Reserved Seats double booking

[crehld]

For WebTIS it's the former, for Trainline it's the latter.

That'll be why it happens then, no? If Trainline websites don't have a direct interface with the system and have to push through reservations in batches, it's entirely possible they could allocate a seat, and in the 10 minutes (or whatever it is) before it is pushed through to the live reservation system someone else snatches it up via WebTIS.

 

[34D]

However this is either because there are diversions in place as you say, so will only affect a relatively small number of services (and some TOCs such as FGW go to the effort of putting the train back round the right way). Or it's because a train reverses direction of travel en route (e.g. XC at Reading or TPE at Manchester Piccadilly), so specifying what direction you want to travel in seems a bit pointless anyway.

I think it's more the case that (with XC in particular) slight delays to other trains will see your train sent the other way into or out of New Street at short notice, hence requiring or avoiding a reversal.

All other TOC can predict with a fair degree of certainty which way round their trains will be.

 

[Bletchleyite]

That'll be why it happens then, no? If Trainline websites don't have a direct interface with the system and have to push through reservations in batches, it's entirely possible they could allocate a seat, and in the 10 minutes (or whatever it is) before it is pushed through to the live reservation system someone else snatches it up via WebTIS.

Ah, sorry, I misunderstood your question. I was referring to the backoffice system that deals with ToD. I don't know about NRS itself.

 

[74A]

In my early days of working on the railway this sort of thing was not that unusual. When the booking clerk made a reservation he first had to make an enquiry to confirm that seats were available. Then he had to confirm that the reservation had been made. If they forgot to do this then the seats would still be available to book and so two people could turn up with the same seat booked.

However these days it is much rarer. What does happen occasionally is that amendments to the train plan are made after the service is open for booking. This can lead to the cancellation of all reservations already made. (the time of your train is the same its just that the whole service has been reloaded in the system) The fact that you booked very early means that is what is likely to have happened here.

I have seen quite often seats booked for a train departing at 0957 when it has been changed to 0959. Also occasionally reservations for trains that no longer exist in the timetable.

 

[Bletchleyite]

It amazes me that when CRS was changed to NRS, we didn't start doing reservations by train number instead of time, so they would remain active if the time changed slightly, and start displaying those train numbers on the PIS to make it very clear which one was reserved. It seems a totally obvious solution to me.

 

[button_boxer]

I'm surprised we still have the "A" problem. I could understand it if it's some legacy system that only allows F, B or A but given it can cope with counted place reservations where the seat number is "**" they could save themselves so much hassle on trains where every seat is numbered individually if they could use another character like # or * (or ideally a space character) instead of A.

 

[cool110]

I've had reservations for 3 table seats where there's an X after the seat numbers for the outward (part of ToD collection) and just the numbers for the return (from ticket office at a later date).

 

[CyrusWuff]

It amazes me that when CRS was changed to NRS, we didn't start doing reservations by train number instead of time, so they would remain active if the time changed slightly, and start displaying those train numbers on the PIS to make it very clear which one was reserved. It seems a totally obvious solution to me.

I stand for correction, but I believe NRS uses Retail Service IDs to identify the train you're trying to book. This is fine until an RSID gets changed (or entered incorrectly in the first place) and you think you're booking for one train but end up with a reservation on a completely different one.

 

[Starmill]

The OP mentions the other passengers were traveling as part of a group. The fact rhey had their name on the reservation screen suggests they might have used the group booking service which implies telesales might have done the reservation. It could be something related to this. I have known only 1 case of what I could clearly see was double booking, and yes the other person had used Thetrainline!

 

[alistairstubbs]

I have received a response from Virgin today in regard to a letter of complaint I sent in. No details as to what the problem was. They did say that their Customer Charter stipulates that all Ticket holders with a reservation should be found a seat with in 15 mins and that if your seat is not available you should be refunded 5% of your ticket costs. They also enclosed a £20 RTV which is more than 5%