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Fully Reserved seating
on busy Albury
services
Operational Strategy
Presented by V/Line Customer Experience team
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P a g e |
ii
1. Introduction
3
Purpose
3
Background
3
Goals and objectives
3
2. Key operational decisions for implementation
4
3. Timeline
6
4. Stakeholder matrix
7
5. Activation plan
9
Required actions
9
Planned disruption
12
6. Communication messages
12
7. Budget
16
8. Evaluation
16
9. Appendix I – Albury VL seating capacity
17
10. Appendix II – Customer online booking process
18
Weekends
18
Weekdays
18
11. Appendix III - Frequency of services with reduced carriages
19
19
12. Appendix IV - Comparable booking systems on other networks
19
13. Appendix V - School holiday patronage
20
Number of services with patronage exceeding seating
20
Average service patronage
20
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Introduction
Purpose
The purpose of this plan is to outline the role of V/Line in implementing a trial of fully
reserved seating on busy Albury weekend services.
Background
Following the introduction of the regional fare cap Albury services have seen a significant
increase in popularity, this has led to all seats being taken up and some passengers needing
to stand for long periods on select services, particularly on weekends.
In many cases, staff have arranged banker coaches to supplement the service, with some
passengers choosing to transfer onto coaches and some choosing to remain standing on the
train.
V/Line has committed to investigating changes to the reservation system to help reduce the
number of passengers required to stand and improve comfort for passengers and is looking
into a number of options to address the issue.
Several of these options would have minimal change to existing customer and staff
behaviours, however making seating on weekend services fully reserved would present a
significant change to the current process and as such requires an individual activation
strategy.
Currently two carriages are reserved on each Albury service with the remaining carriage
(three carriage train) or four carriages (six carriage train) being unreserved.
Goals and objectives
V/Line will implement a trial of fully reserved seating on weekend Albury services and
throughout the September school holidays, ensuring all back end processes and process
changes are implemented while effectively and efficiently communicating with impacted
stakeholders to achieve a high level of understanding and engagement.
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release)
V/News article
News article in staff
Media
w/c 4/9
Spread awareness
newsletter outlining
changes
Staff
Briefings and trials of Cust Ops/CX
w/c 14/8
Engage and support
engagement
new carriage
staff so they are aware
lettering system with
of their role in the
frontline staff
change
Info alert
Provide detailed
Cust Ops/CX
w/c 21/8
Create understanding
information to staff
and encourage
communication with
customer; in line with
approved messages
Call centre and
Revised version of
Cust Ops/CX
w/c 28/8
Create understanding
agent brief
info alert to provide
and encourage
information to
communication with
heavily impacted
customers
staff
Conductor and
Announcement/conv
Customer
From 2/9
Explaining carriage
station staff
ersation scripts
experience
locations to customers,
announcements/
delivered on/before
advising unreserved
scripts for
trains
customers if there are
managing empty
seats available/that
seats
they may have to give
up their seats and
approaches for
avoiding
conflict/enforcement
V/Net system
Alter carriage
Ticketing
W/c 21/8
Update lettering for all
updates
lettering
(lettering)
Albury services from
configurations and
w/c 28/8
2/9 onwards, extend
open up bookings
(reservation bookable seats on
open)
weekend and school
holiday services for all
services up-to
proposed timetable
change on 19/11.
Carriage lettering will
be updated in the back
end before
announcement to
minimise risk of
passenger who make
early bookings having
incorrect seat
allocations on their
reservation.
SMS to pre
Bespoke SMS to
Ticketing/comm
w/c 28/8
Advise of changes to
booked
advise them that
s
reservation
passengers
their seat reservation
has changed
V-Net
Post messages in V-
Ticketing/comm
w/c 28/8
Staff/agent messages
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messages/updat
Net
s
in V-Net explaining the
es
booking status
Journey planner Update to enable
Digital
w/c 28/8
Enable up-to 50
booking of
unreserved tickets for a
unreserved tickets
six carriage train and
via website
25 for a three carriage
train to be booked
online.
