All seat reservations activate part-way through GWR journey

[sh24]

This is one of those basic things that the railway does so badly, and it causes a disproportionate amount of customer annoyance and irritation.

 

[bramling]

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.

Agreed. One would hope that a TM wouldn’t *consciously* enable the system mid-journey, though clearly it seems to happen. This is one of those things where the railway just doesn’t think through what it does and the effect it has on the end user.

 

[yorkie]

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.

Whatever the rights and wrongs of the system of enabling seats to become reserveable, these seats are displayed along the lines of "May be reserved" / "Reserveable en-route", so it's not quite the same as telling someone a seat is "Avaiable" from Paddington, and then changing it just before Reading, so that Reading passengers think the customer has ignored the signs.

I am not really a fan of the XC style system, however at least a passenger knows the position when they choose to occupy the seat; it is completely unacceptable for a seat to be advertised as "Available" only for the person who takes that at face value to have someone insisting further into the journey that the occupier vacates the seat for them.

This is one of those basic things that the railway does so badly, and it causes a disproportionate amount of customer annoyance and irritation.

Very much agreed; sadly some of the people in positions of power do not seem to get to travel much as passengers and don't see things from a customer point of view.

 

[Skiddaw]

It happened to me when I was en route back from Euston to Penrith just before Xmas (Avanti Glasgow service). Train manager said they had a new computer system, which either wasn't working or none of them could figure it out (she was very apologetic about it). They managed to switch it on at Preston if I recall correctly.

 

[Mitchell Hurd]

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.

On 9 and 10-car IET's it's always Coach G that's unreserved. The double Voyagers (XC) it's also (when 10-car trains) both Coach H and L too.

 

[74A]

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?

In this case its one of those chicken and egg situations. The TM did not seem to realise the reservations were not working. If they did they could have corrected them before they left Paddington!

 

[Leuvenn]

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?

It's a mix of laziness and pragmatism. The reservations are easy to input but also easy to mess up. If you're not careful you'll have reservations showing the wrong coach numbers, which causes needless confusion and delay. As a guard, if you are only going 20 mins to Reading, why bother?
Reservations are really a mixed utility on the operational end, as they don't serve to speed up dispatch or dwell and cause endless arguments.

 

[Adrian1980uk]

This is one of those basic things that the railway does so badly, and it causes a disproportionate amount of customer annoyance and irritation.

GA never reintroduced it after COVID and I've not seen it cause an issue, no expectation getting on - admittedly I do the full Norwich to Liverpool street commute so it really doesn't affect me but then at present GA has more or less the right capacity trains for the loading.

 

[Bletchleyite]

It's a mix of laziness and pragmatism. The reservations are easy to input but also easy to mess up. If you're not careful you'll have reservations showing the wrong coach numbers, which causes needless confusion and delay. As a guard, if you are only going 20 mins to Reading, why bother?

Because it's their job. If you're not willing to do all your job rather than just the bits you like, leave.

 

[TT-ONR-NRN]

Because it's their job. If you're not willing to do all your job rather than just the bits you like, leave.

Took the words right out of my mouth.

Not forgetting it’s also not long since they were all put into slits in the seat by hand!

 

[43066]

It's a mix of laziness and pragmatism. The reservations are easy to input but also easy to mess up. If you're not careful you'll have reservations showing the wrong coach numbers, which causes needless confusion and delay. As a guard, if you are only going 20 mins to Reading, why bother?
Reservations are really a mixed utility on the operational end, as they don't serve to speed up dispatch or dwell and cause endless arguments.

Isn’t it a case of just loading up the relevant trip in the TMS? That appears to be how ours operate.

 

[northwichcat]

I'm sure it won't be long before the process of seat reservations on to the train will just involve a staff member logging on and typing in the headcode for the service. We might even have AI detecting whether vacant reserved seats are only vacant because someone has left them to go and get a coffee/use the toilet, or if they've been gone long enough to switch the display to saying it's available for anyone to use.

 

[Leuvenn]

Isn’t it a case of just loading up the relevant trip in the TMS? That appears to be how ours operate.

It's as easy as it sounds. Anyone can do it.

Because it's their job. If you're not willing to do all your job rather than just the bits you like, leave.

To be fair, it's a minor part of a fairly comprehensive role which is divided between three members of staff (Driver, Guard and Paddington's Dispatch Supervisor). It's easy to miss unless you're keen and fairly ancillary to the overall service. Only on a Penzance service would it really be warranted

 

[Finfanero]

I’ve had this happen on Hull Trains more than once, in KGX no reservations but flying through Potters Bar and there is a bing and all the reservations go live. Always assumed it was mobile
Signal.

