XC Reservations

[Manchester77]

How about:-
Three LEDs on the seat backs showing either red, yellow or green with a smaller where they are on voyagers showing where from and to etc.
So you come in and see red, don't sit, green sit and yellow look at screen then sit.
Green - unreserved for entire journey
Yellow - unreserved for part, reserved from X to Y
Red - reserved
But the colours change at each station so when a reservation runs out the seat will show its free by changing from red to green.

 

[wintonian]

How about:-
Three LEDs on the seat backs showing either red, yellow or green with a smaller where they are on voyagers showing where from and to etc.
So you come in and see red, don't sit, green sit and yellow look at screen then sit.
Green - unreserved for entire journey
Yellow - unreserved for part, reserved from X to Y
Red - reserved
But the colours change at each station so when a reservation runs out the seat will show its free by changing from red to green.

How would all these passengers and in-particular those that are not familiar with rail travel understand what these strange LED light thing are?

 

[Manchester77]

How would all these passengers and in-particular those that are not familiar with rail travel understand what these strange LED light thing are?

Posters in vestibules but I'd imagine people would get used to them and if not, look at the screens which will still be there the LEDs are a second line of information

 

[wintonian]

Posters in vestibules

You mean like all the other posters on trains and stations that rail passengers are so diligent at reading?

 

[Goatboy]

How about... turning the clock back 3 months and going back to how they used to do it? That was flawed too - if you sat in an unoccupied no-show seat from Bristol to Birmingham there was no way of telling if it was reserved again after Birmingham - but compared to what they are doing now thats almost a trivial non-issue...

 

[cuccir]

How about:-
Three LEDs on the seat backs showing either red, yellow or green with a smaller where they are on voyagers showing where from and to etc.
So you come in and see red, don't sit, green sit and yellow look at screen then sit.
Green - unreserved for entire journey
Yellow - unreserved for part, reserved from X to Y
Red - reserved
But the colours change at each station so when a reservation runs out the seat will show its free by changing from red to green.

Red-Green Colour Blind

Electronic reservations are fine in principle, and - other than in cases of complete faults - there wasn't anything wrong with the situation that XC previously had whereby it said: 'Available'; 'Newcastle-Birmingham'; 'Available from Darlington'. These could be supported by a small LED as indicated above to help people 'scanning' seats, but the text would still be required.

This new change to 'Available but may be reserved' seems the height of stupidity.

 

[34D]

I would like (and I suspect we would all like) a system that does two things:

-allows the guard to mark off no-shows and make a seat available

-allows a passenger to reserve a seat when they sit in it which would involve equipping every seat back with a screen (velo?) and also an ITSO reader and (if we still use them in 20 years time) a mag strip reader, such that ones ticket is presented to the seat (which checks for validity) which then asks whether one wishes to resewrve either to the furthest place on the ticket that the train allows (which could be the tickets' end-point) or if BOJ is allowed, to a break point.

Such a system, naturally, would automatically verify that someone with a reservation is sat in the correct seat or if appropriate allow them to 'move' their reservation.

With good coding, this could well work. It could also allow a ticket to be marked as used (with of course the option to touch your ITSO card again if you do a BOJ so 'the system' knows what validity remains.

 

[Manchester77]

Exactly I never said there'd be no screens, just the LEDs would add an extra ease for passengers they work with the small screens

 

[W-on-Sea]

Yes, as everyone seems to agree, this is a really ill-thought through, inappropriate, system.

And (thinking of XC's ownership),....just as I had been (mildly) impressed by how such matters were managed on the Deutsche Bahn IC services I was using recently.

Similar sort of display as on the voyagers, but (non-scrolling) text that simply states on which part of the journey that the seats have been reserved, until the departure station relating to the reservation has been departed, when the text disappears (unless the same seat has been reserved for a later stretch of the journey), presumably so that "no-shows" are taken account of.

I do like the notion of a colour-coded LED system, however. At present it is impossible to tell from outside of a train if a carriage is mainly reserved - the old paper tag system makes that immediately obvious (not without qualification, for sure)

 

[Arriva158]

Managed to get a reservation on the system but once I got on the voyager the reservation didn't even show!

 

[Pixa]

How about:-
Three LEDs on the seat backs showing either red, yellow or green with a smaller where they are on voyagers showing where from and to etc.
So you come in and see red, don't sit, green sit and yellow look at screen then sit.
Green - unreserved for entire journey
Yellow - unreserved for part, reserved from X to Y
Red - reserved
But the colours change at each station so when a reservation runs out the seat will show its free by changing from red to green.

I think, in true railway tradition, it should be a four aspect indicator, showing two yellows if the seat is reserved in 2-3 stops and one yellow if the seat is reserved from the next stop.

 

[Jordeh]

These LED ideas sound very tacky and unless they were enormous, they'd still require close inspection. Not only that but presumably you would have to turn around to see the light for the seat you're sat on. And importantly the yellow light would be ambiguous as to when it becomes reserved anyway, which is exactly the reason this thread was created.

