Irish Rail Musical Chairs

foggy_lad

I was out in Westport yesterday and got the 5.45pm train back to Heuston station and the Luas into Dublin city centre, one thing struck me about the journey and that was the sense of utter confusion that having a reservations system that fails miserably can have on a train full of people many of whom were trying to avoid having to stand!

On the train in the carriage I was in several seats(about 12) showed reserved lights on and names associated with those seats, My experience was I went and sat in a seat with NO reserved light or name so you might think I was sorted BUT...............when the train pulled out of Westport and got to Castlebar some of the reserved seats went blank and several more seat lights lit up showing names of people who booked from Castlebar! My seat was one of these and I moved to the Window seat for the person who wanted their seat.

This chaos continued throughout the journey with people getting on at every stop and asking others to move from seats which WERE NOT MARKED reserved when they sat in them!

The system USED to show ALL seats that were reserved right from the start of the journey like those from westport would have the names beside the light and those reserved for passengers getting on at other stations would scroll the message "RESERVED FROM XXXXXXXXX" Has some deadbeat with nothing better to do changed it so that a passenger sitting in a seat showing no reservation at all can then be asked to vacate that seat halfway through their journey?

Then to add to the insult of being asked to pay for reservations which were not placed properly there was feck all on the trolly for anyone except Tea Coffee Wine and Beer:D I was ok because I carry a bit of a reserve:) but god help some of those poor students whose only meal in the next few days might have been a pack of crisps and a few polo mints on the train:D

Then after getting back to Dublin in a good time to cap off the night the information Board in Busarse had gone bank holiday mad, at first I thought there was a lightning strike called and the few buses on the board were just finishing off before shutting things down but no after asking I was told "Ah you don't want to mind that it is the same every bank holiday"!

It looks like they are short staffed every bank holiday so they only put a random selection of departures on the information board and god help you if you are not accustomed to the practices of the CIE Group of companies!


ONLY IN IRELAND!

MyKeyG

foggy_lad wrote: »

I was out in Westport yesterday and got the 5.45pm train back to Heuston station and the Luas into Dublin city centre, one thing struck me about the journey and that was the sense of utter confusion that having a reservations system that fails miserably can have on a train full of people many of whom were trying to avoid having to stand!

On the train in the carriage I was in several seats(about 12) showed reserved lights on and names associated with those seats, My experience was I went and sat in a seat with NO reserved light or name so you might think I was sorted BUT...............when the train pulled out of Westport and got to Castlebar some of the reserved seats went blank and several more seat lights lit up showing names of people who booked from Castlebar! My seat was one of these and I moved to the Window seat for the person who wanted their seat.

This chaos continued throughout the journey with people getting on at every stop and asking others to move from seats which WERE NOT MARKED reserved when they sat in them!

The system USED to show ALL seats that were reserved right from the start of the journey like those from westport would have the names beside the light and those reserved for passengers getting on at other stations would scroll the message "RESERVED FROM XXXXXXXXX" Has some deadbeat with nothing better to do changed it so that a passenger sitting in a seat showing no reservation at all can then be asked to vacate that seat halfway through their journey?

Then to add to the insult of being asked to pay for reservations which were not placed properly there was feck all on the trolly for anyone except Tea Coffee Wine and Beer:D I was ok because I carry a bit of a reserve:) but god help some of those poor students whose only meal in the next few days might have been a pack of crisps and a few polo mints on the train:D

Then after getting back to Dublin in a good time to cap off the night the information Board in Busarse had gone bank holiday mad, at first I thought there was a lightning strike called and the few buses on the board were just finishing off before shutting things down but no after asking I was told "Ah you don't want to mind that it is the same every bank holiday"!

It looks like they are short staffed every bank holiday so they only put a random selection of departures on the information board and god help you if you are not accustomed to the practices of the CIE Group of companies!


ONLY IN IRELAND!

Personally I would love to see anyone using the term 'Only in Ireland' infracted. I've been on trains all over the world OP. Try getting onto one and finding a goat sitting across from you.

Yes it is infuriating but there are plenty countries who **** up more than we do so lets leave the self hate to one side thank you!

AlekSmart

MyKeyG wrote: »

Personally I would love to see anyone using the term 'Only in Ireland' infracted. I've been on trains all over the world OP. Try getting onto one and finding a goat sitting across from you.

Yes it is infuriating but there are plenty countries who **** up more than we do so lets leave the self hate to one side thank you!

Yes,you're correct MyKeyG...the lad just needs to get out a bit more....:D

foggy_lad

AlekSmart wrote: »

Yes,you're correct MyKeyG...the lad just needs to get out a bit more....:D

So it is ok to charge passengers for a service then not provide it? why are they charging for reserving a seat when this happens all to often?

