Seat Reservations & Empty Seats

[Deerfold]

I find another useful aspect of AP ticket holders having reservations - it means they generally get spaced out amongst the carriages as they board instead of all trying to get on the first carriage they get to.

 

[clagmonster]

is VTEC unique in offering a choice of seats for the reservation when you book advance tickets ... my last VTEC AP trip was booked approx a month before travel and offered a wide range of seats when it came ot the reservation

I believe Cross Country offer a seat selection service.
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FGW on the other hand runs trains that are packed to RDG, squeezing the accomodation meant for those who go much further, as FGW seem reluctant to enforce restrictions that would ensure RDG-only passengers use the trains provided especially for them.

Which trains would they be that are provided especially for the Reading commuters? The trains which run on the relief lines, I would say, as suited more to the passengers from the intermediate stations, and I understand are packed to the gunnels. As far as I can see all of the trains on the main lines start from beyond Reading, making them trains which you say are especially for longer distance passengers.

As far as the loadings are concerned, many of the IC trains are less than fully loaded once the commuters empty out meaning that they are over provisioned just to provide the local commuter capacity out of London. If they were scaled down to what the IC loadings required, that would release paths for commuter stock that would have much higher seating capacity, therefore getting more per path. As far as having the right stock to do this is concerned, the current wholsale provisioning of EMUs (including cascaded stock) is an opportunity to rectify the imbalance. For comparison, a 2+8 HST in IC configuration has about 436 seats and is 230m long. A pair of 4-car 387s have about 452 seats and a fair amount of standing room if required in 160m length. If an extra 10m of platform above what the HSTs need was available, the seating capacity could rise to 688 seats with 3x4-car 387s. So a rebalancing of service types would have enough headroom to handle passenger growth for some time. I suspect that the orders for 5-car IC stock point to restructuring the services in the future anyway.

Surely every train formed of 5 coaches is a effectively a waste of half a path. A extra 5 coaches on said train would mop up the Reading commuters and provide a bit of extra space for passengers west of Reading.
8/12 trains on the outer-suburbans would come in handy too, I'm sure.

 

[fandroid]

Getting back (sort of) to the original point of this thread. The problem is that sea of unoccupied reserved seats. 20-30% in my and others experience. They serve no useful purpose and there should be some method for getting rid of them, either by ways of discouraging them from happening in the first place or by finding ways of getting rid of the 'reserved' notices as soon as possible after the starting station. In seems that the latter is probably a lot easier with paper 'reserved' tickets than it is with electronic systems. The passenger who moves seat can take his/her own reservation ticket away, or the guard can do a simple sweep through the train doing it to all unoccupied reserved seats (although to be thorough, he/she would need to do that after every stop). Electronic systems get in the way of this, giving no option for the passenger and requiring the guard's sweeps through the train plus lots of inputting too. The latter is almost certainly too tedious a waste of a guard's time.

One day possibly a combination of bar-code readers, smartphones and online reservation systems will allow for both customer choice and maximum availability of seats.

 

[Bletchleyite]

One day possibly a combination of bar-code readers, smartphones and online reservation systems will allow for both customer choice and maximum availability of seats.

This. I know it isn't universally popular, but I think XC TMR by text is a precursor to a possibly superior system accessible via various modes of communication which could serve to make the Euston scrum go away.
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A extra 5 coaches on said train would mop up the Reading commuters and provide a bit of extra space for passengers west of Reading.

But would it not perhaps be more efficient use of paths and rolling stock if you had 2x5-car running together from Paddington, pick up only at Reading, then splitting further down the line, but the spare path taken by a high density commuter EMU from Reading?

The MKC situation only works because of the much higher capacity and faster local service provided by LM.
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ISTR there were compulsory reservations on certain busy InterCity services back in BR days.

If anybody's got a long memory, did it work back then?

There is still scope to do that now (the white R rather than black R) but I don't think, other than the Sleepers, there are any left.

 

[clagmonster]

But would it not perhaps be more efficient use of paths and rolling stock if you had 2x5-car running together from Paddington, pick up only at Reading, then splitting further down the line, but the spare path taken by a high density commuter EMU from Reading?

So long as your pair of 5 cars is full, then yes, I'd see that as an efficient system.

