davidgillon | Entries tagged with passenger assistance

Thought I'd have to do a Tanny Grey-Thompson and drag myself off an LNER train at KX earlier after passenger assistance failed to show. And while TGT had it happen in the wee small hours this was twenty to three in the afternoon.

And it's not even as if I did turn up and go, the assistance has been booked for 10 days, and Darlington said they'd confirm I was on my way when they put me aboard, which would still have given KX two and a half hours notice.

I sent at least two different passengers and a cleaner looking for someone to sort it, but *crickets* *tumbleweed* *crickets*

(This is where the Azumas aren't as good as the 225s and the 125s, the wheelchair spaces on those were in the coaches either side of the buffet coach, so there was always people about with comms, while on the Azumas they're in the end coaches, which is fine for 1st Class with the guard and the driver stood there, but if you're in Standard class there's no train staff within a couple of hundred metres).

As there's a grab handle on either side of the doorway I was gradually leaning further and further out to try and see if anyone was coming. Until eventually there was a panicked message over the in-train tannoy saying not to do that and someone was on their way, really. They even had a cleaner come by and tell me the same thing.

Two Passenger Assistance staff eventually turned up after about 15 minutes. I asked the one who did the ramp what had happened and he said he didn't know, they'd just got the message to come and get me.

Halfway down the platform I met another PA guy, who said "Sorry about that, your train was early, that was why there was no one there."

My train was due in at 14:39, guess what time it arrived....

Current Mood: Grrr
Current Location: Rampless

... on (disabled) Passenger Assistance on the railways.

It keeps demanding to know if I had passenger assistance to get to "the wheelchair area". I have no idea what "the wheelchair area" is, I'd assume they meant the wheelchair space aboard train, but context seems to suggest it's something that comes before boarding. Someone suggested it might be the sort of wheelie cattle pen the less clued in airports use, but I can think of precisely one UK station which has one (Euston I think, or maybe Liverpool St?).

And why are they demanding to know how my booking worked at Chatham when Chatham is a turn-up and go station and would handle me even if the booking didn't work, to the point of not being able to tell if the booking worked or not.

And in any case I always turn up an hour early at Chatham, so I never use my booking.

Which made me realise that I turn up an hour early because LNER's online booking system, the one I use to book both my ticket and my passenger assistance on the same form, inevitably books me on a train getting into St Pancras at 12:06, or later, to catch a train leaving London KX at 12:30, and that gives me 24 minutes, or less to:

Wait for the ramp to turn up, get off the train and off the platform, c150m, through the ticket check and down the lift: 5 minutes, minimum, 12:11

Cross to Kings Cross and get to Passenger Assistance Desk: 180m, busy multi-lane road with traffic light controlled crossing, 5 minutes minimum, 12:16

Book in with KX Passenger Assistance 20 minutes before departure (ie 12:10): Um, not happening, but call it 5 minutes because it's also the inevitably busy passenger info desk: 12:21

Wait for assistance guy to turn up: varies from instant if there's one standing there, to ten minutes, call it 5 minutes on average: 12:26

Get to train: slightly dependent on which platform, but call it 350-400m (far end of a nine-carriage train), and 5 minutes: 12:31

Deploy onboard ramp, undoing three separate locks, get me aboard, check wheelchair space is free, evict anyone sitting in it or using it for their luggage, make sure I'm okay, put ramp back and relock all three locks: 5 minutes, minimum, 12:36

Which is a bit unfortunate when they closed and locked the doors at 12:28.

Some Passenger Assistance problems start with "Computer says ..."

Obviously the booking form is treating everyone as an ambulant passenger and there would be time for most people to make it, though with very little leeway. But that same form also includes my request for passenger assistance. You don't even need to parse the contents, there's no way even a world class sprinter is getting from a 12:06 arrival at St Pancras over to the passenger assistance desk at KX by their 12:10 check-in deadline*. If there's a passenger assistance request, that train combination is not viable.

* They don't enforce the deadline, Darlington regularly handle me with 8 minutes between trains, probably 5 by the time I've gotten to the assistance desk if they aren't waiting for me off the incoming train, but it's a useful marker of how long _they_ think is necessary.

Current Mood: Eye Rolling
Current Location: Making allowances

Picked up my tickets for my trip North on Tuesday and realised that the Passenger Assistance booking I'd gotten by email was wrong when I compared the two.