 

[Bletchleyite]

I'm sure it won't be long before the process of seat reservations on to the train will just involve a staff member logging on and typing in the headcode for the service. We might even have AI detecting whether vacant reserved seats are only vacant because someone has left them to go and get a coffee/use the toilet, or if they've been gone long enough to switch the display to saying it's available for anyone to use.

Avanti have installed (but don't yet seem to be using) a system that does exactly that! The cameras along the roofline of the refurbished sets are the feed.

It's as easy as it sounds. Anyone can do it.

To be fair, it's a minor part of a fairly comprehensive role which is divided between three members of staff (Driver, Guard and Paddington's Dispatch Supervisor). It's easy to miss unless you're keen and fairly ancillary to the overall service. Only on a Penzance service would it really be warranted

It's warranted to do your job fully and correctly in all cases. Obviously in some cases emergencies get in the way but it's not unimportant in the slightest.

 

[tlionhart]

A common cause for this is the train has to download the seat reservation data. It happens when the system fails to download. It is possible the ‘data’ was downloaded later.

 

[TUC]

As a guard, if you are only going 20 mins to Reading, why bother?

Because it's part of doing your job well?

 

[43066]

It's as easy as it sounds. Anyone can do it.

To be fair, it's a minor part of a fairly comprehensive role which is divided between three members of staff (Driver, Guard and Paddington's Dispatch Supervisor). It's easy to miss unless you're keen and fairly ancillary to the overall service. Only on a Penzance service would it really be warranted

Well, presumably you’d need to be trained! I’ve seen part of the process but wouldn’t have a clue how to do it on the stock I sign.

A little hard to imagine this is (or isn’t) being done out of laziness - especially where it would impact on colleagues. Where I am TMs are responsible for uploading reservations, and the lazy option would always be to do it, simply because of the amount of moaning and general aggro not having reservations displayed generates!

A common cause for this is the train has to download the seat reservation data. It happens when the system fails to download. It is possible the ‘data’ was downloaded later.

Sounds familiar. You’d hope on 80Xs the system works better than the one on early noughties 22Xs.

 

[Pigeon]

Not forgetting it's also not long since they were all put into slits in the seat by hand!

...printed by computer, complete with sprocket-feed holes up the side. And I don't remember it being noticeably prone to any species of argument beyond those caused by people who see a seat is reserved but sit in it anyway, pinch the slip etc.

If they could make that work it's a bit daft that simply automating the step of putting the reservations on display in the train should make arguments more frequent and diverse rather than less.

 

[James90012]

I had an interesting experience with GWR at Exeter recently when the reservations and displays came on. At first our seats were unreserved in a particular Coach but after a few minutes they became reserved in an entirely different coach, was like the 2 5 car sets were swapped on the system.

 

[Towers]

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.

Not quite. One button is required to load the seat reservations, guards cannot “hard reset” the TMS, and the carriage temperature is pre-set from a configuration menu that crew are not permitted to access.

There’s a fair bit of guesswork going on here; the actual process is that the headcode of the next journey is loaded into the TMS, which can be done from any TMS on the train by anyone who has a login, and as part of that process a button is pressed which activates the internal & external PIS screens and loads the reservations. This might be carried out by the incoming crew after arrival on the previous journey, if they’re duly proactive and the information is available to them, or by the driver or Train Manager of the outgoing journey when they arrive at their train. The TM will generally tend to be there first, as their diagram allocates time to prepare the train. This may or may not be before the passengers start boarding, of course.

The train won’t leave without the headcode set up, however a common issue is the second step of activating the screens & reservations not being carried out, which explains why on occasion you might see a train with all the internal & external screens blank. This can rectified at any time by logging in to any TMS and hitting the required button. Ten car formations can be ‘switched’ if required so that the lower lettered coaches are correctly in the country end set, and the individual carriage letters can be altered if need be, although I’ve never know GWR do that for any reason. Individual reservations can be added or removed from the system at any point during the journey.

Sometimes the crew will load everything up and the reservations simply don’t work, this might be owing to a train formation change or could be a simple ‘computer says no’ situation.

There is no correlation between a service being DOO and the seat reservations loading or not loading, beyond the simple instance of a driver forgetting to load them. Oxford services are routinely DOO and all run with the seat reservation system operating as normal (or should do!); the only difference is there being no TM to notice and rectify it if the ‘blank screens’ situation happens due to buttons not being pressed!

 

[Adam Williams]

a common issue is the second step of activating the screens & reservations not being carried out

Why on earth wouldn't you design for this to happen automatically?

 

[74A]

Why on earth wouldn't you design for this to happen automatically?

