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[Mojo]

We've not killed it off, you need to click "Add to basket" and then visit the basket (link in the nav in the top right). Click the seat icon, then click the pencil to edit next to the seat you want to change, and the seat selector will open up inline.

Just wondering, why on the seat selector does it not allow you to select the same seat for the entire journey, even if it is available for the whole journey?

I've just booked a trip from Newark Northgate to Kings Cross, on a direct train. The splits are at Peterborough and Stevenage. By default it has given me one seat from Newark to Stevenage, and a different seat from Stevenage to Kings Cross. I know that many specific seats are available for the entire journey, as if I select a different seat for the first section, it will become available for the second. Similarly, if I remove the booking from my basket and go to LNER buying just one ticket, it allows me to select that seat.

 

[Adam Williams]

and go to LNER buying just one ticket, it allows me to select that seat.

In general, availability of a through reservation for a particular ticket type in a specific seat unfortunately does not necessarily imply reservation availability in the same seat for the same journey with the constituent ticket parts in a split ticketing scenario - so I wouldn't suggest relying on this to tell you anything.

Just wondering, why on the seat selector does it not allow you to select the same seat for the entire journey, even if it is available for the whole journey?

In this particular case - which I can reproduce, If I select e.g. seat H44 on the second ticket-leg-segment, I am then unable to select it on the first leg, despite being able to reserve exactly the same said seat out-of-band for the first leg directly by hitting NRS/RARS - there's something amiss so it's probably a bug.

If I had to speculate, I suspect not being able to get an accurate view of the availability of all of the seats for a specific ticket type could be the culprit here, so perhaps there's some element of caching/heuristics involved to consider the seat as "unavailable" to reduce the chances of the seat change failing even when it's technically not - but I genuinely don't know, it's not something I have visibility over.

It's not a frontend issue anyway - the frontend is correctly rendering the data it's given, so this is rather something that needs referring to an external supplier for comment. I do know that a lot of these limitations and the ability to handle errors were supposed to improve with the new RARS interface which - as has been discussed above - has been delayed.

 

[Haywain]

If I had to speculate, I suspect not being able to get an accurate view of the availability of all of the seats for a specific ticket type could be the culprit here, so perhaps there's some element of caching/heuristics involved to consider the seat as "unavailable" to reduce the chances of the seat change failing even when it's technically not - but I genuinely don't know, it's not something I have visibility over.

In the LNER website there was an issue where you couldn't change your seat if you had the last ticket from a specific quota and it sounds like this could be the problem being seen where it's the last ticket for that segment.

 

[Adam Williams]

In the LNER website there was an issue where you couldn't change your seat if you had the last ticket from a specific quota and it sounds like this could be the problem being seen where it's the last ticket for that segment.

A reasonable hypothesis, but given I was able to book (and then cancel) the same seat that was shown as unavailable outside of the SeatSelector for that specific Advance ticket type, I suspect there may be something else going on.

 

[Mojo]

In general, availability of a through reservation for a particular ticket type in a specific seat unfortunately does not necessarily imply reservation availability in the same seat for the same journey with the constituent ticket parts in a split ticketing scenario - so I wouldn't suggest relying on this to tell you anything.

Not sure I quite understand that one. If the LNER website is offering me to sell me seat F43 on a train from Newark to Kings Cross, then surely seat F43 is available for the entirety of the journey between Newark and Kings Cross, regardless of where the customer is boarding or alighting?

For my journey, Trainsplit is allowing me to select seats for two different sections, first from Newark to Stevenage, and second from Stevenage to Kings Cross.

For the 1st section, seat F43 is shown as available so I select it. For the 2nd section, seat F43 is not available, so I choose a different one.

I then go back to the basket and click to amend my seat for the 1st section and change it to a completely different one. When I go to the 2nd section, seat F43 is available, so I select it. I can then go back to the first section and choose the seat I want, F43.

 

[Adam Williams]

Not sure I quite understand that one. If the LNER website is offering me to sell me seat F43 on a train from Newark to Kings Cross, then surely seat F43 is available for the entirety of the journey between Newark and Kings Cross, regardless of where the customer is boarding or alighting?

