The inadequacies of LNER's electronic seat reservation signs

[Phlip]

This would be a comparatively easy fix though… the same perhaps can't be said for the others.

Those with colourblindness are still able to read the reservation status written on the display. The system does not depend on a person being able to differentiate between green/yellow/red.

 

[Metroman62]

Interesting display today on 16:45 Leeds to Kings X. No announcements about any reservation issues. Mind you my Cross Country train on Friday did not have its reservation displays working so it’s not just this new system that has issues

 

[westv]

And this evening back to no diplays or paper tickets.
And no announcement about the lack of reservations.

 

[westv]

What exactly has gone wrong with this new method? The displays on my Hull service haven't worked for a number of weeks and LNER have gone back to paper thankfully.

 

[leightonbd]

What exactly has gone wrong with this new method? The displays on my Hull service haven't worked for a number of weeks and LNER have gone back to paper thankfully.

Monday and Tuesday this week the signs were working fine, or at least were on.

 

[westv]

Monday and Tuesday this week the signs were working fine, or at least were on.

Being "on" isn't "working".
They are "on" on this evening's service but they are displaying nonsense.
I'll assume nobody here knows what the problem is.

Edit: It bugs me when things like this are totally ignored by the TM in the announcements.

 

[atraindriver]

<deleted>

 

[lincolnshire]

I wonder if the guard is even aware?
I suspect that whatever system they use to set the reservations up probably has limited information for them, and may not even show something useful like "screens in vehicle X not responding".

The more I travel on LNER trains the less I like the new system. It seems to be based on the assumption that almost everyone has a reserved seat and that anyone without will be sauntering through an empty train rather than clambering over suitcases and negotiating people standing in aisles and vestibules.
At least with the old paper tags you can look into the coaches as the train arrives and get an idea of which coaches have seats available. You can't do that with the new system, and I don't find the reservation levels shown on the platform monitors to bear much relationship to reality of the actual loading levels.

Totally agree with above about the paper labels, you can walk down the platform and look in to the coach and think keep going no seats in that coach free and same if your on the platform as the train rolls in you can look into the coach and think not many un-reserved seats in that coach and note the empty seats so you have an idea where to head for a a seat while the rest are wondering which what to do and which seat is there,s or not etc.
Bring back paper labels they work ok.

 

[Deafdoggie]

Totally agree with above about the paper labels, you can walk down the platform and look in to the coach and think keep going no seats in that coach free and same if your on the platform as the train rolls in you can look into the coach and think not many un-reserved seats in that coach and note the empty seats so you have an idea where to head for a a seat while the rest are wondering which what to do and which seat is there,s or not etc.
Bring back paper labels they work ok.

But people do take them out, and sit in the seat and claim it is unreserved. Electronic displays do away with that

 

[route101]

Mo seat reservations other day . HST swap for 91 set , a blunt set too .
Guard announced seat reservations few times , of course you get people still sitting in there seats .
Much prefer paper tickets , you have to view each electronic display wasting time to look for unreserved seats.

 

[westv]

I wonder if the guard is even aware?
I suspect that whatever system they use to set the reservations up probably has limited information for them, and may not even show something useful like "screens in vehicle X not responding".

I assumed it was the entire train.

 

[ForTheLoveOf]

I think the solution to one of the issues - the inability to see at a glance which coaches have unoccupied and/or unreserved seats left - would be to sync train loading information to a central server via the Internet (you could in fact call that server the National Reservation Service ) and to display real-time train loading heatmaps and seatmaps in a mobile app and on the platform PIS displays. Of course, that sounds like it's so far beyond the realm of what's possible given it's the rail industry, it will take another 10 years to get running...

 

[takno]

I think the solution to one of the issues - the inability to see at a glance which coaches have unoccupied and/or unreserved seats left - would be to sync train loading information to a central server via the Internet (you could in fact call that server the National Reservation Service ) and to display real-time train loading heatmaps and seatmaps in a mobile app and on the platform PIS displays. Of course, that sounds like it's so far beyond the realm of what's possible given it's the rail industry, it will take another 10 years to get running...

They already do that on the PIS displays, and it's in the open data feed so it could be on mobile apps. Hell on the LNER services there's an actual map of free Vs occupied seats available on the WiFi. They are in no way shape or form moving too slowly on the technology front.

Amazingly it still just isn't as good for finding an unreserved seat as looking through the windows at seat-back tickets

 

[ForTheLoveOf]

They already do that on the PIS displays, and it's in the open data feed so it could be on mobile apps. Hell on the LNER services there's an actual map of free Vs occupied seats available on the WiFi. They are in no way shape or form moving too slowly on the technology front.

Amazingly it still just isn't as good for finding an unreserved seat as looking through the windows at seat-back tickets

They're not quite there at what I suggested though - and there are two key differences that I think would improve the passenger experience materially. First would be including actual seat occupation levels in the train loading indication on the PIS displays, perhaps with people who are sat in unreserved seats being displayed in a gray-scale shading if at all possible. That way people would know which coach to actually aim for, with a greater degree of certainty that they'll get a seat. The other thing would be to let people see the same data, but broken down further coach-by-coach, from any internet connection - i.e. permitting what you can do now on the onboard WiFi to be done anywhere in the world (or, more likely, on the station platform).

