Trainline double booking issue?

[mikeg]

Just on the 9m20 Newcastle to Manchester. The guard has apologised for the train being extremely busy (it always is on a Saturday). However he's saying the trainline have in many cases double booked people in the same seats and apologised to anyone who has someone sat in the same seat. I've certainly never heard of anything like this before! I thought reservations were ultimately handled by a central system?

 

[Watershed]

Just on the 9m20 Newcastle to Manchester. The guard has apologised for the train being extremely busy (it always is on a Saturday). However he's saying the trainline have in many cases double booked people in the same seats and apologised to anyone who has someone sat in the same seat. I've certainly never heard of anything like this before! I thought reservations were ultimately handled by a central system?

It's very common for members of rail staff to blame third party retailers such as Trainline for any booking issues. This is despite the fact that it simply would not be possible for Trainline to double book seats; the availability of seats is controlled by industry databases which in turn depend on what seats the TOC releases.

Of course it's easier to lay the blame at a third party rather than saying "yes, our company has probably messed up something with the reservations, apologies for that"..

 

[Haywain]

Just on the 9m20 Newcastle to Manchester. The guard has apologised for the train being extremely busy (it always is on a Saturday). However he's saying the trainline have in many cases double booked people in the same seats and apologised to anyone who has someone sat in the same seat. I've certainly never heard of anything like this before! I thought reservations were ultimately handled by a central system?

It’s quite common for this to apparently happen. We’ve investigated many cases and have yet to find a genuine double booking. It’s usually that a customer has made a change or cancellation of a reservation and forgotten or that one is on the wrong train - whether that be wrong time or date, and even wrong journey. However, blaming a retailer is not appropriate.

 

[Mcr Warrior]

Whether or not there is any veracity in the train manager's assertion could possibly be determined by informally speaking with anyone so affected and ascertaining who they had booked their tickets with.

By the way, is TPE's ticket booking system provided by Trainline?

 

[Haywain]

By the way, is TPE's ticket booking system provided by Trainline?

Worldline, I believe.

 

[mikeg]

Thanks for your replies. The trains schedule had been altered quite late on. Whilst @Haywain 's version of things seems quite likely is there a possibility that reservations had not been carried over when the WTT schedule was altered? Sorry not familiar with these things but it shows as a 'VAR' in Realtime trains.

 

[setdown]

I remember travelling on a CrossCountry service once with a reservation from an online order, but there was a person already in my seat with the same reservation given by a GWR ticket office the day before travel. So I guess it does happen!

 

[alistairlees]

Thanks for your replies. The trains schedule had been altered quite late on. Whilst @Haywain 's version of things seems quite likely is there a possibility that reservations had not been carried over when the WTT schedule was altered? Sorry not familiar with these things but it shows as a 'VAR' in Realtime trains.

If the train retained the same Retail Service ID - which it should have - then no. Any changes to the RSID are down to the TOC / Network Rail. It would also have to be deliberately changed in the reservation system by the TOC, so this is all an unlikely set of circumstances. What Haywain says is much more likely to be correct.

 

[plugwash]

One problem I see is that retail-service IDs aren't presented to customers, so if trains are significantly re-timed it may not be obvious to customers which train their reservation applies to (or in the worst case it may be "clear but wrong" if one train is re-timed to the original time of an earlier or later train on the same route).

 

[mmh]

What happens if a TOC "deletes" a train, then reinstates it, or "adds" a new train with identical timing to fiddle with the timetable, e.g. to remove or add stops? Not unknown to see 2 trains at the same time on (passenger facing) booking systems when of course only one train exists. My local TOC do this frequently.

What happens, and what could happen, with associated reservations in such circumstances? Feels like a possible cause of double booking to me, depending on how it's actually handled. (Rather than how it should be handled!)

 

[Starmill]

What happens if a TOC "deletes" a train, then reinstates it, or "adds" a new train with identical timing to fiddle with the timetable, e.g. to remove or add stops? Not unknown to see 2 trains at the same time on (passenger facing) booking systems when of course only one train exists. My local TOC do this frequently.

What happens, and what could happen, with associated reservations in such circumstances? Feels like a possible cause of double booking to me, depending on how it's actually handled. (Rather than how it should be handled!)

These kinds of changes should never be made after reservations have opened. Unfortunately it's often what happens, though it can be more in some parts of the country than others.

 

[Watershed]

What happens if a TOC "deletes" a train, then reinstates it, or "adds" a new train with identical timing to fiddle with the timetable, e.g. to remove or add stops? Not unknown to see 2 trains at the same time on (passenger facing) booking systems when of course only one train exists. My local TOC do this frequently.

What happens, and what could happen, with associated reservations in such circumstances? Feels like a possible cause of double booking to me, depending on how it's actually handled. (Rather than how it should be handled!)

Reservations are based on the RSID, so as long as that hasn't changed, reservations still shouldn't double book. RSIDs are usually decided based on a set formula, so if a service is cancelled and then reinstated it would usually keep the same RSID.

I agree that advertising the RSID would eliminate a whole host of issues associated with retimings etc. Unfortunately this never really happened.