 

[sheff1]

Given that in the real world, seating capacity on trains is finite, the alternatives are:
1) Make a lot more seats available for advance bookings. Then you have the problem thatsomebody who genuinely only decides to travel on the day has even less chance of one.
2) Stop all reservations (or charge for them) meaning that passengers who do the right thing and plan their travel in advance then find that they can't get a seat, which could be particularly difficult for a family on holiday with their luggage.
There is another option that works perfectly well which is only sell tickets for which seats are available, when they have gone, you look to book on the next service. Works well for the airlines and Eurostar, but I suspect there will be howls of complaints form the 'turn up and go' mob if it were to be adopted on domestic train services. Let's see what HS2 does.

There are various other options. One is:

1. Seat reservations are not indicated onboard and so can be bought right up to time of departure, including from intermediate stations.

2. One or more coaches are completely unreservable and are clearly listed as such on the departure screens.

Those who do not wish to pay for a reservation take the risk that the unreservable coach(es) may be full. People know that if they choose to sit in a reservable coach without a reservation they could be required to move after any station.

In my experience, with and without reservations, this works well. I will not name the countries in which I have encountered this system as I do not need to be told by the usual suspects that "we are not in XXXX".

ISTR there were compulsory reservations on certain busy InterCity services back in BR days.

If anybody's got a long memory, did it work back then?

I certainly do not recall any problems or complaints when I was selling huge numbers of compulsory reservations for trains from the West Midlands to/from the West Country in the 1970s.

Around Christmas/New Year ISTR certain trains from Euston were made compulsory reservation. A key difference, of course, was that relief non-reservable trains were run either just before, or just after, the compulsory trains.

 

[yorksrob]

Ah, relief trains - now there's something I wouldn't mind them bringing back!

 

[Flamingo]

On busy trains, after leaving London and Reading, I will often announce "Any passengers looking for a seat, check any empty seats with a reservation label - if it is reserved from London they are probably not turning up at this stage". On the Up, I'll just announce after Reading "Disregard any reservations, we've passed the last place anybody can join who has one".

A significant number of people sit beside their reserved seat in the hope of getting two. Some of these object (unsuccessfully) when one removes the reservation label...

 

[Bletchleyite]

Those who do not wish to pay for a reservation take the risk that the unreservable coach(es) may be full. People know that if they choose to sit in a reservable coach without a reservation they could be required to move after any station.

This is very much my take. I don't do advance booking as I like to decide when to travel at late notice. I would however quite like to be able to get a reserved seat, say from the TVM, when I arrive at the station if available, particularly if able to choose from a seat map, so I can avoid the Euston scrum and board at my leisure. If there are none, that might, if I'm not in a hurry, encourage me to choose a different train - I've done precisely that with XC TMR. It would also do away with issues with unmarked reservations. Ideally, there would be a machine on board from which you could also obtain one if you wanted, or your phone, the Internet etc.

I also think reservations should be able to be relinquished at a small refund to encourage it. £2 for a reservation, with £1 refunded if cancelled, might well achieve this.

 

[fandroid]

On busy trains, after leaving London and Reading, I will often announce "Any passengers looking for a seat, check any empty seats with a reservation label - if it is reserved from London they are probably not turning up at this stage". On the Up, I'll just announce after Reading "Disregard any reservations, we've passed the last place anybody can join who has one".

A significant number of people sit beside their reserved seat in the hope of getting two. Some of these object (unsuccessfully) when one removes the reservation label...

Sounds like common sense. I take the point about busy trains. Of course, on FGW HSTs the problem for the passenger getting on is compounded by the ridiculously high seat backs, which mean that only the heads of giants are visible from the coach ends, so every seat has to be individually inspected to see whether it's occupied or not. Busy trains look just like empty trains!

Is there any advice from your management on when and how to deal with the no-show problem?

 

[Bletchleyite]

Sounds like common sense. I take the point about busy trains. Of course, on FGW HSTs the problem for the passenger getting on is compounded by the ridiculously high seat backs

I like those. But I am 6' 4".

 

[Flamingo]

Sounds like common sense. I take the point about busy trains. Of course, on FGW HSTs the problem for the passenger getting on is compounded by the ridiculously high seat backs, which mean that only the heads of giants are visible from the coach ends, so every seat has to be individually inspected to see whether it's occupied or not. Busy trains look just like empty trains!

Is there any advice from your management on when and how to deal with the no-show problem?

They have other things to worry about. If it doesn't cause delays, complaints or incident forms it's not a problem.

