COVID19 and compulsory reservations

[Bletchleyite]

Could the ticket barriers be made to print seat reservations on your ticket as you go through?

This would seem the obvious way to do it: as you present an open travel ticket to the barrier it works out the next available journey option on which there is capacity, makes the reservation and prints the trains and seat numbers on the ticket.

Eurostar's barriers can do something like this, they print a separate ticket. It'd be expensive to add it to NR for what is likely a short term requirement.

 

[duncanp]

Going back to the original post about TER trains in France, I can find nothing which indicates that reservations are compulsory.

Mesures sanitaires - COVID-19 | SNCF TER Hauts-de-France

Informations COVID-19 : mesures sanitaires et commerciales

www.ter.sncf.com

ON COMPTE SUR VOUS POUR

• Anticiper et acheter dans la mesure du possible votre titre de transport en ligne et se renseigner sur la fréquentation de votre train.
• Favoriser vos déplacements aux heures les plus creuses.
• Venir avec votre masque individuel et votre gel hydro alcoolique, porter votre masque en gare et tout au long de votre trajet.
• Respecter les autres voyageurs et les agents en suivant les recommandations qui sont données tout au long de votre trajet.
• Se protéger et protéger les autres en respectant les gestes barrières recommandés par les autorités.
• Signaler toute anomalie . Utiliser le signal d’alarme qu’en cas de danger grave et immédiat.

BILLETS ET ABONNEMENTS TER, PRIVILÉGIEZ L’ACHAT À DISTANCE

• Recherchez un billet et achetez-le en ligne.
• Abonné hebdomadaire ou mensuel, en quelques clics, achetez votre abonnement en ligne.

En mobilité, achetez aussi vos billets TER sur l’appli Assistant SNCF.

Perhaps they realised it was completely unworkable, as it would be for commuter railways and local trains in the UK.

 

[Bletchleyite]

The norm in "Romance style" countries is that long-distance trains have compulsory reservations and airline-style yield managed pricing, whereas local trains have walk-up fares only, normally without even a peak-off peak split, and a given train very rarely serves both purposes (unlike the UK).

This approach has been the case for a long time, so I'd say it was impractical to have reservations on local trains, as to get one you'd have to faff about going to the station in advance of a local journey. Nowadays, it's much easier to get one, so this isn't quite as true. I wouldn't propose this as a permanent solution but it is a useful "workaround" for COVID19 purposes. Everyone who has ever purchased an Advance for travel on Northern services shows that it is short-term viable.

 

[duncanp]

The norm in "Romance style" countries is that long-distance trains have compulsory reservations and airline-style yield managed pricing, whereas local trains have walk-up fares only, normally without even a peak-off peak split, and a given train very rarely serves both purposes (unlike the UK).

I think this is the problem in the UK, in that many long distance trains also serve as local trains for part of their route. (eg. Coventry - Birmingham - Sandwell & Dudley - Wolverhampton) There have been many threads on this forum before about commuters between Paddington and Reading getting on long distance services to and from the West Country.

France has a good separation between long distance TGV services and local TER services, and this is why compulsory reservations for TGVs seems to work well. Certain types of TGV tickets are flexible, means you can change your reservation without penalty, subject to space being available. This can make last minute travel a little awkward at busy times.

 

[Bikeman78]

And what I am saying is that businesses and customers have to adapt. That "urgent matter" will have to wait and be dealt from from home, or the next day. Or it'll have to go on hold while the office worker checks if they can change their ticket.

I've weekly commuted by air and this situation has arisen a few times. Office workers aren't ambulance crew, very rarely is someone going to fall over dead if the matter waits while you have a wee, as it were. The matter could wait the 5 minutes it took to check that there was capacity to change to a later flight and to do so.

And if you are in that position, e.g. you are an ambulance worker, other arrangements must be made.

I will finish by inviting you, in the spirit of the thread, to propose a workable alternative.

The alternative is to copy the Dutch railways. From July 1st they are encouraging people to travel by train as normal. I think you need a face mask but that's it.

You've mentioned Northern. They are the last company on earth that should consider reservations because the length of train or type of unit is a lottery.

