If you're not someone who knows well in advance when they want to travel and can book accordingly, that seems to be what XC want to encourage you to do.
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Issues & potential conflicts regarding CrossCountry's short-notice reservation system
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D365
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Err, bags on seats are not allowed.
There arent many restaurants that would seat an unbooked customer and then continue taking reservations for the same table - turfing them out halfway through their meal or even offering a table on condition they pack up and leave if there is a subsequent booking.
TMR is quite mad.
There is only one way to abolish the scrum and that is mandatory reservation at least onto the train. There will always be a scrum when there are more passengers than seats. And as the budget airlines found reservations dont necessarily abolish the scrum as it just becomes about cabin luggage space or something else.
At the point at which customers reserve a seat by becoming a fact on the ground, you have to stop the ability for other people to reserve the same seat.
Just wait for the fun when someone suggests the seated passenger reserves their own seat to block TMR after sitting in it.
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
The scrum would be much smaller and much less dangerous if, until all reservable seats were reserved, each passenger arriving at Euston could reserve one at their leisure at a TVM or similar.
I'm confused what does this thread have to do with restaurants? They're completely different from trains! I mean, we could talk about all manner of things that either require or have optional reservations, but that doesn't make them relevant!
I've no doubt that the system will let them reserve seats a lot closer to the fact than the times they've quoted but certainly in the case of VTWC that is (was?) their stated cutoff time when I've tried to get/change reservations.
SpacePhoenix
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Where do you propose bags go if all the luggage storage areas are full? If it's a suitcase it's either it goes on a seat or blocks the gangway
Doctor Fegg
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You are quite right. CrossCountry don't run a fleet of restaurants. They run a fleet of shops.
D365
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Under a seat, in the vestibule area, stacking on top of other cases...
Have you ever even travelled in a Voyager?
Other people brought up restaurants on this thread, so there's no need for confusion.
As it happens, I think that Jayah's analogy is far and away the most meaningful one I've seen.
Reserving a seat half way through a journey when someone else is sitting there seems very much akin to a restaurant serving someone, then providing the table to someone else half way through their meal.
Exactly what I now do for any journey involving fares set by or primary service operated by XC.
I save a fortune too. It's quite bizarre.
That puts it very well indeed.
If XC are trying to manage demand, whch may well be the case for all I know, then those who choose to drive, and those like me who avoid XC as much as they can, are helping them to achieve their goal.
I's a shame that we don't have more enlioghtened views in the UK, as in other European countries I suspect that the trains used will have been fit for purpose in the first palce.
I's a shame that we don't have more enlioghtened views in the UK, as in other European countries I suspect that the trains used will have been fit for purpose in the first palce.
SpacePhoenix
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Would a new build of 12car 802s be more fit for purpose then their current fleet (assuming that they'd have the range when running on the non-electrified sections of routes? Some of the non-electrified sections might be too long for an 802 to be viable
D365
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Sure, the current fleet could use doubling up, but where on earth do you get 12 cars from?
SpacePhoenix
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You've got things like the disabled bogs, wheelchair spaces, buffet etc to come out of the total length. It would also allow larger luggage racks in each coach
D365
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VTEC and GWR are going to be running five and nine/ten car trains. How big do you want your luggage racks to be?
If by scrum you are talking 1900 on Friday then every reservable seat will be reserved in Standard. There is an argument which says do away with unreserved coaches to reduce the number of unplaced customers and another that says some will choose another departure if they can't get a reservation. I doubt it would make a noticeable difference either way. Ten minute reservations prior to boarding commencing is fine but not when someone is sitting down. A certain airline had a salutary lesson on this very recentlly.
As the trains are so full, late boarders may not get to their seat at all, and therefore the scrum isn't going anywhere until demand is much better managed.
XC could improve the experience of thousands of their customer each week by using their existing HSTs.
Would it not be possible to reduce the scrum even more by allowing those passengers with reserved seats to board first? The first super off-peaks out of St Pancras are an annoyance - can't get to your seat as the aisles are full of people who will be standing all the way to Loughborough :roll: As a tall fella trying to attempt the Kryton Factor getting to my seat can be, erm, fun... (Heck running nine car trains rather than five cars would help...)
Surely I can't be the only person to reserve a seat to guarantee one, but then end up travelling on an earlier or later train - would be very handy if I could change my reservation when I know that's going to happen, or if it could be done automatically when my train is going to be late into New Street - i.e. automatically give me reservation on a train I can catch and cancel it on the one I was booked on.
As for the 10 minute reservations - surely it can't be beyond the whit of man to design a system that allows passengers to reserve a seat while at the seat - either yourself of via the ticket inspector? Ideally it would be automatic (even better if it was smart enough to realise you don't need your reservation on the following train) but that would add somewhat to the expense... Then again when EMT have reservations showing between Derby and Chesterfield when you are boarding at Nottingham on a London-bound service perhaps not...
That's what is needed. An example given by XC for the Ten Minute Reservation system is "TMR BHM MAN 0757 1ST" as the text to reserve a seat in First on the 0757 Birmingham to Manchester. If you're already in a free seat, why couldn't this work with, say, "TMR BHM MAN 0757 A32". The system would presumably know if the seat were already reserved, say, from Stoke to Macclesfield and could either refuse the request or reserve to Stoke only in a confirming text.
In principle, it's a good system, but it seems to have been implemented in a cheap and nasty version that completely ignores the needs of one not insignificant group of passengers.
You probably could implement such a system but it wouldn't really work because a lot of people won't understand how it works or how to work out which seat or train they are on. The code you have suggested would look like total gibberish to most people. Even if you had a unique QR code on every seat on your fleet it would need some fairly nifty processing to serve up in real time something usable to say I am in this seat, it is this train and I am having it until xyz. And then you need to make some very unrealistic assumptions about how many people have a smartphone capable of reading a QR code and know how to do this.
If the numbers stacked up financially then I'm sure they would. They are out to maximise their revenue take which minimises any subsidy than needs to be paid.
They shouldn't have a choice. This is why PIXC measures were invented. You have stock and crowding - the contract says you have to take reasonable steps to deal with it. I am sure in south London the financial numbers would be improved by making trains more crowded by keeping some of them back in the depot but it doesn't happen.
Tetchytyke
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Ironically every time I've tried to use TMR this weekend, I've been told there are no available seats...
Then subsidy will increase.
Aren't XC supposed to be moving to week round full HST use as part of their franchise extension conditions ?
Reasonable steps and deployment of the franchise train fleet to best match supply and demand should come with the contract - it is not a franchise change like introducing new trains would be.
It is not the DfT's job to specify the exact formation of each train.
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