Modern Railways: LNER and compulsory reservations

[Bletchleyite]

I think CR should be trailed on London Northwestern services, especially those which call at Bletchley. "Oh sorry sir, train is full of passengers from Milton Keynes, you will have to wait for the extended Tring stopper"

I mostly use the extended Tring stopper anyway due to choice of seats, when it runs (peak only). To me a seat is more valuable than a faster journey.

 

[ainsworth74]

Doing the latest "LNER Viewpoint" survey and alongside other ideas at how to get people to book via the LNER website I couldn't help noticing they are asking about the idea of charging for selecting your own seat when booking.

View attachment 94484

Well I guess I'll just have to send more of my business to Trainsplit seeing as they don't charge for seat selection!

 

[Starmill]

Run 6 or even 9 (with ASDO) coaches, then.

You don't have to look hard to other countries to see how they handle it.

(Yes, I know Stoke bay is too short - but then solve the actual problem!)

Such solutions are technically easy. All that's required is time and money. The government wishes to provide no more of the latter and we've only got 10 - 15 years to do all of this work and decarbonise the entire industry. There is not much time left.

 

[Kite159]

I mostly use the extended Tring stopper anyway due to choice of seats, when it runs (peak only). To me a seat is more valuable than a faster journey.

"Oh sorry sir, all seat reservations have been taken by someone travelling to Watford Junction/Leighton Buzzard, you will have to wait for the next available service which has seats, which currently is the 9pm train, do you want to make a reservation for this service?

 

[CyrusWuff]

Well I guess I'll just have to send more of my business to Trainsplit seeing as they don't charge for seat selection!

Though if LNER go down the same route that NXEA and NXEC did for a time, all retailers will likely be obliged to make a charge in such circumstances. Though how you can enforce it for a specific seat reservation and not an "any seat" reservation I'm not entirely sure, unless the new reservations system allows for that distinction.

 

[Bikeman78]

I suspect the DfT would see that as revenue lost to the railway, much as it might be good for passengers. In theory there is already an alternative on many of the flows anyway and limited station to next station travel in any case.

The practical alternative is to get on and take your chances. Someone boarding at Wakefield won't be worried about getting kicked off in Leeds.

 

[Bletchleyite]

The practical alternative is to get on and take your chances. Someone boarding at Wakefield won't be worried about getting kicked off in Leeds.

Though if you do bring ticketing and reservations together, you'd be PFed or written up for prosecution as you wouldn't have a valid ticket.

I do wonder if they might need to widen the PF rules to make "getting on a CR train without a valid reservation" a £20 (not double fare) PF. That PF could buy you a reservation if available so you could stay on.

 

[Glenn1969]

But then so would anyone sat in the wrong seat. Which happens a lot. Would they enforce as much as they should do in that case ?

 

[JonathanH]

But then so would anyone sat in the wrong seat. Which happens a lot. Would they enforce as much as they should do in that case ?

Compulsory reservations would need to be linked with far less tolerance of sitting in the wrong seat. You might imagine that on a lightly loaded train, they would potentially close off the carriages with no passengers and concentrate everyone in the same place.

 

[Kite159]

But then so would anyone sat in the wrong seat. Which happens a lot. Would they enforce as much as they should do in that case ?

Or when your board a train where one coach is empty and the other coach is busy due to being the default coach for reservations.

Something which was happening before Covid where one coach would be busy but another one carrying around fresh air

 

[Bletchleyite]

Compulsory reservations would need to be linked with far less tolerance of sitting in the wrong seat.

Why? They aren't on Eurostar or SNCF, you can move if you like, you just take the risk of the seat's "owner" booting you out.

Seat selection is mostly about ensuring a particular seat.

You might imagine that on a lightly loaded train, they would potentially close off the carriages with no passengers and concentrate everyone in the same place.

Only operator I've known do that is Amtrak.

Something which was happening before Covid where one coach would be busy but another one carrying around fresh air

That's just a software issue, there is no need to actually do that.

 

[py_megapixel]

But then so would anyone sat in the wrong seat. Which happens a lot. Would they enforce as much as they should do in that case ?