Regarding compliance, would the bucket and spade people going to Barry Island or Bournemouth bother with a reservation? They clearly aren't bothered about wedging onto a train way above the desired 15% capacity.

 

[Huntergreed]

The alternative is to copy the Dutch railways. From July 1st they are encouraging people to travel by train as normal. I think you need a face mask but that's it.

You've mentioned Northern. They are the last company on earth that should consider reservations because the length of train or type of unit is a lottery.

Regarding compliance, would the bucket and spade people going to Barry Island or Bournemouth bother with a reservation? They clearly aren't bothered about wedging onto a train way above the desired 15% capacity.

Exactly, and this is their choice.

If people are willing to go on a train and stand/sit near those who are choosing not to wear a mask then that's their choice and they can face the consequences of it (ie the very, very slim chance they'll catch the virus, which if they do carries a very, very slim chance of landing them in hospital, which if they do carries a very, very slim chance of them dying from it).

 

[squizzler]

Well I'd say waiting until the barriers before finding out when you will be travelling might be a touch late. Imagine going through at say 16:00 only to find out your next service isn't until 19:00. Not fun! And besides that what if you are using a e-ticket or Smartcard, plus you'd need to install printers in every single ticket barrier, oh and there's the small matter of the being a lot of stations without them in the first place....

Good point well made, the barriers would not be the place to do it, if at all. Initially I was thinking of a SNCF style 'composter' machine, which would be a bit more sophisticated than the glorified hole punch they have, and which are found even at the most rinky-dink stations in France.

I am surprised there is no printer or anything in the barriers in use.

The norm in "Romance style" countries is that long-distance trains have compulsory reservations and airline-style yield managed pricing, whereas local trains have walk-up fares only, normally without even a peak-off peak split, and a given train very rarely serves both purposes (unlike the UK).

Good point. In light of attracting business after Covid, this separation seems to offer considerable advantages, were it possible to implement in the UK. The railway is being remade to in a way that separates local and intercity (HS2, NPR, Midlands Hub, etc) although too long term to help with the pandemic! It is the long distance services - where trains are less frequent and the traveller less likely to be familiar with what services are usually busy or not, potential travellers have various options including not to travel, and people are cooped together for longer periods of time - where the reassurance of enforced spacing of passengers by the booking engine can be a selling point. The commuter, by contrast, knows what services are likely busy and may be able to choose to avoid them, or they got to travel anyway so no point worrying.

 

[al78]

Wrong, wrong & thrice wrong. There are lots of office calls that are very urgent that can't just be fobbed off. And you know it.

Isn't this discussion going to come down to defining what you mean by "essential"? For some, that literally means threat to life and/or property, and everything else is flexible.

 

[Huntergreed]

Isn't this discussion going to come down to defining what you mean by "essential"? For some, that literally means threat to life and/or property, and everything else is flexible.

Essential is entirely subjective so any use of it in legislation would render it meaningless as a good lawyer (or even a not so good one) could immediately tear this apart.

 

[BJames]

But that could equally drive people away - especially those travelling for work,and even more so those who don't know exactly when they will be returning.

From the "Head out to help out" thread... it's been a while since we've touched on this thread but to avoid going off topic elsewhere...

I think it very much could drive people away. My point was more about what the railway could do to manage demand - I don't like the idea of compulsory reservations, and it's made planning via LNER more frustrating than usual, not least when we were travelling in a group (of 3). Allocating people seats rows apart but then telling them "it's ok if you're in a group, you can sit together" somewhat goes against the point of compulsory reservations in the first place. I booked our tickets on the LNER website and it wouldn't let us book a group table... this would be helpful if compuslory reservations really have to be done, we booked far enough in advance for space to be available, and then we wouldn't have to book another row, which would potentially mean another customer could fit on in each situation where a group is travelling together.

I'm also a bit sceptical as to how well it's been working - when I was in first class, I was placed onto the aisle seat of a table, with nobody else on the table. But just across the aisle, the single window seat was occupied. With no ticket or reservation checks, it was impossible to tell whether the lady had just sat there off her own back or whether that was her booked seat... but if it was, it wasn't the optimum place to ensure social distancing - she was the only other person in the carriage for two stops! Naturally I moved to the window side.