Mycroft H

foggy_lad wrote: »

So it is ok to charge passengers for a service then not provide it? why are they charging for reserving a seat when this happens all to often?

The reservation system here has never worked at all. Partly because they have never implemented it right and when its did work, someone would be in your seat.

I think you would be better off with a car - think about it, your own reserved seat all the time.

dmcronin

MyKeyG wrote: »

Personally I would love to see anyone using the term 'Only in Ireland' infracted. I've been on trains all over the world OP. Try getting onto one and finding a goat sitting across from you.

Yes it is infuriating but there are plenty countries who **** up more than we do so lets leave the self hate to one side thank you!

At least the goat wouldn't be sat in your seat, or have his luggage placed on the adjoining seat to stop other folk sitting there.

Losty Dublin

AlekSmart wrote: »

Yes,you're correct MyKeyG...the lad just needs to get out a bit more....:D

No Alek, the problem is that he gets out far too much for the good of society

n97 mini

MyKeyG wrote: »

Personally I would love to see anyone using the term 'Only in Ireland' infracted. I've been on trains all over the world OP. Try getting onto one and finding a goat sitting across from you.

Yes it is infuriating but there are plenty countries who **** up more than we do so lets leave the self hate to one side thank you!

Ah shur that makes it alright so.

zagmund

Guys, I've no sides to take either way, but a lot of threads in this forum these days seem to descend to poking fun at individuals who are posting here and that's not exactly constructive debate. I'm too lazy to check the rules and regulations but I'm sure there's something about attack the post and not the poster in there somewhere.

z

munchkin_utd

have to somewhat agree with the foggy one.

If you are going to have reservations marked then they must be marked right

If not, then better have a blank notice over the seat or some other arrangement like carraige A+B are reserved/ reservable, C+D etc with free seating and that way you know even with fecked overhead displays reasonably confidently whether your seat is free or not.

For the amount of extra revenue that Irish rail could garner from a proper reservation scheme at say a charge of €2 per journey (multiplying that €2 by millions of journeys and it adds up, and is millions of subsidy less to be paid by the taxman!), you would think that they would get it working and make some cash from it

EDIT: should mention that I experienced a catestropic breakdown of the reservations system on SNCF in france where no reservation notice came up, so its not just in Ireland it happens. I had a reservation for 20 people so it was an experience to kick masses of pensioners and kids out of seats which they thought they had for the journey.

foggy_lad

munchkin_utd wrote: »

have to somewhat agree with the foggy one.

If you are going to have reservations marked then they must be marked right

If not, then better have a blank notice over the seat or some other arrangement like carraige A+B are reserved/ reservable, C+D etc with free seating and that way you know even with fecked overhead displays reasonably confidently whether your seat is free or not.

For the amount of extra revenue that Irish rail could garner from a proper reservation scheme at say a charge of €2 per journey (multiplying that €2 by millions of journeys and it adds up, and is millions of subsidy less to be paid by the taxman!), you would think that they would get it working and make some cash from it

EDIT: should mention that I experienced a catestropic breakdown of the reservations system on SNCF in france where no reservation notice came up, so its not just in Ireland it happens. I had a reservation for 20 people so it was an experience to kick masses of pensioners and kids out of seats which they thought they had for the journey.

Sometimes you do see paper reservation slips placed onto seats but usually only on the high class hooker service that is the Dublin-Cork train but the usual thing on trains that are not too busy is that passengers who have reserved and in many cases paid for reservations are discommoded and have to find a different seat to sit in.

Afaik if any other passenger sits in your seat at the start of their journey because the reservation is not notified to them they can't subsequently be removed from that seat without the express instruction of an authorised person who may not be available on most trains!


Do the french experience these breakdows every day I wonder, or would they get out the guillotine and lop off some high profile heads?

dowlingm

Part of the problem is the way IE do ticketing. When I have a reserved seat here in Canada, my seat is printed on it. IE need to upgrade their ticket printing system so that for reserved services the ticket obtained by the passenger has the service date/time/seat right there on it. It would also help if all trains had an attendant with a wifi equipped tablet which could download a train manifest showing the seat layout and each person supposed to be in it to backstop a failure of the seat display system.

On VIA they get a paper manifest at the departure station and if someone wants to change seat they can tell them straight away if the seat is going to be occupied before the passenger's last station. IE have tried to be clever and avoid the staff cost by automating but if the automatic system doesn't work that's not an acceptable outcome in my view.

markpb

dowlingm wrote: »

IE need to upgrade their ticket printing system so that for reserved services the ticket obtained by the passenger has the service date/time/seat right there on it.

They do already.

foggy_lad

dowlingm wrote: »

Part of the problem is the way IE do ticketing. When I have a reserved seat here in Canada, my seat is printed on it. IE need to upgrade their ticket printing system so that for reserved services the ticket obtained by the passenger has the service date/time/seat right there on it. It would also help if all trains had an attendant with a wifi equipped tablet which could download a train manifest showing the seat layout and each person supposed to be in it to backstop a failure of the seat display system.