Journey planner Update
Comms/Digital
w/c 28/8
Set expectations and
popup/reservation
spread awareness
confirmation and
around capacity.
unreserved ticket
Include bespoke note
messaging
once all seats are fully
booked
Accessibility
Update via
Accessibility
w/c 28/8
Inform of changes to
stakeholder
Accessibility
customer experience
liaison
Reference Group
meetings and eDMs
Digital manifests Push Power BI app
Digital/CX
w/c 21/8
Allow conductors to
to staff phones (with
have up-to-date
instructions included
reservation information
in info alert)
to help with seating
providing access to
passengers
manifests which are
updated every 30
minutes
Carriage
Arrange full
IOC Customer
From 2/9
Help passengers
reduction
‘cancel ation’ coach
Controllers/Cust
understand travel
process
plan, send SMS
omer Ops
arrangements in the
messages to
event of a carriage
reserved passengers
reduction
advising which
passengers can
board and which can
travel on coaches,
make
announcements at
stations
Banker coach
Build capacity in
Digital/IOC
28/8
Enable better oversight
trigger
journey planner to
Customer ops
over booking levels to
send a notification to
guide ordering of
IOC when
banker coaches (note:
unreserved online
banker coaches for
cap is reached to
known busy services
trigger the ordering
will remain in place)
of banker coaches
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Planned disruption
There is a planned disruption to Albury trains causing all Albury trains to be replaced by
coaches from 23-25 September and preventing trains from stopping at Wangaratta Station
on 26 and 27 September. Seat reservations do not apply on replacement coach services so
these changes will not be in place during the full coach replacement period, train services
will continue to be fully reservable during the Wangaratta closure with bespoke travel options
in place for Wangaratta passengers.
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Budget
As the communications costs are relatively minor, V/Line’s Customer Experience team will
absorb the operational communications costs. Costs will be tracked to enable an
understanding of business expenses accrued as an indirect result of farecap.
Item
Estimated cost
Station signage
1000
On board signage
2000
Contingency
500
total
3500
Budget is indicative and can be scaled depending on available resources.
Evaluation
This strategy will be implemented by V/Line and monitored during the process change to
reserved Albury services on weekends, to ensure that objectives are being met and identify
improvements if required.
In order to determine if this strategy has successfully met its objective, the following activities
will be carried out during the rollout and at completion.
Analysis of feedback, enquiries and complaints from key stakeholders and the
community
Feedback from stakeholders may be received via the PTV call centre and online feedback
form.
Depending on the type of feedback, information may need to be developed or refined to
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better inform the community and key stakeholders.
Feedback cases will be entered into the Resolve Case Management database and will be
reported to the project team on a monthly basis after the process change.
Improvements will be identified if the results show that we are not meeting the
communications objectives. They will also be used to help improve the customer experience
for future changes.
Media coverage
The media coverage will be monitored and the content reviewed to track the perception of
the services in the community. Regular analysis will also help to detect any potential
community concerns or issues to be promptly addressed and resolved. At the completion of
the rollout, the overall media coverage will be evaluated.
Appendix I – Albury VL seating capacity
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Appendix II – Customer online booking process
Weekends
Weekdays
-
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Appendix III - Frequency of services with reduced
carriages
*Approximately 425 services operated over this period
Appendix IV - Comparable booking systems on
other networks
V/Line is unique in Australia in having a mixed unreserved/reserved ticketing system on long
distance train services. Other states’ long distance network is predominately made up of low
frequency (1-2 services per day or less) services between major cities with journey times of
several hours where standing room wouldn’t be practical and as such are fully reserved. In
Victoria long distance services have shorter journey times, (approx. 2.5-4.5 hours) running at
a higher frequency (2-5 return services per day).
In the United Kingdom, London North East Rail runs a similar network with services between
London and Leeds/York (approximately 2.5 hours), Edinburgh (4.5 hours) and as far as
inverness. They reserve most carriages (trains can run with up-to 10 carriages) with one
economy class and 1-2 first class carriages unreserved and acknowledgement on their
website that passengers may be required to stand if travelling on an unreserved ticket and
all seats are taken on unreserved carriages.
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Appendix V - School holiday patronage
Number of services with patronage exceeding seating
During School Holiday
Spring Autumn Winter
Monday
-
1
-
Tuesday
-
1
-
Wednesday
-
1
1
Thursday
-
1
2
Friday
-
3
2
Saturday
1
-
2
Sunday
-
1
4
1
8
11
Two weeks prior to school holiday
Spring Autumn Winter
Monday
1
-
1
Tuesday
-
-
-
Wednesday
-
-
-
Thursday
-
-
-
Friday
1
-
2
Saturday
-
-
3
Sunday
1
-
6
3
-
12
Average service patronage
Average Joins per Service during School
Holidays
Spring
Autumn
Winter
Monday
130
226
190
Tuesday
101
186
179
Wednesday
138
192
203
Thursday
133
207
220
Friday
138
253
256
Saturday
131
208
242
Sunday
158
224
292
133
214
226
Average Joins 5 Weeks prior to School Holidays
Spring
Autumn
Winter
Monday
113
92
151
Tuesday
96
83
118
Wednesday
47
108
129
Thursday
95
115
146
Friday
141
134
242
Saturday
111
131
225
Sunday
117
141
277
103
115
184
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