I have a 1st Class Ticket (wouldn't normally buy one, but this time the difference was only £13 and I'll save most of that from the food and drink you get in 1st), but now I'd noticed it, the Passenger Assistance wheelchair space booking was for Standard - ticket and assistance were both booked on the same web form, but I'm pretty much convinced they then read the PA stuff off it and do it manually.

So I phone PA, convinced that by this close to Christmas the 1st Class wheelchair space will already be booked by someone else. Get through to someone and explain what's happened.

He is confused by the existing booking: "So, there's three of you travelling?"

Me: "No, just me."

Him: "But they've reserved three seats"

Me: {Sigh} "That's because you have to fold up the other two to use the wheelchair space." (Seats F99, F003, F004. Seriously, how can he not know that!)

Him: "Okay, give me a minute and I'll reserve the 1st Class Wheelchair Space"

Me, to myself : "You'll be lucky."

Amazingly enough he was: "All sorted. I'll send you through the email confirmation"

20 minutes later, confirmation arrives. It still lists the Standard class reservation.

I ring back, amazingly I get the same guy (not sure how many Passenger Assistance operators they have, but I could hear at least two more in the background).

Me: "It still says Standard Class"

Him: "I definitely changed it and reserved seat L99 for you." [and I know that's the 1st Class wheelchair space] "The system probably hasn't updated itself. I wrote it into the text. Here, I'll send it again."

New email arrives almost instantly. It won't let me in initially, but eventually does, I scroll down to the relevant section:

COACH:

F SEAT: F99

COACH:

F SEAT: F04

COACH:

F SEAT: F03

Seat reservations (shown only if made as part of Passenger Assist booking

MEETING POINT:

ASSISTANCE:

Assistance at station for boarding. Wheelchair user requiring ramps at origin station. Luggage assistance. OWN WCH, Seat L99 (KGX)
Assistance in transferring between trains, Assistance at station for alighting, Wheelchair user requiring ramps at destination station, Luggage assistance, OWN WCH, Seat L99 (DAR)

(My highlights)

So it's entirely possible I have both the 1st and Standard Class wheelchair spaces booked, plus my original non-wheelchair 1st Class seat (it's a great system, it allocates you a normal seat and prints it on the ticket before it allocates you the wheelchair space). I'm definitely going to be interested to see where I end up on Tuesday, and I'll definitely need a drink, whichever it is.

Why is everything so complicated when you're a wheelchair user?

Current Mood: confused
Current Location: In Schroedinger's Wheelchair, waiting for the waveform to collapse

On the 12:01 Darlington to Kings Cross, passenger assistance at Darlington were killing themselves laughing, apparently their roster says that not only am I on the 12:01, I'm also on the 12:00 from Kings Cross to Darlington, and they've been betting which way I'm actually going all morning. That's taking multitasking to extremes!

Just hope assistance is there to get me off at KX!

Current Mood: Confused
Current Location: Coming and going
Crossposts: http://dwgism.livejournal.com/15991.html

My trip North was decidedly mixed. I got over to Rochester station okay, in fact the taxi was at my front door before I got it closed - he said he was passing my road as the call went out - and had time to do a couple of things I wanted and still catch the train before the one I had planned on. First negative hit 5 minutes outside of Rochester, I was reading my Kindle and suddenly felt travel-sick. A quick bit of experimentation confirmed head-down=travel-sick and escalating neck pain, head-up=fine. Fortunately I'd packed a collar (in one of the underseat bags

kaberett

recommends, though I was too cheap to buy an actual Black Box), first chance I've had to use it and definitely worthwhile. Thankfully the collar mostly solved the travel-sickness and neckache+headache (and a couple of ibuprofen fixed the rest), though not being able to bend my head forward made reading slightly more of an issue. I suspected it was an issue last time I caught a train, though I was hoping that was purely down to it being a Pendolino on the West Coast Main Line, which is a tilting design, but this time it was the Kent Coast Line and the East Coast Main Line and non-tilting Javelins and 225s. So looks like that may now be a thing - the wheelchair tech pooh-poohed the idea I needed a headrest, not happy to be proved right! (Though fortunately it's limited circumstances where it applies).

