Sensitive Seats

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[grahame]

From Chronicle Live

Boarding an London or Edinburgh-bound train at Newcastle without a reserved seat can be a lottery.

If the service is busy you can spend ages traipsing down carriages trying to spot an empty seat, only to discover it actually is reserved or there is someone sat in it.

In the end, many just give up and stand, or plonk themselves on the vestibule floor.

But LNER^» (London North Eastern Railway - about) reckons it has come up with solution for seat hunting.

Passengers on the East Coast Mainline can now use their phones to quickly identify empty seats.

The operator has fitted its trains with sensors, which indicate when a seat is vacant. Passengers simply have to log on to LNER's wifi service, and select "Find an empty seat" to see which ones are free.

LNER's Seat Sensor technology uses a traffic light system. Red means the seat is taken, amber indicates it is reserved for part of the journey, while green shows it is completely unreserved.

If it's starting in the east - when does it come west?   And will there be enough seats on the trains for there to be any point?  Can the sensors tell a backend from baggage?