Nope - the TOCs can do all kinds of weird and wonderful things like restrict some seats to Anytime tickets, prevent seats being booked more than X times, seat specific Advance-tier ticket-holders in different parts of the train etc etc. You can't make any real assumptions when it comes to seat availability, you have to ask about a specific journey leg for a specific ticket for a specific passenger discount class.

 

[Mojo]

Nope - the TOCs can do all kinds of weird and wonderful things like restrict some seats to Anytime tickets, prevent seats being booked more than X times, seat specific Advance-tier ticket-holders in different parts of the train etc etc

I've had a play for a few different journeys, and if I select the seats in reverse order (ie. in my example above select the seat I want for Stevenage to Kings Cross, BEFORE I select the seat for Newark to Stevenage), it works. So I'm not quite sure I understand why the restrictions you mention wouldn't apply in that order?

 

[Adam Williams]

I've had a play for a few different journeys, and if I select the seats in reverse order (ie. in my example above select the seat I want for Stevenage to Kings Cross, BEFORE I select the seat for Newark to Stevenage), it works. So I'm not quite sure I understand why the restrictions you mention wouldn't apply in that order?

The order of making the reservations wouldn't impact whether those restrictions apply or not, no.

I feel like that's distinct from the more general point I'm trying to make though: that through ticket reservation availability does not generally tell you anything at all about the availability of reservations for Advance tiers on the same train in the same seat for parts of the journey.

 

[Mojo]

The order of making the reservations wouldn't impact whether those restrictions apply or not, no.

Well it just has! I couldn't select the same seat for my entire journey anywhere on the train (or at least the 5 random seats I tried), if I selected it for Newark to Stevenage first. If however I selected it for Stevenage to Kings Cross first, it would then let me have the same seat for Newark to Stevenage.

I feel like that's distinct from the more general point I'm trying to make though: that through ticket reservation availability does not generally tell you anything at all about the availability of reservations for Advance tiers on the same train in the same seat for parts of the journey.

With respect, you appear to be getting hung up on one point that I have made whilst missing the bigger picture - a single seat I am looking to reserve is quite clearly available for the journey, but Trainsplit is not letting me, unless I reserve the seats backwards, or reserve it and then deselect it.

 

[Adam Williams]

With respect, you appear to be getting hung up on one point that I have made whilst missing the bigger picture - a single seat I am looking to reserve is quite clearly available for the journey, but Trainsplit is not letting me, unless I reserve the seats backwards, or reserve it and then deselect it.

I addressed this here, in my original post: It's definitely broken, I agree - no "big picture" missed! Even if the issue I've reproduced is slightly different to yours, I suspect the root cause will be similar.

In this particular case - which I can reproduce, If I select e.g. seat H44 on the second ticket-leg-segment, I am then unable to select it on the first leg, despite being able to reserve exactly the same said seat out-of-band for the first leg directly by hitting NRS/RARS - there's something amiss so it's probably a bug.

If I had to speculate, I suspect not being able to get an accurate view of the availability of all of the seats for a specific ticket type could be the culprit here, so perhaps there's some element of caching/heuristics involved to consider the seat as "unavailable" to reduce the chances of the seat change failing even when it's technically not - but I genuinely don't know, it's not something I have visibility over.

It's not a frontend issue anyway - the frontend is correctly rendering the data it's given, so this is rather something that needs referring to an external supplier for comment. I do know that a lot of these limitations and the ability to handle errors were supposed to improve with the new RARS interface which - as has been discussed above - has been delayed.

I sort of doubt this will end up being a problem on the TrainSplit-side, but I will "refer [it] to an external supplier for comment".

 

[Mojo]

I addressed this here. It's definitely broken - no "big picture" missed! Even if the issue I've reproduced is slightly different to yours, I suspect the root cause will be similar.


I sort of doubt this will end up being a problem on the TrainSplit-side, but I will "refer [it] to an external supplier for comment".

Thank you, although can you explain how it decides to handle seat reservations it all in one go, or separately? As in my testing, for the same train (and the same split points using the same tiers), it has made me select the seats for either Newark to Stevenage & Stevenage to Kings +; Newark to Peterborough & Peterborough to Kings +; or Newark to Peterborough, Peterborough to Stevenage, & Stevenage to Kings +.

In all three cases, the default has seen me change seats at all the locations mentioned, although if I select the seats backwards (in the case of the three-section booking I have to select the middle one first) I can stay in the same seat.