The transfer from St Pancras to Kings Cross was fine and I was chatting away for a while with the guy doing passenger assistance, which may have been responsible for him announcing, when he'd been off and found the guard, "Change of plans, we're putting you in First Class" - fine by me, I'll force myself to suffer people trying to ply me with free food and drink. The chicken caesar wrap was tasty, but more wrap than anything, the white wine was very nice and I'd have had a second glass if they'd offered it before York rather than after, given I was getting off at Darlington in 20 minutes.

And it was Darlington where things went very wrong, They got me off the train fine and I was sitting waiting for the 15:54 Bishop Auckland train when I overheard the platform staff taking a message that there were major signal problems at Middlesbrough, which is where the Bishop train comes from. The woman who was doing the passenger assistance came straight over and repeated the bits I'd heard, plus that it might be 18:30 before they got anything moving. They waited 30 minutes, then made the decision to put everyone in taxis, which was about 25 of us. If they'd asked I'd have pointed out I can transfer and that the chair dismantles, but they didn't and a wheelchair taxi quickly turned up. Assuming they'd want to squeeze the maximum number of people aboard I stayed in the chair (plus I'd not travelled in the chair by road before and there was a novelty value). I wish I hadn't, it was worse even than the Pendolino, not helped by there only being one front clamp for the chair, which the driver didn't bother with. I spent the journey with my foot tucked under the seat in front to stop the chair tipping backwards every time he accelerated. I'll pass in future.

But for all that I was only about 45 minutes late, and that included pushing from the station to home as there was no point trying to ring for a taxi when they were likely all half-way to Darlington with the people who'd been waiting at Bishop!

Hopefully the return trip will be smoother!

Current Mood: Northerly
Current Location: God's Own Country
Crossposts: http://dwgism.livejournal.com/15434.html

Heading North for three weeks in the morning. I deliberately haven't ordered a MIFI SIM, so expect updates to be intermittent as my folks don't have net access and I'll need to wander over to my sister's if I want to get online. I decided against MIFI in the hope of encouraging myself to make some serious progress on the WIP.

Actually booking the train ticket to get there was an exercise in frustration. I've had enough of trying to book through SouthEastern (my local train company), who always seem to have an issue with me booking the wheelchair space, so I thought I'd try with Virgin instead as it's the Virgin East Coast Main Line segment I need the wheelchair space booking for. I'm also switching to travelling from Rochester rather than Chatham due to better access - the new Rochester station has level access between taxi-ramp and platform, Chatham is more 'Oh my god, oh my god, can I stop in time?!). On checking Virgin's online booking I found that it would actually let me book wheelchair assistance as part of the process. Score - no need to phone them! So last Monday I tried to book, got all the way to it contacting my bank for payment, and my anti-virus decided to throw a spanner in the works. So of course I needed to wait to check it had definitely failed and I hadn't been charged. And similarly on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday as I tried different options to persuade the AV software to behave, including changing browsers. Eventually I disabled the AV software for the transaction, only to find 1) I could now only pick up the ticket from the station (which I was expecting) and 2) it was telling me I couldn't do that. That seems to have been purely an issue with overnight maintenance, so Friday I went to finish the process.

Enter all the assistance data yet again (it wanted home number, mobile number, email, and wheelchair dimensions(?!?)), all ready to book and I thought I'd better check the seat reservations, which turned out to be the middle of the wrong carriage, both ways. and you can change to any seat but the wheelchair space), so now I have to contact Virgin online, who tell me it's because of people trying to book it for luggage and prams (except you can't book it for luggage or prams) and that I need to phone passenger assistance to book the wheelchair space. So that means I can use the online system to book all the assistance I need to get on and off the train in the chair and save having to phone assistance, but not the wheelchair space itself. (What happens if I then find all the wheelchair spaces are already booked I have no idea). {Roll Eyes} {Headdesk} {Roll Eyes}

So eventually I got the ticket booked and picked it up from the station, but I started the process Monday evening, and finished Saturday afternoon. I knew travel would be more complicated when I switched to the chair, I had no idea it would be this unnecessarily complicated and just plain irritating!

And of course I have to hope nothing goes wrong tomorrow (current odds based on exising data of being forgotten about , not expected. or assistance turning up at entirely the wrong station, c50%)