A good question. Along with why can't you add stop or not advertise a stop if it is pick up only. The IET was specified by someone at the dft who quite honestly wasn't really up to the job. Or didn't bother to ask anyone who works the train what is required.

 

[800301]

Why on earth wouldn't you design for this to happen automatically?

I'd blame Hitachi, I also can't understand why you can't enter an earlier termination point eg Reading instead of Paddington, but that issue isn't just related to an IET

 

[Rover77]

Not quite. One button is required to load the seat reservations, guards cannot “hard reset” the TMS, and the carriage temperature is pre-set from a configuration menu that crew are not permitted to access.

There’s a fair bit of guesswork going on here; the actual process is that the headcode of the next journey is loaded into the TMS, which can be done from any TMS on the train by anyone who has a login, and as part of that process a button is pressed which activates the internal & external PIS screens and loads the reservations. This might be carried out by the incoming crew after arrival on the previous journey, if they’re duly proactive and the information is available to them, or by the driver or Train Manager of the outgoing journey when they arrive at their train. The TM will generally tend to be there first, as their diagram allocates time to prepare the train. This may or may not be before the passengers start boarding, of course.

The train won’t leave without the headcode set up, however a common issue is the second step of activating the screens & reservations not being carried out, which explains why on occasion you might see a train with all the internal & external screens blank. This can rectified at any time by logging in to any TMS and hitting the required button. Ten car formations can be ‘switched’ if required so that the lower lettered coaches are correctly in the country end set, and the individual carriage letters can be altered if need be, although I’ve never know GWR do that for any reason. Individual reservations can be added or removed from the system at any point during the journey.

Sometimes the crew will load everything up and the reservations simply don’t work, this might be owing to a train formation change or could be a simple ‘computer says no’ situation.

There is no correlation between a service being DOO and the seat reservations loading or not loading, beyond the simple instance of a driver forgetting to load them. Oxford services are routinely DOO and all run with the seat reservation system operating as normal (or should do!); the only difference is there being no TM to notice and rectify it if the ‘blank screens’ situation happens due to buttons not being pressed!

I am an Avanti TM
1. I often have to reset the TMS.
2. I can change temperatures using the TMS system.
3. The train often departs without the headcode set up if the TMS is not working.

I understand the OP referred to GWR service but Avanti services have been mentioned in the thread. Obviously different systems on different traction.

 

[Huddox]

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

Reading some of the replies here there's quite a bit of hate towards the operator and not the train manufacture.

The quick turn arounds at terminating and departing stations can be less then 20 minutes, on some occasions following delays it's been know to be far less.

To answer the original question below:

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.

When the driver enters the trains headcode upon their arrival in the cab on the TMS it loads a file downloaded through Hitachi Rail Cloud Services which is obtained from RDB rail retail management system. A UK rail system where every TOC and reseller website has access to. Typing in the trains headcode loads the stopping pattern and activates the outside boarding screens that shows the carriages. Some drivers are fully trained to also follow the the procedure to load the seat reservations. Depending on the formation of the train this can take sometime to set the formation correctly and download the file through Hitachi Cloud Services. Once downloaded and confirmed as successful on the TMS it can take a further 2-3 minutes to go live through our the train.

Where it goes wrong and reservations aren't shown is down a few operational problems.

1) the train stock is the wrong. Reservations for a anticipated booked 10 car (2x 5 IETs together) will not load to a 9 car or 5 car. Vice versa the other way around

2) if the file from RSD is incorrect or lacking being finalised. Making the file uploaded to Hitachi being corrupt. The file will not load and reservations will not show. The delay would be contacting Hitachi to resend a completed file. This can take 30 minutes+ whilst they find the file, re finalise the file and manually upload it to the cloud for the train manager to try and reload using the TMS.

3) the train manager preparing the train and loading everything before the driver keys in. Once a train is set up to be showing everything needed when a driver keys in a option on the TMS wipes all the information and the driver re enters the headcode starting the whole process over again. Sometimes once the information has been downloaded from Hitachi Cloud the reservations are unable to be downloaded again. Meaning the train manager having to contact Hitachi to get the file re finalised again, uploaded and then if successful can be downloaded again by the train manager. All this takes time.

4) lack of connectivity. If the cellular network is down, busy or lacking coverage the reservations system will not work or there will be a delay in recieving the information and uploaded throughout the train at a time when it catches up with itself. Sometimes it has the wait for a slot in the programming before actioning. Like if an automatic announcement pattern is sounding throughout the train - it'll go live after it's finished talking.

5) a bug in the system where a manual walkthrough of the circuit breakers in each coach needs to be individually reset a coach at a time. Thus performing a hard reset. Takes time and a lot of steps. Which is why it takes so long and could be a good 20+ minutes to perform.