 

[TUC]

I really don't see the problem. If a passenger clearly hasn't up for their reserved seat, go ahead and occupy it, as long as you're willing to move should they get on at a later station. It always puzzles me on ECML journeys out of Kings Cross, such as the one I'm on now, that some passengers will spend the journey sat on the floor when there are plenty of reserved seats that hbeen occupied.

 

[DeeGee]

I really don't see the problem. If a passenger clearly hasn't up for their reserved seat, go ahead and occupy it, as long as you're willing to move should they get on at a later station. It always puzzles me on ECML journeys out of Kings Cross, such as the one I'm on now, that some passengers will spend the journey sat on the floor when there are plenty of reserved seats that hbeen occupied.

Sometimes I like to sit on the floor.

No, really.

 

[anme]

That would put the TOC in a difficult position if the trains was too full to board as the AP passenger would have a ticket that was only valid on that train. How would you manage that situation?

How do seat reservations help with that? If a train is too full to board, holding an extra piece of paper is unlikely to change much.
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Well the XC reservation system would seem the way out of that, possibly with a 'reserve at station' when you buy the ticket facility. The only passengers who would lose out then were those who bought their tickets less than 10 minutes from the advertised departure. In reality, those booking early and getting the lower-cost deals are helping as part of the demand management system, Anybody can do it if they are prepared to take the risk, but many choose not to.

1. I'm very much in favour of reservations being available right up until a train leaves the station (not even its originating station!). This works well in e.g. Japan, where entire coaches are either reserved or unreserved and you can get reservations from TVMs. But it's hard to see how that could work on our overcrowded network. And I might well join an XC train for a long journey, even several hours after it left its first station!

2. Personally, my life is not so predictable (I won't use the word 'boring') that I know about every specific journey weeks or even days in advance (work or pleasure). I'm not going to speculatively book tickets between, say, Birmingham and Aberdeen for 17th October on the off chance that I might want to travel then.
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Given that in the real world, seating capacity on trains is finite, the alternatives are:
1) Make a lot more seats available for advance bookings. Then you have the problem thatsomebody who genuinely only decides to travel on the day has even less chance of one.
2) Stop all reservations (or charge for them) meaning that passengers who do the right thing and plan their travel in advance then find that they can't get a seat, which could be particularly difficult for a family on holiday with their luggage.
There is another option that works perfectly well which is only sell tickets for which seats are available, when they have gone, you look to book on the next service. Works well for the airlines and Eurostar, but I suspect there will be howls of complaints form the 'turn up and go' mob if it were to be adopted on domestic train services. Let's see what HS2 does.

Why is planning travel in advance "doing the right thing"?! This seems to ignore the real world where things don't always happen in entirely predictable ways, and also ignores that spontaneity can be fun! Try it sometime!

A fully reserved train, where all seats are reserved and you can only board with a reservation, could actually work very well. It allows reservations to be sold even after the train has left its starting station. Of course, if such a system was adopted, it would be critical that TVMs could issue reservations (as they can in other countries).

I'm a bit concerned about this talk of a "turn up and go mob". It almost seems like you are denigrating these people. Please ask yourself who contributes more to the railways - someone travelling on an advance ticket costing ten pounds, or someone making the same journey on the same train on a "turn up and go" ticket costing several times as much.

 

[Bletchleyite]

A fully reserved train, where all seats are reserved and you can only board with a reservation, could actually work very well. It allows reservations to be sold even after the train has left its starting station. Of course, if such a system was adopted, it would be critical that TVMs could issue reservations (as they can in other countries).

The problem with it is that they tend to mean "no standing" and thus trains book up, which is why I tend towards the intermediate solution of having marked unreserved coaches or areas.

I'm a bit concerned about this talk of a "turn up and go mob". It almost seems like you are denigrating these people. Please ask yourself who contributes more to the railways - someone travelling on an advance ticket costing ten pounds, or someone making the same journey on the same train on a "turn up and go" ticket costing several times as much.

To compete with the car, turn-up-and-go is required. If the railway ceased providing it, or made the fares *too* high, I'd drive. I increasingly do because of the seat bunfight on certain journeys.

 

[westv]

I'm a bit concerned about this talk of a "turn up and go mob". It almost seems like you are denigrating these people. Please ask yourself who contributes more to the railways - someone travelling on an advance ticket costing ten pounds, or someone making the same journey on the same train on a "turn up and go" ticket costing several times as much.

The person who buys a number of AP tickets a year might contribute more than the person who might just buy one turn up and go fare.
£10? Apart from inconvenient times where are these £10 fares you talk of?

