seat reservations for the next month due to “issues” with the company's seat reservation system. An EMR spokesman said its intercity services between Sheffield and London St Pancras, which call at Leicestershire stations, were impacted.
The company told LeicestershireLive this afternoon (Wednesday, January 8) that it was “working hard” to “identify the problem” and apologised to passengers for the "frustrating" issue. A spokesman said that passengers would not be able to book seats on the above services until Sunday, February 2.
One person travelling from London to Leicester today told LeicestershireLive that at each stop there was a "new crop of confused passengers". They said: "There was a series of announcements on a Tannoy to explain why the train was delayed, and, amongst that, it was mentioned that the train reservation system wasn't working and wouldn't be until February, which seems to be a very relaxed approach to fixing it.

"Thankfully, the train guard repeated it, because every single person who got on tried to find their reserved seat. Given it's just after new year, loads of people had large suitcases, so it meant dozens of passengers were slowly moving in the aisles looking for their seats. The train was pretty full so at every stop there was a new crop of confused passengers."
An EMR spokesman said: “We would like to apologise to customers for the issues we are experiencing with the reservation system on our Intercity services between Sheffield, Nottingham, and London St Pancras. We understand how frustrating this is for customers, and we are working hard with our suppliers to identify the problem and implement a solution as quickly as possible.”

 

[liamf656]

No reservations at all across EMR at the moment. I booked some Sheffield tix a few days ago and they had "no specific seat reserved".
Checked in person at St P where they said IT problem since 1 Jan, and all the departures on the screen had an extra line to that effect. They didn't know for how long.

In all honesty It's been since the timetable change in December. The TMS systems have had issues downloading the post-change trips. You'll notice this if the internal screens display "Coach A" for example rather than the calling points of the journey. They seem to work a bit better but now but in terms of reservations, they're suspended until at least February so they can get to the root of that problem

 

[Discuss223]

Why aren't they using printed reservations instead? Meridians have holders at the tops of the seats for paper reservations.

 

[LowLevel]

Why aren't they using printed reservations instead? Meridians have holders at the tops of the seats for paper reservations.

They no longer have any reservation printers.

 

[liamf656]

As of today the reservations should be back up and running on the 222s

 

[eastwestdivide]

I'm booked on one later today. Was given a seat res when I booked a couple of weeks ago.

 

[stuartl]

I'm booked on one later today. Was given a seat res when I booked a couple of weeks ago.

The booking system was giving reservations when the on train system wasn't working. Led to quite a bit of confusion for passengers with reservations.

 

[eastwestdivide]

The booking system was giving reservations when the on train system wasn't working. Led to quite a bit of confusion for passengers with reservations.

Maybe some of the time - but on my previous trip in Jan I was given a reservation for "no specific seat" with an advance.
...Later... reservations working fine on the train today.

 

[Andy Pacer]

Maybe some of the time - but on my previous trip in Jan I was given a reservation for "no specific seat" with an advance.
...Later... reservations working fine on the train today.

Shame. Boarding seemed so much quicker without them on my recent journeys.

Back on topic, the curtailing of the Leicester service should improve reliability which will be welcome.