All seat reservations activate part-way through GWR journey

[brad465]

A thread from last year on GWR reservations is locked, so have started a new thread for this:

Travelling on the 12:03 from Paddington-Taunton (which amazingly wasn't disrupted given the current issues) earlier, I sat in Coach B, close to my bike, as all the seats were green with available on them, thinking it was a bonus unreserved coach along with the usual G. However when the train arrived at Reading, all the reservations suddenly activated, even ones that started from London, such that some passengers had to move around as Reading passengers boarded (I was fortunate not to have to). I didn't see what other coaches said but wouldn't be surprised if they had similar issues.

Is this common, and is there a particular cause for this? I understand sometimes reservations have to be wiped (such as for different formation), but if reservations are going to be used, I think the decision should be made before the journey starts and stuck to, but then I don't have inside knowledge.

 

[TrainDriverSam]

May have found that it departed Paddington DOO and then a TM boarded at Reading and activated the Seat Reservation System. In theory, if it isn't activated at the start station then it shouldn't be enabled mid journey to stop exactly the issues described. The policy may have changed since I waved GWR goodbye though

 

[northwichcat]

I experienced something similar on an Avanti Pendolino recently. Arrived at Stockport all seat reservations turned off. Someone was sat in my allocated seat, so I found another vacant one. They came on before Wilmslow - queue all the Wilmslow passengers saying there's someone in my seat!

 

[yorkie]

Very poor to do this part-way through the journey; if there are no reservations from the origin then it should remain a case of "please occupy any available seat" throughout the journey.

 

[Adrian1980uk]

I really don't know why a lot of TOCs persist with reservations, on less busy trains it makes no difference and on busy trains it leads to conflict.

 

[trainophile]

Reservations not working on Avanti today. Announcements made at New Street and I think Wolverhampton, but not at other stops. Apparently it was a national system-wide failure. We were told to take any seat, and that there's plenty of space at the front of the train. (It was an Edinburgh service).

I was in coach D, and was mildly amused at Crewe to see lots of people dashing along the platform with their suitcases towards C and B as presumably that's where their reservations were. It was surprising peaceful until Warrington BQ, where a group of about five people boarded D and were reading out their reservation numbers. I told them that reservations weren't operating today and they eventually drifted off towards E, presumably heading for the unreserved coach.

Seemed quite quiet today on the railways, but could have been difficult on a packed service.

 

[johnr57]

Frequently travel on the 0652 or 0852 Avanti services from Edinburgh to Birmingham. More often than not the reservations don’t appear until carstairs or Lockerbie! That may well be due to the rather poor mobile service en route

 

[Master29]

Very poor to do this part-way through the journey; if there are no reservations from the origin then it should remain a case of "please occupy any available seat" throughout the journey.

Absolutely. The excuse of whether it was DOO or not prior to Reading is irrelevant. It's bad practice on the part of GWR.

I really don't know why a lot of TOCs persist with reservations, on less busy trains it makes no difference and on busy trains it leads to conflict.

I've never had any issues on busy trains but I agree it happens. I disagree though concerning getting rid of them, especially on long journeys and if you booked in advance, why shouldn't you have the choice?

 

[Mcr Warrior]

Frequently travel on the 0652 or 0852 Avanti services from Edinburgh to Birmingham. More often than not the reservations don’t appear until carstairs or Lockerbie! That may well be due to the rather poor mobile service en route

What?! No network available whilst the train is awaiting departure from Edinburgh Waverley?

 

[BJames]

This kind of thing really frustrates me.

Again, this brings to light the issue of not having clear directions/signage to indicate what should happen when no reservations are showing in a carriage where you are expecting them. A sign displaying "where reservations are displayed as green throughout the carriage, booked reservations do not apply" or something similar. It would solve plenty of arguments if there were a few signs in place. One place that's got this right is LNER - at least there's little excuse not to book a seat! Still nothing to indicate what you should do if the system hasn't loaded up properly though.

And I appreciate this is a contradiction to my point as signage would likely confuse this even further but this is really poor, and to have these turning on halfway through the journey is not fair. You can't expect people to just hope for the best in case a TM comes along and fixes things later.

I usually just hunt down the unreserved carriages, not just on GWR but everywhere, to avoid this.