I agree that simply reverting the electronic screens to how they initially worked is best. Although the idea of automatic boarding passes sounds brilliant!

 

[tsr]

Although the idea of automatic boarding passes sounds brilliant!

And, what's more, it could be part of a system that would also work for "walk-up" tickets - for example, a TVM could tell you if your service is likely to be full and standing, or even inform you of the best place to find unused seats (perhaps based on data showing which reservations have actually been used).

With regards to the LED light system, I think it would be best to have a multi-colour LED light beside each reservation display, but that this would protrude slightly from the display mounting area in order to be visible up and down the coach. Once a passenger sees a green light, they can simply take a seat, but a yellow light would be right next to a display and would clearly show that the display required inspection.

As an off-topic aside, I believe that a system of mandatory luggage labelling should be necessary when luggage racks are used (just as it currently is on Eurostar, as far as I remember!) in the mid-to-long-term future. A RFID-equipped tag could be dispensed from a TVM for each piece of luggage placed in a rack by a passenger, and this could be a scanned by the luggage rack. The train's electronics would alert the guard to any departure with uncollected luggage onboard, and the passenger could also be reminded of their luggage on their phone or on onboard (think Volo TV) screens. To ensure that no suspicious luggage could be left on trains calling at major stations, ticket barriers would require both "person" and "luggage" tickets to be present. At the end of a journey, any ticket barrier (if present) would swallow the "luggage" ticket to ensure it can be reused at another TVM. (Alongside paper tickets, I would also extend this to the inevitable smartcards.)

 

[route:oxford]

These LED ideas sound very tacky and unless they were enormous, they'd still require close inspection.

You should never closely inspect an LED!

I can't imagine how dangerous an "enormous" LED would be. A single 5mmx5mm LED in my outside security light is capable of illuminating my garden at night.

 

[yorksrob]

I'm not sure I'd fancy the carriage being lit up like a Christmas tree with LED's and digital displays. Go back to paper XC. You know it makes sense.

 

[LisaH]

Over the Christmas period I travelled on a train from Manchester to Reading recently with a very 'soft and cuddly' child who had recently recovered from the traditional Christmas lurgy plus a teenager who suffers withdrawal symptoms if he can't use his laptop on the train. We'd tried unsuccessfully to book a table but when we got on there was one showing as 'available but could be reserved later'. I naively thought that
1. this was the 10 minute reservation system
2. I would be able to phone and reserve 'my' table. (Tried this - you can't select seats once you're on the train, even more than 10 minutes before departure.)
so settled my family in.
No such luck - we were asked to move at Stockport as someone had 2 seats reserved from there. Thinking they must have only got them in the last 2 minutes and that there were other non-table seats free, I did initially say we would stay in the seats and let the train manager arbitrate but politeness prevailed and I didn't stick to my guns. My children took the other two seats and I sat elsewhere until they too had to move at Macclesfield.
The train manager, when he came, said that the new system was a total pain but that there were plenty of seats free in the unreserved carriage - fortunately I went on a reccy and found 3 at a table.
Don't think much of the new system needless to say especially now I realise the people had probably had the table seats reserved for days.

 

[sheff1]

Grateful to Goatboy for explaining this - saw it for the first time the other day and also assumed it was the 10 min reservation thing.

What a ridiculous system !

How about combining advance reservations with a system for walk-up passengers like this?

Sometime in the not too distant future when all stations have automatic barriers ans a Mr Scargill has moved in with a Mr Crow to save on rent, a customer inserts the ticket they have just bought and out the other side pops a boarding pass with a seat reservations. The passenger then find the correct coach and seat and check that it is correct by looking at the on-board display that has already been updated with their purchase.​

Without the barriers or technology, this is uncannily similiar to the sytem in use on longer distance trains in Sweden. Some are fully reservable, some are not.

On the former when you book a ticket for immediate travel (from TVM or ticket office) you automatically get allocated a reserved seat. On the latter you can request a reserved seat for a small fee. On the train itself, which could have been on the move for some time before you board, there are no reservation labels or displays.

On the second type of train there will be at least one coach advertised on the screens as unreserved. If you sit here you know you are safe for the duration of your journey. If you sit elsewhere without a reservation you run the risk of being turfed out after any stop.

The major downside is that if the fully reserverable train is indeed fully booked you can't get a ticket for it. I would hope the onboard staff have some way of indicating a no show to free up the seat down the line, but do not know whether that is, in fact, the case.

 

[calc7]

The train manager, when he came, said that the new system was a total pain but that there were plenty of seats free in the unreserved carriage -

And only Voyagers with a coach B have an unreserved coach - fewer than half the trains on the Manchester - Birmingham route, I am led to believe.

 

[Goatboy]

The Train manager on mine on Saturday announced it was a 'very busy service' as if this somehow excused the standing right from the word go. A 4 coach Voyager from Penzance to Glasgow Central, it was never going to be anything but 'a very busy service'

And this was the middle of the day on a Saturday, hardly the morning peak!