 

[anme]

The person who buys a number of AP tickets a year might contribute more than the person who might just buy one turn up and go fare.

Possibly true, but then you're hardly making a valid comparison.

£10? Apart from inconvenient times where are these £10 fares you talk of?

I'm no expert, but I understand advance fares are cheaper than walk up fares. Is that not the case?

 

[westv]

Possibly true, but then you're hardly making a valid comparison.



I'm no expert, but I understand advance fares are cheaper than walk up fares. Is that not the case?

In what way is it not a valid comparison?

You could have said AP fares are cheaper but you chose to compare the very cheapest rarely available AP fares.

 

[bb21]

I really don't see the problem. If a passenger clearly hasn't up for their reserved seat, go ahead and occupy it, as long as you're willing to move should they get on at a later station. It always puzzles me on ECML journeys out of Kings Cross, such as the one I'm on now, that some passengers will spend the journey sat on the floor when there are plenty of reserved seats that hbeen occupied.

Not everyone likes to play musical chairs at potentially every station down the line.

 

[anme]

In what way is it not a valid comparison?

Comparing someone who travels by train once per year to someone who travels regularly doesn't seem a fair comparison.

You could have said AP fares are cheaper but you chose to compare the very cheapest rarely available AP fares.

Advance fares are generally cheaper, and often much cheaper, than flexible fares - unless I have entirely misunderstood how the system works. Please tell me if I have. My example may have been at the extreme end of the scale, but it certainly happens - I've travelled a couple of hundred miles on a full train in the middle of the day on a proper Intercity TOC for ten pounds, when the off peak flexible fare would have been close to an order of magnitude higher. So it does happen, and my point stands.
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Not everyone likes to play musical chairs at potentially every station down the line.

I don't know what the T&C's say (can someone confirm?), but realistically if you don't use your reserved seat from its starting station, you can hardly expect to claim it later. Seats shouldn't remain unoccupied on busy trains on the off chance someone will board at a later station, especially when other passengers are standing.

 

[sheff1]

... you chose to compare the very cheapest rarely available AP fares.

There are hundreds, probably thousands, of AP fares readily available every day at a lot less than £10, many of them in First Class.

 

[Hadders]

Advance fares are generally cheaper, and often much cheaper, than flexible fares - unless I have entirely misunderstood how the system works. Please tell me if I have. My example may have been at the extreme end of the scale, but it certainly happens - I've travelled a couple of hundred miles on a full train in the middle of the day on a proper Intercity TOC for ten pounds, when the off peak flexible fare would have been close to an order of magnitude higher. So it does happen, and my point stands.

Advance fares aren't always cheaper. Yes, you might get a bargain if you can commit to a specif train 12 weeks ahead but very cheap fares on busy routes are often few and far between.

It's not unheard of for Advance fares to be more expensive than flexible off-peak tickets!

 

[bb21]

I don't know what the T&C's say (can someone confirm?), but realistically if you don't use your reserved seat from its starting station, you can hardly expect to claim it later. Seats shouldn't remain unoccupied on busy trains on the off chance someone will board at a later station, especially when other passengers are standing.

Interpretations differ between train companies and there is no consensus amongst forum members AFAIK.

 

[AM9]

Why is planning travel in advance "doing the right thing"?! This seems to ignore the real world where things don't always happen in entirely predictable ways, and also ignores that spontaneity can be fun! Try it sometime!

From the railway's point of view:

it allows them to be forewarned of heavy demand and in some cases, plan for it. (With a privatised railway run for profit against a minimum timetable/capacity specification, that is less likely to occur, but relief trains were a feature of railway operation for over a century before privatisation.)
for the passenger who particularly wants/needs seats and maybe space for luggage on a long journey, it is much better to plan ahead and reserve seats.​

I am retired and most of my travel is spontaneous, for instance, last Wednesday I was thinking about taking a trip to Lancashire the next day (16th July). Via the NRE website, I established the ticket options and decided that an off-peak return from Euston to Manchester was preferable than a couple of advances even though the latter were cheaper and seats could be reserved for either type. In the event, I chose to 'turn-up and go', and bought tickets at Watford Junction station immediately before travel. There were probably passengers alongside me on both outward and return trains who had advance tickets (probably at much lower cost than I would have paid) and possibly reserved seats. I didn't think that I had a greater entitlement to travel because I had paid more and accepted the risk of not getting a good seat (or even any seat) for either direction. Although it was my decision to travel that way, it could apply to anybody, and doesn't need multiple advance tickets to be purchased weeks ahead on the off-chance of a need/wish to travel on any of those dates. So thanks for the tip about avoiding a boring existence, but I don't have that problem.