May have found that it departed Paddington DOO and then a TM boarded at Reading and activated the Seat Reservation System. In theory, if it isn't activated at the start station then it shouldn't be enabled mid journey to stop exactly the issues described. The policy may have changed since I waved GWR goodbye though

This does actually make sense but as you say TM should leave this off.

 

[GoneSouth]

I really don't know why a lot of TOCs persist with reservations, on less busy trains it makes no difference and on busy trains it leads to conflict.

It most certainly does make a difference to many passengers and is a very sensible thing to have in long distance trains. There’s only conflict when unreasonable, entitled people don’t respect other people being able to organise their lives and book a seat.

 

[jamesr]

It’s a bit of an unnecessary assumption to say that people travelling without seat reservations are disorganised. Most of my travel links with air journeys which are commonly late and occasionally diverted. I’ve learned the hard way that advance tickets with their accompanying seat reservations are a false economy. Perhaps someone is travelling to a meeting where they have no control over the end time. Perhaps someone is travelling last minute to meet a sick parent.

Seat reservations are a useful tool for journeys that can be pre-planned but they should only be given out where customers request or need them. At the moment the lower revenue generating advance passengers get a much better quality of journey on busy routes than the higher-paying walk-ups, which is illogical from a business perspective. However, I get it that there’s no easy solution (although the 1980s approach of “Reservations Mandatory” on specific long distance trains where there are alternatives seemed quite sensible).

 

[Topological]

Bring back the old paper ones. That way they are very unlikely to suddenly be added part way into the journey.

It was also very easy to see whether someone had deliberately removed a label, since the only way to argue there were no labels was to remove them from the whole train.

It would also be good if the system was just switched off, rather than displaying all green, when the reservation system was not working. Then no one would think that it might be working.

 

[Sly Old Fox]

May have found that it departed Paddington DOO and then a TM boarded at Reading and activated the Seat Reservation System. In theory, if it isn't activated at the start station then it shouldn't be enabled mid journey to stop exactly the issues described. The policy may have changed since I waved GWR goodbye though

If there was no TM on from Paddington the train wouldn’t have departed.

Most likely is that the reservations didn’t load for some reason in London and another attempt was made at Reading, which worked.

 

[RJ]

I have gotten on GWR trains at Paddington and had to keep moving as the reservations progressively load. A quirky system so nowadays I aim for the seats that are least likely to be reserved and leave the musical chairs game to everyone else.

A new one this week though was reservations showing for a previous trip as they were all in the wrong direction throughout. I took this to mean seat reservations were not being enforced.

 

[GoneSouth]

It’s a bit of an unnecessary assumption to say that people travelling without seat reservations are disorganised. Most of my travel links with air journeys which are commonly late and occasionally diverted. I’ve learned the hard way that advance tickets with their accompanying seat reservations are a false economy. Perhaps someone is travelling to a meeting where they have no control over the end time. Perhaps someone is travelling last minute to meet a sick parent.

Seat reservations are a useful tool for journeys that can be pre-planned but they should only be given out where customers request or need them. At the moment the lower revenue generating advance passengers get a much better quality of journey on busy routes than the higher-paying walk-ups, which is illogical from a business perspective. However, I get it that there’s no easy solution (although the 1980s approach of “Reservations Mandatory” on specific long distance trains where there are alternatives seemed quite sensible).

Apologies, I didn’t intend to say everybody who doesn’t reserve a seat is disorganised, far from it, it was meant to be a complaint at those who feel they should be allowed to sit in a seat reserved by someone else just because they arrived at it first. So annoying when they won’t move. Of course not everyone can reserve a seat because plans change and meetings overrun etc. We can’t have a mandatory seat reservation system because much of the network only has one operator so there isn’t an alternative for walk up tickets. You’d kill demand and therefore revenue if you tried to introduce that as there’d be no standing either meaning the train was only half as full as it could be. There should always be sections of trains with unreserved seating to give those unable to plan ahead an option.

I can promise you all those reserved seats are not filled with cheap advance tickets, a proportion maybe, but I travel a lot with reserved seats and very very rarely have a cheap advance ticket.

I have gotten on GWR trains at Paddington and had to keep moving as the reservations progressively load. A quirky system so nowadays I aim for the seats that are least likely to be reserved and leave the musical chairs game to everyone else.

