Northern fake "Compulsory Reservations" Trial

[SuspectUsual]

Sorry if I'm reading this wrong, but are they saying that in order to get an itinerary including one of these trains you'll need a (counted place?) reservation, but once you have it that reservation is worthless, because it doesn't guarantee you a seat (nor even a place on the train if its wedged and you're not amongst the first on?

If so, its perhaps the most absurd thing Northern have ever done

 

[Bletchleyite]

Sorry if I'm reading this wrong, but are they saying that in order to get an itinerary including one of these trains you'll need a (counted place?) reservation, but once you have it that reservation is worthless, because it doesn't guarantee you a seat (nor even a place on the train if its wedged and you're not amongst the first on?

If so, its perhaps the most absurd thing Northern have ever done

It is simply a means of controlling how many tickets are sold with that train selected, to prevent people getting false expectations of fitting on a very busy train. Nothing more, nothing less. It's just that the booking systems don't offer a proper way to do things like that so it's a complete bodge which means the timetable says "reservations compulsory" which is not only not the case, but nobody will have anything even claiming to be a reservation for that train unless they booked an Advance on it.

It is, to be blunt, a terrible idea.

 

[Iskra]

Isn’t part of this route in the Digital Fares Trial? How will that work?

 

[Bletchleyite]

Isn’t part of this route in the Digital Fares Trial? How will that work?

It only affects point to point tickets, and even then only the outward part of return tickets because there's no point selecting a return train when booking a walk up ticket on Northern as it gains you nothing. It has zero effect on any other form of ticketing.

 

[SuspectUsual]

It is simply a means of controlling how many tickets are sold with that train selected, to prevent people getting false expectations of fitting on a very busy train. Nothing more, nothing less. It's just that the booking systems don't offer a proper way to do things like that so it's a complete bodge which means the timetable says "reservations compulsory" which is not only not the case, but nobody will have anything even claiming to be a reservation for that train unless they booked an Advance on it.

It is, to be blunt, a terrible idea.

But the reality is surely that what it'll actually do is give some people false expectations, not prevent them, because they'll get a ticket with a reservation and find they dont have a seat

The only false expectation management is the people who get disappointed in a whole new way, by not being allowed to buy the ticket they want

 

[Bletchleyite]

But the reality is surely that what it'll actually do is give some people false expectations, not prevent them, because they'll get a ticket with a reservation and find they dont have a seat

They won't get a ticket with a reservation. Counted places are generally hidden when issued against a walk up fare. It's there in the background but you don't get to see it.

 

[SuspectUsual]

They won't get a ticket with a reservation. Counted places are generally hidden when issued against a walk up fare. It's there in the background but you don't get to see it.

Ah, ok. But still no guarantee they'll be able to board

The whole thing is absolute nonsense

 

[redreni]

They won't get a ticket with a reservation. Counted places are generally hidden when issued against a walk up fare. It's there in the background but you don't get to see it.

Yet if it's a connecting leg on an Advance you're still expected to notice the difference between an itinerary including a leg on an unreservable service, and an itinerary including a leg on a service with counted place reservations but no seat reservations, because it affects whether you have flexibility to make an earlier connection. Even though that distinction is intentionally not brought to the passenger's attention.

 

[Adam Williams]

They will be marking available capacity as the number of seats.

I'm curious how the capacity is calculated here - just seats, or some standing room too?

Judging by the fact Northern sell Advances on trains where there aren't enough seats I suspect it's quite high.

What makes you think that?

I would expect them to set it to seats plus a certain number of standees. Unless of course they set it as just seats on the basis that you'll get the standees anyway because of people purchasing open return tickets (another thing that really messes with it and almost certainly the vast majority of tickets sold by Northern).

Unless I've got something very wrong, it's been configured with a far lower capacity than the underlying rolling stock actually supports:

18:50:21 [Information] Booked 108 passengers on NT116200 for 20/10/2026
18:50:21 [Information] <-- RECV (OK) {"availabilityResults":[{"cappedAvailability":0,"tariffCode":null,"inventoryClass":null,"expectedItemType":null}]}

From the Northern franchise agreement (page 155):




108, which is what they've configured in RARS, is the seating capacity with all the tip-up seats excluded. No allowance for any standing passengers whatsoever.