Hope the above clears a few things up. Think GWR do a pretty good job at times considering every IT system is owned and run by a million different companies with no one body controlling the rail data. Especially when talking about the screens showing a 2 minute delay and then being much worst as it keeps going up. This a national rail reporting system of reporting information to soften the blow. A terrible system of reporting in my opinion that needs to be fully accurate going forward instead of masking the impact. That and the 'on time' notification. National rail should just remove it from the aging screens.

 

[exbrel]

thank you Huddox for explaining the process, but what happens when the punter boards a train with no reservation and looks for a seat, if they are all available he takes his pick. As the journey progresses the system comes on and he finds he is in a reserved seat, and at a later station someone comes and claims it, what's his position? and if the TM gets involved again what's his position?

 

[Adrian1980uk]

thank you Huddox for explaining the process, but what happens when the punter boards a train with no reservation and looks for a seat, if they are all available he takes his pick. As the journey progresses the system comes on and he finds he is in a reserved seat, and at a later station someone comes and claims it, what's his position? and if the TM gets involved again what's his position?

Problem is we're trying to cover a catalogue of problems, I would suggest it won't be a problem if the TM can seat them somewhere else on a train with adequate capacity. The issue comes when the train is overcrowded and asking either party to stand.

 

[stuu]

Reading some of the replies here there's quite a bit of hate towards the operator and not the train manufacture.

The quick turn arounds at terminating and departing stations can be less then 20 minutes, on some occasions following delays it's been know to be far less.

To answer the original question below:



When the driver enters the trains headcode upon their arrival in the cab on the TMS it loads a file downloaded through Hitachi Rail Cloud Services which is obtained from RDB rail retail management system. A UK rail system where every TOC and reseller website has access to. Typing in the trains headcode loads the stopping pattern and activates the outside boarding screens that shows the carriages. Some drivers are fully trained to also follow the the procedure to load the seat reservations. Depending on the formation of the train this can take sometime to set the formation correctly and download the file through Hitachi Cloud Services. Once downloaded and confirmed as successful on the TMS it can take a further 2-3 minutes to go live through our the train.

Where it goes wrong and reservations aren't shown is down a few operational problems.

1) the train stock is the wrong. Reservations for a anticipated booked 10 car (2x 5 IETs together) will not load to a 9 car or 5 car. Vice versa the other way around

2) if the file from RSD is incorrect or lacking being finalised. Making the file uploaded to Hitachi being corrupt. The file will not load and reservations will not show. The delay would be contacting Hitachi to resend a completed file. This can take 30 minutes+ whilst they find the file, re finalise the file and manually upload it to the cloud for the train manager to try and reload using the TMS.

3) the train manager preparing the train and loading everything before the driver keys in. Once a train is set up to be showing everything needed when a driver keys in a option on the TMS wipes all the information and the driver re enters the headcode starting the whole process over again. Sometimes once the information has been downloaded from Hitachi Cloud the reservations are unable to be downloaded again. Meaning the train manager having to contact Hitachi to get the file re finalised again, uploaded and then if successful can be downloaded again by the train manager. All this takes time.

4) lack of connectivity. If the cellular network is down, busy or lacking coverage the reservations system will not work or there will be a delay in recieving the information and uploaded throughout the train at a time when it catches up with itself. Sometimes it has the wait for a slot in the programming before actioning. Like if an automatic announcement pattern is sounding throughout the train - it'll go live after it's finished talking.

5) a bug in the system where a manual walkthrough of the circuit breakers in each coach needs to be individually reset a coach at a time. Thus performing a hard reset. Takes time and a lot of steps. Which is why it takes so long and could be a good 20+ minutes to perform.

Hope the above clears a few things up. Think GWR do a pretty good job at times considering every IT system is owned and run by a million different companies with no one body controlling the rail data. Especially when talking about the screens showing a 2 minute delay and then being much worst as it keeps going up. This a national rail reporting system of reporting information to soften the blow. A terrible system of reporting in my opinion that needs to be fully accurate going forward instead of masking the impact. That and the 'on time' notification. National rail should just remove it from the aging screens.

Thank you for the detailed explanation. From that it would seem the system is extremely poorly designed, which given the well reported issues with the 800s is no huge surprise

 

[Kite159]

I've had it a few times on the LNER MK4 coaches. Reservation screens kicking into life after departure from Leeds so passengers have to play musical chairs when the Wakefield passengers board, only for the screens to die before Doncaster and randomly come back into life for a few minutes.

Just causes chaos on busy trains when people claim it's their seat when the screen is flickering.