 

[Goatboy]

So, this continues to be a bizarre situation. I've travelled on various Voyagers since this thread and noted:

a) Some have had paper reservations. What a revelation. You could tell instantly which seats were reserved and on exactly which parts of the journey
b) Some were entirely populated with the new ridiculous reservation policy

And then yesterday, where the train was a bizarre hybrid of useless 'May be reserved en-route' in almost every seat, but with the odd seat (ie, under 5 in each coach) actually explaining where its reserved from.

What *are* they doing?

 

[YorkshireRider]

A service i was on last week also had 'MAY BE RESERVED' over every seat, and indeed many of them were reserved, leading to mass confusion and musical chairs at York, thankfully i was alighting at Leeds as the platform was heaving with passengers. Is this just a fall back if the system goes down so passengers can still claim there seat?

 

[TEW]

They do give you some useful information, just in a very roundabout way. The screen will say Available, but may be reserved later Plymouth-Bristol Temple Meads, for example. That means it isn't yet reserved as far as Bristol, but is from Bristol. If it said Available, but may be reserved later Plymouth-Edinburgh, for example, you are probably safe in the seat, except for a 10 minute reservation. Quite who though this was a better way of putting it than Available until Bristol Temple Meads I don't know.

 

[Zoe]

except for a 10 minute reservation.

Is there any way of knowing if a specific seat is available for 10 minute reservations when on the train? I wouldn't want it to say available only for someone to later reserve it.

 

[Goatboy]

Is there any way of knowing if a specific seat is available for 10 minute reservations when on the train? I wouldn't want it to say available only for someone to later reserve it.

I think they are the ones that simply say 'available but may be reserved en route' rather that 'may be reserved later'.

Clear as mud. No wonder people just give up and stand in the vestibules

 

[TEW]

They all now have the same available but may be reserved later message, so who knows which ones are the 10 minute reservation ones now. At least you used to know which ones they were when only a couple of seats had the available but may be reserved message. The other day I was on a Voyager which appeared to have had a message manually put on all the seats. It simply said "SEAT MAY BE RESERVED. PLEASE VACATE SEAT FOR RESERVATION HOLDER. THANKYOU." On most TOCs if details of reservations can't be displayed it's a free for all, surely the only logical solution. It just isn't fair on passengers without reservations otherwise. Especially since it's often the people paying the most for walk up tickets that won't have a reservation.

 

[Zoe]

The last time I went on a Voyager and the reservation system had failed. The train manager initially asked everyone to sit in their reserved seat as there was the possibility that the issue could be fixed later in the journey. This later changed to a free for all. This was on a Friday afternoon and the train was packed. As you may expect, people that got on and discovered that someone was sitting in their reserved seat were not happy at all.

 

[Goatboy]

They all now have the same available but may be reserved later message, so who knows which ones are the 10 minute reservation ones now. At least you used to know which ones they were when only a couple of seats had the available but may be reserved message. The other day I was on a Voyager which appeared to have had a message manually put on all the seats. It simply said "SEAT MAY BE RESERVED. PLEASE VACATE SEAT FOR RESERVATION HOLDER. THANKYOU." On most TOCs if details of reservations can't be displayed it's a free for all, surely the only logical solution. It just isn't fair on passengers without reservations otherwise. Especially since it's often the people paying the most for walk up tickets that won't have a reservation.

Its completely illogical - travelling on a reasonably busy service without a reservation is now not recommended at all as it's almost impossible to find a seat with any guarantee you might not be randomly chucked out at a random point in the future. This is frankly an unacceptable state of affairs and I've no idea what XC are doing.

Perhaps its a new capacity management technique? We've already had the comedy fares to cut the passenger numbers down so they fit on a tiny little 4 car Voyager, perhaps the next step is to annoy everyone without a reservation so much they simply drive next time?

Eventually the Voyagers will be nice and quiet and XC can say they've eased overcrowding

 

[bewildered]

I had this issue last week travelling from Leeds to Glasgow. It was a last minute work job so it was a case of buying a ticket in the station. At Newcastle it was an utter joke people being turfed out of seats etc. on the return journey I was lucky enough to get in a seat that had no display and I assumed these seats were unreservable. I checked with the conductor and he joked that I knew the secret as the new system was a complete joke. Low and behold at Edinburgh it happened again, the turf wars

 

[Roverman]

Frankly I'm surprised no one has claimed they are untouchable!

I'm going to Manchester today on the 10:01 from Stafford. Despite booking in advance I am told there are no seats left! Same story with my return trip 15:27, these are not busy or peak times, it is not a national holiday or half term. If XC can't cope in quiet times how on earth do they cope in really busy periods?

 

[Nicholas43]

I've just tried to book Oxford>Southampton and back tomorrow 30 Jan. For off-peak returns, selecting several trial times, the website says it can't reserve a seat. It mysteriously can reserve a seat for an Advance on the same trains. I don't want to be tied to a specific train.