So roughly 50% of how it should've been configured, in my view.

This configuration also violates the Code of Practice that applies to operators, which requires allowances be made for all seated capacity plus standing (a token allowance) passengers:



In other words, the minimum required to comply with the code of practice is all the seats plus 6 standing places per vestibule.

This will cause retailers to display these services as falsely sold out far before they're actually at capacity and will put passengers off using services that may well have plenty of room. Particularly because on a commuter service like these, people often don't want the reservation and will buy a walk-up and then turn up when they want to. The reservation they are forced to have will often be of no consequence whatsoever to them.

 

[MrBeanie]

Unless someone is looking for a ticket online, how will they even know there is a so called 'reservation' quota that restricts further advance purchases. If you go to Leeds or Kirkgate people are just going to get on these services, whether they are standing room only or not.
The only time I've really noticed a problem was around Saturday lunchtime at Kirkgate when a couple of them going from Sheffield to Leeds were running late, where they announced the issue as an overcrowding problem.
Surely if they want to address the issue part of the solution is to stop cancelling the Sheffield flyer to give the improved capacity that was supposed to provide. Even if some of the problems are partly down to the ongoing issues with cross country, it seems a strange way of trying to deal with the numbers on the services.

 

[DaveB10780]

I have travelled on the service between Sheffield and Leeds (and vv) with a Northern day ticket and whereas it has usually been busy from Leeds, there has bever been any real issue with capacity.

 

[MrJeeves]

Anyone remember when Northern changed the booking cut-off for Advances because their ticket office staff whined about apps showing cheap prices close to departure?

Northern Advance Purchase tickets update from Monday 4 November (purchase up to 15 minutes prior to departure rather than 5)

Just had an email from Northern... From Monday 4 November, Advance Purchase tickets will be available to purchase up to 15 minutes prior to the train's departure. Advance Purchase tickets are available on the Northern website, Northern app, at our ticket offices and from ticket vending...

www.railforums.co.uk

You'll be pleased to know that also affects these services, too. You won't be able to buy your flexible ticket any later than 5 mins before departure, now.

Presumably this will affect Northern's journey planner ticket machines, too!

Oh, and I'm pretty sure these cutoffs apply based on scheduled departure time, so if it's running late then you're even more screwed.

 

[em81]

It is simply a means of controlling how many tickets are sold with that train selected, to prevent people getting false expectations of fitting on a very busy train. Nothing more, nothing less. It's just that the booking systems don't offer a proper way to do things like that so it's a complete bodge which means the timetable says "reservations compulsory" which is not only not the case, but nobody will have anything even claiming to be a reservation for that train unless they booked an Advance on it.

It is, to be blunt, a terrible idea.

Not to mention if the first Off Peak option has a "full train". It could give the impression an Off Peak Day ticket isn't valid on a 09:05 departure, even when the restriction code only excludes trains up to 08:59.

 

[fishwomp]

Unless someone is looking for a ticket online,

This is scarcely a rareity in this day and age. People are encouraged to use the apps to buy tickets, and even the ticket machines have issues as they interact with the reservation system.

These shenanigans are actively stopping people from buying a legitimately available ticket, for journeys way beyond Northern Trains' world: services are part of a connected network. If you can't travel from Beeston to Sheffield in time to catch the Carlisle train to Settle, you might choose to not travel..

Not to mention if the first Off Peak option has a "full train". It could give the impression an Off Peak Day ticket isn't valid on a 09:05 departure, even when the restriction code only excludes trains up to 08:59.

Or worse, the last off peak train is unavailable, it will then force you to buy a peak ticket - which is breaking the rules about what tickets must be offered.

 

[Cdd89]

Unless I've got something very wrong, it's been configured with a far lower capacity than the underlying rolling stock actually supports:

Presumably they have statistics on distribution of ticket sales (from retailer data and ticket surveys) and advances and tickets purchased with a journey planner represent a fraction of the train's capacity.