Obviously if you just take someone else's random seat because you don't want the hassle of finding your own then yes. I think there would have to be an exception for people swapping seats on the agreement of both parties.
Otherwise I can imagine threads on these forums along the lines of "a young child asked if they could swap with me so they could look out of the window; now TIL want £150 from me!" which is clearly stupid.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Otherwise I can imagine threads on these forums along the lines of "a young child asked if they could swap with me so they could look out of the window; now TIL want £150 from me!" which is clearly stupid.

And totally unnecessary. Eurostar doesn't do that, SNCF doesn't do that. Sleasyjet only does it if you occupy a premium seat, e.g. exit row, which is more like just upping sticks and sitting in First Class without paying, they don't overly care about people moving around after take-off other than that, and it's only important before take-off because the aircraft trim will be set based on who is allocated where.

 

[zwk500]

Though if you do bring ticketing and reservations together, you'd be PFed or written up for prosecution as you wouldn't have a valid ticket.

I do wonder if they might need to widen the PF rules to make "getting on a CR train without a valid reservation" a £20 (not double fare) PF. That PF could buy you a reservation if available so you could stay on.

Not exactly making the railway customer-friendly is it?

Compulsory reservations would need to be linked with far less tolerance of sitting in the wrong seat.

If everybody has a seat reserved, then for every 'wrong' seat taken there will be another seat free.

Obviously if you just take someone else's random seat because you don't want the hassle of finding your own then yes. I think there would have to be an exception for people swapping seats on the agreement of both parties.
Otherwise I can imagine threads on these forums along the lines of "a young child asked if they could swap with me so they could look out of the window; now TIL want £150 from me!" which is clearly stupid.

Presumably you would only attract the ire of revenue staff if the seat's owner complained, which they are unlikely to do so having already agreed to swapping seats.

 

[lkpridgeon]

If LNER's current implementation is anything to go off I am hard no to compulsory reservations. To prevent people block booking they have a 2 reservations a day limit however if you're trying to break your journey in any way and book your return your very much relying on there still being availability the next day.

It's made booking journeys for me recently an absolute nightmare as my plans can change last minute due to business and the vast majority of my journeys aren't A-B as I group commitments together to reduce the back and forth between two main be places.

 

[Bletchleyite]

If LNER's current implementation is anything to go off I am hard no to compulsory reservations. To prevent people block booking they have a 2 reservations a day limit however if you're trying to break your journey in any way and book your return your very much relying on there still being availability the next day.

Surely block booking speculatively (with the intent of only travelling on one of them) is better prevented by asking for the associated ticket number and only allowing a new one if you cancel the old one?

 

[Kite159]

If LNER's current implementation is anything to go off I am hard no to compulsory reservations. To prevent people block booking they have a 2 reservations a day limit however if you're trying to break your journey in any way and book your return your very much relying on there still being availability the next day.

It's made booking journeys for me recently an absolute nightmare as my plans can change last minute due to business and the vast majority of my journeys aren't A-B as I group commitments together to reduce the back and forth between two main be places.

Has it been reduced to 2 reservations per email address? It was 4 last summer. Although you could bypass it by entering a "0" for ticket number

I can see a lot of wasted reservations being made by those holding open tickets who are unsure what time they will be returning.

 

[lkpridgeon]

Surely block booking speculatively (with the intent of only travelling on one of them) is better prevented by asking for the associated ticket number and only allowing a new one if you cancel the old one?

They only allow LNER booking references so you're only able to do so if you book direct with them. And even then from what I understand the limitation still applies.

Has it been reduced to 2 reservations per email address? It was 4 last summer. Although you could bypass it by entering a "0" for ticket number

I can see a lot of wasted reservations being made by those holding open tickets who are unsure what time they will be returning.

From my attempt today only 2.

 

[yorksrob]

Reading the article, Mr Horne is saying that Avanti and XC also want to adopt the system. This seems a bit of a nuisance since I'm used to hopping on these services for short connections.