On VIA they get a paper manifest at the departure station and if someone wants to change seat they can tell them straight away if the seat is going to be occupied before the passenger's last station. IE have tried to be clever and avoid the staff cost by automating but if the automatic system doesn't work that's not an acceptable outcome in my view.

All those on the train yesterday had their seat number printed onto their tickets but there was nothing on the seats overhead displays saying they were reserved from Castlebar or Claremorris or Roscommon etc.

The seat reservations only lit up for some of the reserved seats and only when the train reached the station that the passengers who had reserved those seats were boarding.

What that leads to is passengers who got on in Westport sat in seats which had no reservation attached because the light was off and no scrolling name or "booked from XXXXXX" message, these passengers who were all legitimately seated and entitled to stay in those seats were then being moved around by other irate passengers who were giving accusing looks and more.

the only attendant available was the rail gourmet trolley dolly who was in the rear half of the train.

Solair

It's a problem because Irish Rail don't have anyone on board who is charged with organising the seating and ensuring everything goes smoothly, other than on the Cork-Dublin / Dublin-Belfast routes.

I've had similar problems on French "Intercities" / TER trains, because you've no serious 'train host' and also a mixture of reserved and non-reserved seats.

i.e. you can buy a ticket, at any station and just expect to board any train, without reservation, yet there are also reserved seats.

It never / rarely happens on TGVs etc, because *EVERY* seat is reserved, even if you buy it last minute on the platform, they will assign you a seat & coach number.

With regards to some previous posters up the thread the Irish Rail system is actually good in theory:

1) You book online - diagram of the train + pick your seat (like an airline).
2) Tickets print with coach and seat number (when you pick them up from the machine in the station this is displayed on the ticket).
3) Your seat has your name (or the name you entered) displayed on an LED display over the seat.

So, all in all it's not a bad system. It just needs to be implemented!

Asking someone to move isn't easy and it causes the same chaos as Irish Rail's mess.

At least with Irish Rail, when the system is working there's a name displayed over the seat. In France, it's usually not marked at all and you have to argue your point.

The only way you could resolve this is to have reservation-only coaches on busy services (as is done on Cork-Dublin in practice) and a train host (again, as done on Cork-Dublin)

As it stands, you're really just relying on the general traveling public to organise their own reserved seating which rarely works anywhere!

Irish Rail do need to iron out the bugs (technical or human-computer interaction) that are causing glitches in the system though! It's not really good enough to have the tags working sometimes, and not working other times. The system cost a lot of money and should work flawlessly!

foggy_lad

Solair wrote: »

It's a problem because Irish Rail don't have anyone on board who is charged with organising the seating and ensuring everything goes smoothly, other than on the Cork-Dublin / Dublin-Belfast routes.

I've had similar problems on French "Intercities" / TER trains, because you've no serious 'train host' and also a mixture of reserved and non-reserved seats.

i.e. you can buy a ticket, at any station and just expect to board any train, without reservation, yet there are also reserved seats.

It never / rarely happens on TGVs etc, because *EVERY* seat is reserved, even if you buy it last minute on the platform, they will assign you a seat & coach number.

With regards to some previous posters up the thread the Irish Rail system is actually good in theory:

1) You book online - diagram of the train + pick your seat (like an airline).
2) Tickets print with coach and seat number (when you pick them up from the machine in the station this is displayed on the ticket).
3) Your seat has your name (or the name you entered) displayed on an LED display over the seat.

So, all in all it's not a bad system. It just needs to be implemented!

Asking someone to move isn't easy and it causes the same chaos as Irish Rail's mess.

At least with Irish Rail, when the system is working there's a name displayed over the seat. In France, it's usually not marked at all and you have to argue your point.

The only way you could resolve this is to have reservation-only coaches on busy services (as is done on Cork-Dublin in practice) and a train host (again, as done on Cork-Dublin)

As it stands, you're really just relying on the general traveling public to organise their own reserved seating which rarely works anywhere!

Irish Rail do need to iron out the bugs (technical or human-computer interaction) that are causing glitches in the system though! It's not really good enough to have the tags working sometimes, and not working other times. The system cost a lot of money and should work flawlessly!

The Cork and Belfast services have a train host who might wander down the train once but is then back to 1st class to look after the few IR/CIE/Quango nobs that might be travelling, they are not really available as there is no way of contacting them apart from walking the length of the train!

MOH

I'd say at least 80% of the time I've reserved a seat on the Sligo route it's been a waste of time.