That sort of estimation (where the proportion will vary by service, day and events) would be extremely challenging for a big data company with a ton of machine learning to get right – so I'm sure Northern will do a great job.

 

[Farigiraf]

Unless I've got something very wrong, it's been configured with a far lower capacity than the underlying rolling stock actually supports:

18:50:21 [Information] Booked 108 passengers on NT116200 for 20/10/2026
18:50:21 [Information] <-- RECV (OK) {"availabilityResults":[{"cappedAvailability":0,"tariffCode":null,"inventoryClass":null,"expectedItemType":null}]}

From the Northern franchise agreement (page 155):


View attachment 213315

108, which is what they've configured in RARS, is the seating capacity with all the tip-up seats excluded. No allowance for any standing passengers whatsoever.

So roughly 50% of how it should've been configured, in my view.

This configuration also violates the Code of Practice that applies to operators, which requires allowances be made for all seated capacity plus standing (a token allowance) passengers:

View attachment 213316

In other words, the minimum required to comply with the code of practice is all the seats plus 6 standing places per vestibule.

This will cause retailers to display these services as falsely sold out far before they're actually at capacity and will put passengers off using services that may well have plenty of room. Particularly because on a commuter service like these, people often don't want the reservation and will buy a walk-up and then turn up when they want to. The reservation they are forced to have will often be of no consequence whatsoever to them.

Displaying 50% full services as sold out to reduce demand on services (all, not just the crowded 2-car services at peak times) to then cite low demand as a reason to cut services?
Or is it simply just an incredibly incompetent and rushed implementation?

Unless maybe they're expecting at least 30% of travellers to be fare evading

 

[MrBeanie]

The Nottingham service is a limited stop one, at least between Leeds and Sheffield. The odd times I've used this there is time for someone to check any tickets at that end, unless it really is rammed.

 

[furlong]

If compulsory reservations are not intended to count for anything on the ground (and in practice those without can still travel), I don't see how that lets the retailers escape from allegations of misselling - offering to sell only tickets priced higher than actually necessary to travel at the times concerned.

Maybe people should look for some blatant instances of overcharging (which could include paying more to travel using a later, peak, service when an earlier one with a lower, off-peak, fare is falsely shown as unavailable) and formally report to the ORR any retailers who may have chosen to break the law rather than ignoring industry requests to act seemingly unlawfully? (And if the ORR does nothing, try to get Trading Standards to kick them into action.)

 

[Egg Centric]

This is hilarious.

Nothing else can describe it.

Perhaps. Or maybe "malevolent".

I wonder if this is malicious compliance at Northern HQ - some jumped up manager has been brought on and been wearing down someone or other with their "genius" plans to extent said someone or other has implemented things exactly as said jumped up manager has requested?

Or alternatively, it's a trial that is designed to fail, again because of some internal or governmental thing the details of which we know nowt.

I appreciate Hanlons Razor was mentioned but to me it's pretty much impossible to think that this is a good faith thing with zero hidden motive somewhere or other. Even if someone is acting stupidly in good faith, someone else is 100% showing bad faith, even if it's just by inaction. This is blindingly obviously a bad idea.

 

[speedy1]

I appreciate Hanlons Razor was mentioned but to me it's pretty much impossible to think that this is a good faith thing with zero hidden motive somewhere or other. Even if someone is acting stupidly in good faith, someone else is 100% showing bad faith, even if it's just by inaction. This is blindingly obviously a bad idea.

Totally agree. This is Northern we're talking about...talk about form. Northern doing Northern things.

(IMO Hanlon's razor is favoured by people with no thinking skills who like having their head in the sand and pretend everyone is just lovely. The origin of it was a submission to a joke book...)

 

[Dewedin]

If this is all about information gathering as reportedly claimed, then why hasn't Northern just set a really high quota so that the trains can never realistically 'sell out'?
We all know why!

 

[Bletchleyite]

Displaying 50% full services as sold out to reduce demand on services (all, not just the crowded 2-car services at peak times) to then cite low demand as a reason to cut services?
Or is it simply just an incredibly incompetent and rushed implementation?

I'm going for that bit.