A new one this week though was reservations showing for a previous trip as they were all in the wrong direction throughout. I took this to mean seat reservations were not being enforced.

I’ve never worked out which sections of GWR trains are unreserved, is there always a specific coach guaranteed to be unreserved. I know which to aim for on XC (B and F) but not GWR.

 

[The exile]

Very poor to do this part-way through the journey; if there are no reservations from the origin then it should remain a case of "please occupy any available seat" throughout the journey.

As you say it’s very poor. Unfortunately someone at Cross Country obviously had the “brilliant idea” of actively encouraging the reservation of seats someone’s already sitting in. Sooner that gets binned the better.

 

[Ianigsy]

One place that's got this right is LNER - at least there's little excuse not to book a seat! Still nothing to indicate what you should do if the system hasn't loaded up properly though.

That’s reminded me to chase up a proper response from last September when I boarded a train at Kings Cross made up of two five-car sets with the reservations downloaded in the wrong order, only for it to be corrected about two minutes before departure! I ended up standing as far as Stevenage and the train manager wasn’t interested at all.

 

[stuu]

GWR have a habit of reservations suddenly turning on 2 minutes before departure, once everyone is onboard. Given the ease of moving information around these days, it is baffling that the passenger information displays can be correct and the reservations not showing

 

[Sly Old Fox]

Apologies, I didn’t intend to say everybody who doesn’t reserve a seat is disorganised, far from it, it was meant to be a complaint at those who feel they should be allowed to sit in a seat reserved by someone else just because they arrived at it first. So annoying when they won’t move. Of course not everyone can reserve a seat because plans change and meetings overrun etc. We can’t have a mandatory seat reservation system because much of the network only has one operator so there isn’t an alternative for walk up tickets. You’d kill demand and therefore revenue if you tried to introduce that as there’d be no standing either meaning the train was only half as full as it could be. There should always be sections of trains with unreserved seating to give those unable to plan ahead an option.

I can promise you all those reserved seats are not filled with cheap advance tickets, a proportion maybe, but I travel a lot with reserved seats and very very rarely have a cheap advance ticket.


I’ve never worked out which sections of GWR trains are unreserved, is there always a specific coach guaranteed to be unreserved. I know which to aim for on XC (B and F) but not GWR.

Coach G is always unreserved on GWR, or if a 5 car train the standard part of Coach D.

 

[WelshBluebird]

it was meant to be a complaint at those who feel they should be allowed to sit in a seat reserved by someone else just because they arrived at it first.

What about situations where the reservation screens aren't working (or aren't turned on), or where the person with the reservation doesn't turn up until the next stop?

 

[800Travel]

And what if the rest of the train is full when the person with a reserved seat arrives? Are we to be penalized for not guessing the right seat to sit in?

I fear some people just get too entitled because they have a nominal suggestion of a seat. I often think the best policy would be to claim a refund for the reservation fee when the reserved seat is not provided.

XC doesn’t charge to reserve a seat with them AFAIK. They do some kind of partial refund where a reservation cannot be honoured and you cannot find another seat, LNER do too.

 

[Rover77]

The problem is the antiquated TMS. If the TMS hadn't downloaded the trip at the origin station the TM will try to perform a hard reset which is the equivalent of tripping switches on and off again. The seat reservation system will download automatically if this reset is successful. Without the TMS system working the TM cannot control temps in coaches and more importantly cannot see which toilet a call for aid has been pressed. So when seat reservations appear mid journey it is because the TM needs the TMS working.

 

[apbj]

Is this common, and is there a particular cause for this?

Yes, on GWR. Though usually while still at Paddington or on departure rather than Reading! Very frustrating and the tedious pantomime of "that's my seat!" "not anymore it isn't" usually continues until Exeter.

Cause is very short turnarounds at Paddington.
A separate ongoing issue is that GWR is still selling Penzance trains as 10-car even though they are almost all 9-car, and it's the centre First coach 'D; that disappears. In all my Truro/Paddington journeys last year not a single seat reservation was fulfilled so I had to just scramble for an avalable seat each time; that's extremely poor for the price (as you're certainly not on GWR for the catering!)

 

[Topological]

XC doesn’t charge to reserve a seat with them AFAIK. They do some kind of partial refund where a reservation cannot be honoured and you cannot find another seat, LNER do too.