 

[zwk500]

Presumably LNER's current setup is anticipating a much reduced travel demand due to COVID anyway, so I wouldn't expect a full implementation to necessarily bear close resemblance.
I've already made my view clear before - make 1st Class CR, but leave Standard with at least some unreserved spaces (and possibly have CR coaches in standard). This would only be for the long-distance IC trains, commuter-type like LNR from Northampton and MK to London and Birmingham would be completely unreserved.

 

[43096]

I do think that if LNER insist on going down the compulsory reservation route, they should be forced to give up one of their intermediate distance paths for a turn up and go budget option, like LNWR.

I’d go further. If they insist on going “booked train only” then there is no reason to have an East Coast franchise - make all the long distance paths out of King’s Cross open access to give every operator a level playing field and anyone can bid for paths.

 

[Bikeman78]

Though if you do bring ticketing and reservations together, you'd be PFed or written up for prosecution as you wouldn't have a valid ticket.

I do wonder if they might need to widen the PF rules to make "getting on a CR train without a valid reservation" a £20 (not double fare) PF. That PF could buy you a reservation if available so you could stay on.

Does LNER have penalty fares? A PF for no reservation for an open or season ticket holder would be a significant change to the current rules. The more I read this thread, the more I'm glad that LNER no longer has any trains that I have any interest in travelling on.

 

[yorksrob]

I’d go further. If they insist on going “booked train only” then there is no reason to have an East Coast franchise - make all the long distance paths out of King’s Cross open access to give every operator a level playing field and anyone can bid for paths.

I suppose as long as all the less salubrious ones are allocated somehow !

 

[Kite159]

They only allow LNER booking references so you're only able to do so if you book direct with them. And even then from what I understand the limitation still applies.


From my attempt today only 2.

I guess that is to combat against those on open tickets booking multiple trains as backup as they don't know what time they will finish (i.e. if someone from Peterborough travels to London to do some walking). Or those bashers on ranger tickets booking up seats when they see a required Azuma is on such a service.

 

[JonathanH]

I guess that is to combat against those on open tickets booking multiple trains as backup as they don't know what time they will finish (i.e. if someone from Peterborough travels to London to do some walking). Or those bashers on ranger tickets booking up seats when they see a required Azuma is on such a service.

Does this effectively mean that on-spec 'bashing' of LNER units with a rover / ranger ticket is limited to two trains a day?

 

[Kite159]

Does this effectively mean that on-spec 'bashing' of LNER units with a rover / ranger ticket is limited to two trains a day?

Unless you have multiple email addresses you can use

 

[lkpridgeon]

Does this effectively mean that on-spec 'bashing' of LNER units with a rover / ranger ticket is limited to two trains a day?

Unless you get it done at a ticket office or via their Twitter team. I would say it would be quite hard.

 

[py_megapixel]

Unless you have multiple email addresses you can use

Quick tip: if you use Google Mail and have an email address ending gmail.com, dots are irrelevant, but a lot of email validation systems don't know this. So, if your email address is example<AT>gmail.com, then any permutation of example with any number of dots in it (ex.a.mple<AT>gmail.com or exam.ple<AT>gmail.com) is treated as the same address by Google (so you get emails to all of them), but different addresses by other things.

I'm not sure why that information would be useful to anyone on this forum in the context of this thread, but if it is, well now you know...

Source: https://support.google.com/mail/answer/7436150

 

[Ianno87]

Quick tip: if you use Google Mail and have an email address ending at @Gmail.com, dots are irrelevant, but a lot of email validation systems don't know this. So, if your email address is [email protected], then any permutation of example with any number of dots in it ([email protected] or [email protected]) is treated as the same address by Google (so you get emails to all of them), but different addresses by other things.

I'm not sure why that information would be useful to anyone on this forum in the context of this thread, but if it is, well now you know...

Source: https://support.google.com/mail/answer/7436150

Good news! Somebody from LNER is probably reading this and probably will now amend their system to prevent this.

 

[py_megapixel]

Good news! Somebody from LNER is probably reading this and probably will now amend their system to prevent this.

I wouldn't ever actually advocate using it, because it will definitely show up if anyone does a manual review of this stuff.