 

[takno]

They're not quite there at what I suggested though - and there are two key differences that I think would improve the passenger experience materially. First would be including actual seat occupation levels in the train loading indication on the PIS displays, perhaps with people who are sat in unreserved seats being displayed in a gray-scale shading if at all possible. That way people would know which coach to actually aim for, with a greater degree of certainty that they'll get a seat. The other thing would be to let people see the same data, but broken down further coach-by-coach, from any internet connection - i.e. permitting what you can do now on the onboard WiFi to be done anywhere in the world (or, more likely, on the station platform).

So you want to robustly throw round large amounts of data about precise seat occupation in every carriage in every train in the country, even though they've only been collecting the data at all for about 3 months? And apps are supposed to process all that junk, and offer it up on people's phones in a way they can understand and process in a matter of seconds? And you want a chunk of extra data on already-crowded station info boards? And because they aren't doing that impossible job already the rail industry is somehow backward or uncooperative? I'm sure somebody will get right on that

 

[ForTheLoveOf]

So you want to robustly throw round large amounts of data about precise seat occupation in every carriage in every train in the country, even though they've only been collecting the data at all for about 3 months? And apps are supposed to process all that junk, and offer it up on people's phones in a way they can understand and process in a matter of seconds? And you want a chunk of extra data on already-crowded station info boards? And because they aren't doing that impossible job already the rail industry is somehow backward or uncooperative? I'm sure somebody will get right on that

All I'm suggesting is making better use of the data they already have, to overcome the downsides of the new reservation system. If there were a dynamic loading indicator as I've suggested then it would, it anything, be better than the previous solution of looking for reservation labels, as you'd be able to get 'into position' for a less busy coach in plenty of time.

 

[Deafdoggie]

I don't see how a system saying who is sitting where would work? You check the app on the platform, then everyone stands up on the train and gets off, and everyone on the platform is trying to shoe-horn into one carriage which was empty, whilst another couple of carriages are empty because everyone got off, but the app didn't know till they were off.

 

[jymiee]

They're not quite there at what I suggested though - and there are two key differences that I think would improve the passenger experience materially. First would be including actual seat occupation levels in the train loading indication on the PIS displays, perhaps with people who are sat in unreserved seats being displayed in a gray-scale shading if at all possible. That way people would know which coach to actually aim for, with a greater degree of certainty that they'll get a seat. The other thing would be to let people see the same data, but broken down further coach-by-coach, from any internet connection - i.e. permitting what you can do now on the onboard WiFi to be done anywhere in the world (or, more likely, on the station platform).

As far as I understand the CIS now show the occupancy of the carriages rather than just the reservations. This was changed shortly after the Sensa system went live. The area I'm not sure on is whether or not it factors in reservations for passengers boarding the train later in it's journey.

Interestingly this afternoon the Sensa system has been hit by a route-wide issue so station teams have been instructed to apply paper tickets until further notice.

 

[Tetchytyke]

No paper tickets on the 1356 to Leeds. Even in first class it was tetchy. They didn't seem to discover it was a system-wide issue till 4.30(!)

Shambolic.

 

[westv]

Friday's displays were working and the TM actually mentioned non functioning displays in coach F.

 

[ricoblade]

They were displaying nonsense on the 13:15 King's Cross - Edinburgh yesterday and someone was trying to sit in our seats. Luckily they moved with only a minor grumble, including getting arsey when I pointed out they'd left a coat in the overhead rack!

 

[westv]

They were displaying nonsense on the 13:15 King's Cross - Edinburgh yesterday and someone was trying to sit in our seats. Luckily they moved with only a minor grumble, including getting arsey when I pointed out they'd left a coat in the overhead rack!

When they aren't working do reservations still apply? They wouldn't if there were no paper tickets displayed.

 

[ricoblade]

When they aren't working do reservations still apply? They wouldn't if there were no paper tickets displayed.

Good question but they accepted our reservations at face value and of course we had them on the paper tickets.

 

[Bletchleyite]

When they aren't working do reservations still apply? They wouldn't if there were no paper tickets displayed.

This is the biggest issue with reservations - no stated clear policy of what happens if the displays aren't working. Whichever policy you take (they do apply or they don't) needs to be stated on posters in each coach. Probably also include on it a statement that counted places don't entitle a seat.

 

[Mainliner]

Anyone know what’s happening? The four LNER trains I’ve used in the past two weeks were back to using tickets on top of the seats, with the electronic signs just showing test message. Some fundamental issue?

 

[ricoblade]

Anyone know what’s happening? The four LNER trains I’ve used in the past two weeks were back to using tickets on top of the seats, with the electronic signs just showing test message. Some fundamental issue?

No but it can't be all as the 17:48 ex King's Cross on Tuesday was displaying them (well mine anyway) correctly.

 

[westv]

With electronic displays, how do they deal with situations where reservations need to be swapped around? With paper tickets they can write, say, C43 and put it in, say, D74 if coach C reservations need to be swapped.

 

[TUC]

With electronic displays, how do they deal with situations where reservations need to be swapped around? With paper tickets they can write, say, C43 and put it in, say, D74 if coach C reservations need to be swapped.

I would hope that is something that the system can readily autocalciulate and display. It would be a much quicker approach.

 

[adrock1976]

When I was on the 14:00 Edinburgh Waverley - London Kings Cross on Monday travelling to Newcastle Central, I had noticed that there must have been some fault with the electronic reservations, as the particular seat I had reserved, the display screen stated that it was reserved to Leeds.

 

[Jonny]

When I was on the 14:00 Edinburgh Waverley - London Kings Cross on Monday travelling to Newcastle Central, I had noticed that there must have been some fault with the electronic reservations, as the particular seat I had reserved, the display screen stated that it was reserved to Leeds.

I've come across similar things myself...