 

[Adam Williams]

Thank you, although can you explain how it decides to handle seat reservations it all in one go, or separately? As in my testing, for the same train (and the same split points using the same tiers), it has made me select the seats for either Newark to Stevenage & Stevenage to Kings +; Newark to Peterborough & Peterborough to Kings +; or Newark to Peterborough, Peterborough to Stevenage, & Stevenage to Kings +.

I can't really attempt to explain it, because I'm fairly sure the logic is:

1. Try to get seats from NRS/RAR for the customer's combinations of tickets and using their reservation preferences. This may yield multiple reservations if a through seat for the Advance ticket can't be obtained and may yield entirely different results each time we ask.
2. Allow the customer to edit whatever seat reservations were made and have come back from that process

Step #1 is a non-deterministic black box as far as we're concerned. I believe our supplier tries to be "smart" with the initial request in #1 to improve the chances of getting the same seats back for splits, but I couldn't tell you how that works without discussing it at length first.

 

[Mojo]

I can't really attempt to explain it, because I'm fairly sure the logic is:

1. Try to get seats from NRS/RAR for the customer's combinations of tickets and using their reservation preferences. This may yield multiple reservations if a through seat for the Advance ticket can't be obtained and may yield entirely different results each time we ask.
2. Allow the customer to edit whatever seat reservations were made and have come back from that process

Step #1 is a non-deterministic black box as far as we're concerned. I believe our supplier tries to be "smart" with the initial request in #1 to improve the chances of getting the same seats back for splits, but I couldn't tell you how that works without discussing it at length first.

Thanks, interesting. So I suppose rather than spending ages processing it, if you're just unlucky and it stumbles across a seat which it can't select all the way through, it will give you it and you'll have to go through it manually and select one that exists. Worth knowing as most trips I've had to change seats, but now I know that you should select seats in reverse I can work around it!

 

[Egg Centric]

Nope - the TOCs can do all kinds of weird and wonderful things like <snip> seat specific Advance-tier ticket-holders in different parts of the train

Why is this? It's often done on airlines so that folk like me out to drink as much complimentary champagne as possible in my tracksuit are kept away and out of sight from "proper" business/first class passengers who've paid full fare, but I can't see any real reason to keep tiers together on trains - the only tenuous reason I can come up with is first service from the trolley.

If we weren't basically all on fixed units/diagrams I could understand that they would maybe vary the number of coaches depending on demand, but doesn't sound like it's the case here.

 

[CyrusWuff]

Why is this? It's often done on airlines so that folk like me out to drink as much complimentary champagne as possible in my tracksuit are kept away and out of sight from "proper" business/first class passengers who've paid full fare, but I can't see any real reason to keep tiers together on trains - the only tenuous reason I can come up with is first service from the trolley.

Being cynical, I'd suggest it could be being done to discourage splitting, by having reservations all over the place.

From a more customer-friendly point of view, it's to spread the load across the train rather than the old default of filling up coach by coach.

 

[Adam Williams]

New experimental feature: "Let me use Oyster/contactless to travel cross-London"

There's now a new toggle switch which can be enabled in the More Options dialog to specifically request that cross-London fares are excluded, and that the journey planner splits journeys into two ticketed parts (one to enter London, one to leave London - with the bit in the middle left unticketed to be paid for by the customer separately using Oyster, Contactless or Apple/Google Pay). This will initially only be available on the RailUK Forums branded site whilst the functionality is considered experimental.

The benefit from this approach is that whilst TfL continue not to support modern barcode-based National Rail ticketing standards, you are much more likely to be able to have your booking fulfilled as E-Tickets with this setting enabled, as there is no need to issue tickets valid on e.g. LUL services where only magstripe tickets can be accepted at the gateline.

I would recommend railcard-holders make use of a Oyster card with auto-topup enabled instead of contactless, as the latter mechanism continues not to support railcard discounts being associated with the passenger's payment method.

Feedback welcome.

 

[Hadders]

This could be a useful feature.

I assume the minimum connection time across London is still respected. Is it worth adding a disclaimer about Delay Repay, in theory it can be claimed even if Oyster/contactless is used but in practice it might be harder. Historically we always used to recommend that tickets were seen to ‘join up’.