I'm a bit concerned about this talk of a "turn up and go mob". It almost seems like you are denigrating these people. Please ask yourself who contributes more to the railways - someone travelling on an advance ticket costing ten pounds, or someone making the same journey on the same train on a "turn up and go" ticket costing several times as much.

As you can see, I am part of the 'mob' when it suits me and self-denigration is a healthy thing anyway but I wasn't doing it then. The answer to your question is not simply a measure of the relative fares that are paid.
Those who contribute the most to the railways are those who use capacity that would otherwise go unused. Failure to sell that capacity is a dead loss. Casual leisure travelling accounts for much of this.
Passengers who contribute the least are those who's travel involves the most investment, particularly if the value of the investment cannot be realised because it is unusable at other times. Probably the lowest net contributors are peak-time travellers who requires the infrastructure, rolling stock and manpower resources to be at their maximum. Many mainline routes that are four or six track could be less were there not extreme peak levels running over then for less than 15% of the day. A great deal of the rolling stock only does one or two return journeys per day and often none at weekends. The rest of the week, it is sitting in sidings waiting for the next peak demand. Operational staff levels are maxed out when the service is running under maximum pressure, and still there aren't always enough of them around when comparatively minor things go wrong. Bear in mind that most commuter fares are artificially below their true cost for political reasons.​

I hope that answers the question for you. Don't run away with the idea that more higher fares mean more contribution to the railway's running. That's why the TOCs offer bargain fares for those who help fill empty seats, i.e. not during busy times.

 

[Bletchleyite]

It's not unheard of for Advance fares to be more expensive than flexible off-peak tickets!

But in such cases they are irrelevant, as you would purchase the flexible ticket. Often this happens because the off peak single is 10p less than the off peak return, thus meaning the walk-up is only better value if making a return journey.

 

[westv]

How did we get from untaken reserved seats to comparing walk on v AP ticket?

Anyway, I'd still say that most vacant reserved seats are not AP but, obviously, I have no proof so it's just my opinion.

 

[Hadders]

But in such cases they are irrelevant, as you would purchase the flexible ticket. Often this happens because the off peak single is 10p less than the off peak return, thus meaning the walk-up is only better value if making a return journey.

You know that and so do I but most people don't and end up paying far more than they need to.

 

[Bletchleyite]

You know that and so do I but most people don't and end up paying far more than they need to.

Possibly so, though the planners should seek to avoid this. I think VT make it clearest by using their "half single" approach, though I really wish we'd go for off-peak singles being half the return more generally.

 

[transmanche]

I think VT make it clearest by using their "half single" approach, though I really wish we'd go for off-peak singles being half the return more generally.

VTEC do (for certain journeys) without the requirement to purchase it as part of a return journey.

In October 2013 DfT said (my emphasis):

There is however one simplification measure which we believe would also bring wider benefits. This would be to regulate all longer-distance tickets for off-peak travel on a single leg basis, ending the confusing and frustrating situation for passengers where the off-peak single can be as little as 10p cheaper than the off-peak return.

This would give passengers the opportunity to "mix and match" the best ticket for each leg of their journey. For example, passengers could combine a peak with an off-peak ticket, or a full-price "buy on the day" with a discounted Advance ticket. It would also stimulate increased shift to book-ahead tickets, which help maximise use of space on trains while minimising crowding.

Allowing more long-distance passengers to get a better and fairer deal in this way would not be without cost to government and mandating such a change network-wide remains unaffordable in the current climate. However, a pilot will allow us to measure how passengers respond in practice, to inform an assessment of the affordability and sustainability of adopting this approach network-wide.

We therefore intend to trial this approach on a major intercity route or routes and will seek requests for proposals from train operators in order to identify a suitable route that will meet specific criteria necessary for the trial. Subject to the success of this trial, we will consider the feasibility of making this approach permanent and extending it networkwide when we can afford to do so. However, in principle we believe that pricing long-distance travel on a single leg basis is better and fairer for passengers and it remains our aspiration for the longer term.

Source: DfT - Rail Fares and Ticketing: Next Steps

I don't know if those EC/VTEC fares were the 'trial', or if they were looking for something extra. But I'd be interested to know when this change is going to happen.