It's a condition of reserving your seat that you're in it 20 minutes before departure. But they usually don't turn on the seat reservation system in Connolly until ten minutes or so before the train leaves. So that's pointless - I'm not going to go moving when they do turn it on if I'm already settled in another seat, particularly since by their terms and conditions I'm no longer entitled to claim said seat.

And if I board on the way back at an intermediate station the system is usually turned off again by that stage.

Usual utter incompetence from IE.

dublinman1990

I was on a train which was a GAA Special to Westport sometime last summer. It was at the time of the of GAA All Ireland Football Semi Finals between Mayo and Clare. I am telling you now from my experience; the train was too over booked and it was spelling out utter chaos. It left Hueston Station at around 6:30pm.

There was quite a large young Mayo GAA contingent boarding the train. I had asked for their parents So I could have been asking for trouble.

The average passenger was a 17 or 18 year old boy or girl. I was heading from Hueston to Athlone for a few day's holiday to stay with family. And I swear to God, the abuse on that train at most passengers being not allowed at their reserved seat was at times palpable. I could have got on another train to Westport about 10 minutes earlier but I actually missed it so I said to myself quietly AH F*** IT, I had no choice. :mad:

The amount of times I hear a young person of 17 to 18 years old to say f*** off to someone who is considerably older is unheard of. IMO they should have got the bus to Mayo instead to make the other rail passengers feel much happier and at peace.

There was one man who was a considerably older gentleman who attended the match wearing a Mayo Jersey. I was facing him sitting opposite me on the train. He was sitting there very quietly. I never talked to him or anything. But his ticket was on the table and there it showed his name, his seat number, his name was displayed over the seat. The amount paid for it.

A system for a ticket like that should be made for non-reserved passengers IMO. The ticket office which should be properly manned should have a seperate computerised database showing their name over the seat display. A small charge could be included for administrative reasons to pay for it. An example of a charge should be €3 for adults and €1.50 for a child. A cheaper rate for SW/OAP's should be considered as well.

Anyway, the aftermath of me sitting on the train was something else to see. A lot of the younger people who boarded the train literally had to sit on the floor for most of the journey I'd say. Which I can say is a load of B******s IMO. Some of them blocked their right of way because of the amount of the space that was left in the carriage.

Dare I say more; Better not.

Rant Over.

MyKeyG

n97 mini wrote: »

Ah shur that makes it alright so.

Oh my goodness. People with sight and the ability to read yet they see what they want. I didn't say it was alright. In fact if you got down off your high horse and took my entire reply in context you would see I agree it's completely infuriating.

My condemnation was in regard to the fact that the OP said 'Only in Ireland'. But god knows if you took my post in context you'd miss out on a perfect opportunity to be a sarcastic so-and-so. Boooooooooooring!

popebenny16

dublinman1990 wrote: »

I was on a train which was a GAA Special to Westport sometime last summer. It was at the time of the of GAA All Ireland Football Semi Finals between Mayo and Clare. I am telling you now from my experience; the train was too over booked and it was spelling out utter chaos. It left Hueston Station at around 6:30pm.

.

mayo-v-kerry i would imagine.

whilst it is not an excuse for such behaviour to say that you need your head examined if you want to catch a GAA special to anywhere unless you are going to an from a match, I must say it - you need your head examined. Bizarre that a special to Mayo stopped in Athlone, but then again, and this is your point, such specials are free for alls. They are totally unpoliced, there is never any staff on board, their job seems to be get you in, close the doors as tight as they can, and get you the hell out of the station.

I have been on many GAA specials and always the evening one back to whereever you are going is mental, full of drunks, full of trouble. I feel sorry for the old lad you encountered, behaviour such as that has me taking the car nowadays.

Hilly Bill

foggy_lad wrote: »

So it is ok to charge passengers for a service then not provide it? why are they charging for reserving a seat when this happens all to often?

To be fair they pay to reserve a seat only, it doesnt say that they can then sit in it

Sean9015

From the OP, it appears that someone has decided it is a good idea that the displays above the seats only show as reserved when the train is between the stations concerned, rather than showing for the whole journey - presumably guided by some saleman trying to sell an "enhancement" using the GPS system which drives the PIS.

What is needed - and is done on the (otherwise awful) Voyagers in the UK (at least when I last used them) was that the display should show "Reserved from A to B; reserved from C to D" for the whole journey, scrolling as necessary. Only one update required per journey, and not susceptible to GPS dropouts etc. Less commission for the salesman though! The only need for station to station updates is if they move to compulsory and/or last minute reservations from intermediate stations; neither idea is great (Virgin looked at the latter, and backed away when it was realised the hassles that would ensue when an unreserved seat suddenly became reserved en route).

As an aside, I am not overly comfortable with my name being shown on these displays either.......

bk

Sean9015 wrote: »

As an aside, I am not overly comfortable with my name being shown on these displays either.......

Then don't use your real name, I've found myself sitting next to William Shakespeare, etc.