 

[Adam Williams]

Is it worth adding a disclaimer about Delay Repay, in theory it can be claimed even if Oyster/contactless is used but in practice it might be harder

We have one on the linked documentation page, but I can see the argument for something directly in the checkout flow.

I assume the minimum connection time across London is still respected

Correct

We have one on the linked documentation page, but I can see the argument for something directly in the checkout flow.

It turns out this was implemented already:

 

[Egg Centric]

We have one on the linked documentation page, but I can see the argument for something directly in the checkout flow.


Correct


It turns out this was implemented already:

View attachment 128808

That disclaimer is more severe than what Hadders says - would you "stand by" a customer trying to stand up for their rights (whatever that actually means) in Hadders' scenario?

 

[yorkie]

That disclaimer is more severe than what Hadders says - would you "stand by" a customer trying to stand up for their rights (whatever that actually means) in Hadders' scenario?

This really isn't a matter for retailers. I have known Trainsplit go above and beyond on may occasions, but I don't think anyone could expect this.

However I will say right now that if such a customer who has a through itinerary is denied a legitimate delay repay claim on the basis that they used PAYG to cross London, and they created a thread and someone made me aware of it, I would certainly be up for helping in any way I can. I suspect people at Trainsplit would also be prepared to go above and beyond in such a scenario, but I just don't think anyone can expect it. I would certainly be happy to liaise with them as it's an issue of consumer rights which I feel passionately about.

As a point of principal it would greatly annoy me if any TOCs attempt to reject claims on this basis. However I really don't think it is likely that they would do so.

 

[_toommm_]

I seem to have found a very weird glitch with Trainsplit, where it will offer an itinerary but not actually provide the correct tickets.

I was looking at Paddington to Leeds via Penzance (stupid I know) for Sunday 19/02, and it offers a very good price, but seemingly no combination of tickets that would be valid anywhere near Penzance.

 

[Adam Williams]

I was looking at Paddington to Leeds via Penzance (stupid I know) for Sunday 19/02, and it offers a very good price, but seemingly no combination of tickets that would be valid anywhere near Penzance.

Can you confirm the search parameters?
I've looked myself, and the price quoted/combination of tickets doesn't look particularly unreasonable.

 

[_toommm_]

Can you confirm the search parameters?
I've looked myself, and the price quoted/combination of tickets doesn't look particularly unreasonable.
View attachment 128915
View attachment 128916

Indeed (note this is with a 16-25 railcard):

 

[Adam Williams]

Thanks

The following Sunday...


This easement previously existed, but is supposedly now removed. I wonder if it is relevant here.

701038 (Doubleback) During engineering works between 27 and 31 December 2022, and Sundays 08 January and 05 February 2023 Bristol Parkway station will be closed. This double back easement will provide temporary permitted routes via Bristol Temple Meads, Newport (South Wales), Severn Tunnel Junction and Gloucester for journeys that normally would travel north/south via Bristol Parkway and Gloucester. It will apply in both directions.

 

[_toommm_]

Thanks

The following Sunday...
View attachment 128919

This easement previously existed, but is supposedly now removed. I wonder if it is relevant here.

Very interesting... I'm not going to book it, as it will be far more hassle than it's worth. Part of me is really tempted to though!

 

[Adam Williams]

If you click the link icon, you can now get a permalink to the search (no matter how complex) copied to the clipboard.

 

[js517]

View attachment 129117

If you click the link icon, you can now get a permalink to the search (no matter how complex) copied to the clipboard.

Can we have permalinks to specific itineraries at some point?

 

[Adam Williams]

Can we have permalinks to specific itineraries at some point?

What, and jump straight to the ticket information screen (or just select it on the search results view)?

I suppose now that somebody has provided a hash for each TimetableResult it may be possible...

 

[AlterEgo]

Can we have permalinks to specific itineraries at some point?

I’d find this useful too. Also, to @Adam Williams and others involved - this is by far the best ticketing site on the market. Thanks for your efforts, I appreciate this is not an easy achievement!

 

[rapmastaj]

This looks like a fantastic ticketing site!

Quick question, sorry if the answer is obvious, but is there a way to make bicycle reservations? I don't need to right now for any particular journey, but it's one of the most important functionalities for me.