Unless maybe they're expecting at least 30% of travellers to be fare evading

Does the number vary by time of day? At 0630 I doubt many would be travelling on return halves. At 1830 I would expect almost everyone to be.

 

[yorksrob]

I don't have a problem with counted place reservations per se (works fine on the SW mainline). Pretending its compulsory is nonsense though.

In truth the MD hit the nail on the head when they said that 2 carriage trains were no longer suitable for Northern.

 

[TUC]

Given these also operate as commuter services in the Sheffield and Nottingham areas, and shopper services around Meadowhall, all of which will have variable travel times for the individuals concerned, how silly this even work?

 

[Dewedin]

Unless I've got something very wrong, it's been configured with a far lower capacity than the underlying rolling stock actually supports:

18:50:21 [Information] Booked 108 passengers on NT116200 for 20/10/2026
18:50:21 [Information] <-- RECV (OK) {"availabilityResults":[{"cappedAvailability":0,"tariffCode":null,"inventoryClass":null,"expectedItemType":null}]}

From the Northern franchise agreement (page 155):


View attachment 213315

108, which is what they've configured in RARS, is the seating capacity with all the tip-up seats excluded. No allowance for any standing passengers whatsoever.

So roughly 50% of how it should've been configured, in my view.

This configuration also violates the Code of Practice that applies to operators, which requires allowances be made for all seated capacity plus standing (a token allowance) passengers:

View attachment 213316

In other words, the minimum required to comply with the code of practice is all the seats plus 6 standing places per vestibule.

This will cause retailers to display these services as falsely sold out far before they're actually at capacity and will put passengers off using services that may well have plenty of room. Particularly because on a commuter service like these, people often don't want the reservation and will buy a walk-up and then turn up when they want to. The reservation they are forced to have will often be of no consequence whatsoever to them.

@Adam Williams can you please check again and see if they have increased the quotas? As the 17:17 NOT - LDS on 20/10/2026 has tickets available for purchase now.

 

[Adam Williams]

As the 17:17 NOT - LDS on 20/10/2026 has tickets available for purchase now.

I didn't book it out in production

 

[Cell2025]

Please accept my apologies if I've got the answer to this in the thread but have overlooked or misinterpreted the answer.

If I buy an off peak day return the day before travel and then decide to board a technically sold out train the next morning (at a time of my choosing) how does it all work? Similar questions arise, obviously, on my return journey, which may be before the peak period in the afternoon or after it? The only data that can be scraped is exactly what train I travelled on, given a free reign to board whatever train I wish within the ticket conditions, both ways. If 50 people do the same then who do they throw off, metaphorically speaking? Those who have booked the specific train before it sold out, or those who purchased a flexible, and usually more expensive, option?

Or more realistically, none of the above?

 

[Bletchleyite]

If I buy an off peak day return the day before travel and then decide to board a technically sold out train the next morning (at a time of my choosing) how does it all work?

Same as it did before.

Similar questions arise, obviously, on my return journey, which may be before the peak period in the afternoon or after it? The only data that can be scraped is exactly what train I travelled on, given a free reign to board whatever train I wish within the ticket conditions, both ways. If 50 people do the same then who do they throw off, metaphorically speaking? Those who have booked the specific train before it sold out, or those who purchased a flexible, and usually more expensive, option?

Nobody.

It isn't really compulsory reservations in say the SNCF sense of the phrase. It's quota control on sales. A reservation is not required to board the train, and indeed if you buy a ticket selecting one of those trains you won't even get anything to say you have booked a specific one.

In a sense (not that I support it*) it's just setting expectations, in that if a full trainload including standees have already selected that train, it's not going to be a fun one.

* The SBB style loading indicators are a better idea in my book than this - but this is just bodging something out of what's already there.

 

[Dewedin]

I didn't book it out in production

Fair enough but Northern have now claimed that their quotas include seated + standing capacity, so would be useful to check if they've done a sneaky change!

 

[pokemonsuper9]

Or more realistically, none of the above?

Exactly that.
The 'compulsory' reservations are shown just in ticket systems, and aren't at all relevant to actually travelling.

Anyone who fits on gets on, noone will be forced off because they didn't have a reservation.