My apologies, I should have probably put it into some form of sarcasm tags

It is amazing that something which costs nothing creates such a sense of entitlement and superiority amongst some travellers. Yes, the reservation should be respected if it is indicated on the train, but in cases where there are no obvious reservations then I cannot find a reason for someone to move from a seat they sat in in good faith.

 

[Leuvenn]

May have found that it departed Paddington DOO and then a TM boarded at Reading and activated the Seat Reservation System. In theory, if it isn't activated at the start station then it shouldn't be enabled mid journey to stop exactly the issues described. The policy may have changed since I waved GWR goodbye though

No train bound for Taunton is allowed to start DOO from Paddington. But you're not far off.

In essence what happened, like as not, was that the TM was only going as far as Reading anyway and just forgot to activate the reservations. Either a Driver or Guard change caused them to reactivate at Reading.

Its a perennial issue from my end as it causes the gangways, ailes and luggage racks to become unnecessarily littered and hazardous

 

[TUC]

May have found that it departed Paddington DOO and then a TM boarded at Reading and activated the Seat Reservation System. In theory, if it isn't activated at the start station then it shouldn't be enabled mid journey to stop exactly the issues described. The policy may have changed since I waved GWR goodbye though

How does being DOO link to the set reservation system being active?

If there was no TM on from Paddington the train wouldn’t have departed.

Most likely is that the reservations didn’t load for some reason in London and another attempt was made at Reading, which worked.

Would it not have helped for an announcement to be made on departing Paddington that there was an issue they were seeking to fix, and so this may result in passengers finding later that their seat is reserved by someone else?

 

[TUC]

May have found that it departed Paddington DOO and then a TM boarded at Reading and activated the Seat Reservation System. In theory, if it isn't activated at the start station then it shouldn't be enabled mid journey to stop exactly the issues described. The policy may have changed since I waved GWR goodbye though

How does being DOO link to the set reservation system being active?

If there was no TM on from Paddington the train wouldn’t have departed.

Most likely is that the reservations didn’t load for some reason in London and another attempt was made at Reading, which worked.

Would it not have helped for an announcement to be made on departing Paddington that there was an issue they were seeking to fix, and so this may result in passengers finding later that their seat is reserved by someone else?

 

[Adam Williams]

I genuinely don't understand how these systems are so bad.

Why does a seat reservation entry to power an at-seat display need to be anything more than:

struct Seat {
    coach: u8,
    seat_number: u8,
}

struct Location {
    code: [u8; 3], // ascii
}

struct Reservation {
    seat: Seat,
    start_location: Location,
    end_location: Location,
}

With alignment, that's 8 bytes per reserved-seat-en-route for a specific retail service. We're talking about 18kB for an entire Pendolino if each seat gets booked 4 separate times. Even if we assume a really bad 2G network (do these still exist?) with 20% packet loss, that should take 4 seconds to download. Why is this hard?

As others in the thread have mentioned, when leaving Edinburgh there's often no seat indications visible until Carlisle (I've seen it first-hand). I am pretty sure I had 5G at the station!

 

[800Travel]

I genuinely don't understand how these systems are so bad.

Why does a seat reservation entry to power an at-seat display need to be anything more than:

struct Seat {
    coach: u8,
    seat_number: u8,
}

struct Location {
    code: [u8; 3], // ascii
}

struct Reservation {
    seat: Seat,
    start_location: Location,
    end_location: Location,
}

With alignment, that's 8 bytes per reserved-seat-en-route for a specific retail service. We're talking about 18kB for an entire Pendolino if each seat gets booked 4 separate times. Even if we assume a really bad 2G network (do these still exist?) with 20% packet loss, that should take 4 seconds to download. Why is this hard?

As others in the thread have mentioned, when leaving Edinburgh there's often no seat indications visible until Carlisle (I've seen it first-hand). I am pretty sure I had 5G at the station!

It's really bad

Often I find as well that TOCs activate the SRS (seat reservation system) at departure from the origin, but then it doesn't update throughout the journey. I.e. on a train from KGX to EDN, you may get a customer who has reserved a seat as the train was passing PBO to board at DON but the SRS just indicates the seat as orange, reservable but not currently reserved.