Seat reservations rant

[cuccir]

And so dies the idea of a walk up railway...

So what do want? Advance fares to be abolished and everyone has to pay through the nose to travel anywhere? You still wouldn't be guaranteed a seat. This whole "I've paid more so I'm more entitled to seat" argument smacks of jealousy from people who didn't bother to make an effort against people who did to me.

Do your posts need to be quite so aggressive?

I agree with your basic point - the amount you've paid shouldn't affect whether you get a seat or not.

Advance tickets and Anytime tickets are different products which suit different needs. Advance tickets guarantee you a seat and cost less, but they're obviously much less flexible. Anytime tickets allow you to travel anytime, and give you access to multiple routes, breaks of journey, etc etc

It's not necessarily a question of 'planning', as you suggest - there are many reasons that a traveller might not be able to predict in advance when they need to travel. They may have other needs, or may be travelling on a flow with no advance fares.

Final point - advance and anytime tickets complement one another. Advance tickets ensure that trains run throughout the day, by spreading demand. Giving a reservation with the ticket ties people to that train, ensuring a minimum level of occupancy.This then means that there are more services, so the traveller with flexible needs has more options. Meanwhile, the higher anytime ticket subsidies the cost of the journey that advance fare holders are making.

So advance tickets ensure the train runs, abd anytime tickets ensure that it is profitable! Given that the tickets support one another, suggesting that the holder of one type is more deserving than the other is, IMO, wrong

 

[Bungle73]

Mate, not everyone can realistically plan so far ahead. Plans change/get cancelled, people need to be somewhere at short notice, etc... Many people on walk-on tickets choose not to book advance for reasons such as increased flexibility - not because they "can't be bothered". I happen to be one of those people who often needs to be flexible with plans and therefore would be more foolish to book advance.

So they want to have their cake and to eat it? On one hand they want to just turn up and get on the train, and on the other they want to be guaranteed a seat. Tell me how exactly how that's going to happen?

 

[districtline]

Mate, not everyone can realistically plan so far ahead. Plans change/get cancelled, people need to be somewhere at short notice, etc... Many people on walk-on tickets choose not to book advance for reasons such as increased flexibility - not because they "can't be bothered". I happen to be one of those people who often needs to be flexible with plans and therefore would be more foolish to book advance.

So you'd expect to turn up at Heathrow and get on the next plane to New York? This is not how transport works in reality. Trains have limited capacity so it's only fair that those that plan the furthest ahead get priority and so they are rewarded with the best fares and a seat reservation. Having flexibility is a luxury which you can expect to pay significantly more for. It's surprising that it took the railways until the mid 2000s to discover that this system was the best way of doing things when the airlines had used it for a long time.

 

[Bungle73]

Do your posts need to be quite so aggressive?

I'm not being agressive (I'm not sure how you came to that conclusion) but this argument is becoming tiresome. Personally, as a user of Advance fares, I feel aggrieved that some Anytime tickets holders are of the opinion that they're somehow more entitled to a seat than me (even though I've reserved it way in advance) because they've paid more, even though they have way more flexibility.

 

[Robinson]

So you'd expect to turn up at Heathrow and get on the next plane to New York? This is not how transport works in reality. Trains have limited capacity so it's only fair that those that plan the furthest ahead get priority and so they are rewarded with the best fares and a seat reservation. Having flexibility is a luxury which you can expect to pay significantly more for. It's surprising that it took the railways until the mid 2000s to discover that this system was the best way of doing things when the airlines had used it for a long time.

Firstly, I wasn't arguing about the existence of a difference in the fares. Neither did I suggest that anyone without a reservation should necessarily be guaranteed a seat.

Secondly, trains and planes don't quite work in exactly the same way. On trains, people can elect to stand if they so wish. On the other hand, those who don't wish to stand are under no obligation to travel on a train that has no seats free.

The crux of my argument was that I disagree with the view that the railway should be reservation-only with no flexibility whatsoever. I am fully aware that the higher-flexibility tickets will cost more, but they should always exist as an option. The second part of my post was making the point that users without reservations can help themselves by exercising some simple common-sense strategies to give themselves the best chance of getting a seat. I have not bought an advance ticket since my mum was buying me the tickets, yet I have very rarely failed to get a seat. And I haven't complained to anyone about the fare.

 

[districtline]

Maybe not you but I have seen quite a few posts with people complaining that walk-up fares are too expensive when in reality in some cases they may well be too cheap. If these fares were increased more then less people would use them and so there wouldn't be overcrowding. As for your point about not making trains reservation only, do the railways really need to offer people the luxury of a journey without booking on a specific train?

 

[Robinson]

Maybe not you but I have seen quite a few posts with people complaining that walk-up fares are too expensive when in reality in some cases they may well be too cheap. If these fares were increased more then less people would use them and so there wouldn't be overcrowding. As for your point about not making trains reservation only, do the railways really need to offer people the luxury of a journey without booking on a specific train?

If the railways did withdraw flexibility then a very large percentage of its customers, myself included, would be severely disadvantaged and I suspect many of them would look into using alternative modes of transport or cutting back on travelling. I'm afraid I can't see that as preferable to the current system.
I also suspect that a part of the problem many people have is that they start the ticket-buying process without any ticket knowledge. So they either buy advance fares not knowing the restrictions attached, or they buy walk-on fares thinking they are still train-specific.

 

[districtline]

If the railways did withdraw flexibility then a very large percentage of its customers, myself included, would be severely disadvantaged and I suspect many of them would look into using alternative modes of transport or cutting back on travelling. I'm afraid I can't see that as preferable to the current system.
As I say, I'm happy to pay more for flexibility.

What if you could book on the train though right up until 5 minutes before departure from your station? With electronic reservations this should be possible.

 

[Robinson]

What if you could book on the train though right up until 5 minutes before departure from your station? With electronic reservations this should be possible.

It would be preferable to having no flexibility at all but I don't think it would improve the current system. If reservations close before the train has begun boarding at its starting point, it means that holders of flexible tickets can see clearly where reservations are and where they aren't. Therefore they can choose to sit in an available unreserved seat, stand or travel on a different train. Whilst I accept that this system still doesn't actually guarantee me a seat, I think the system would be worse, rather than better, if it were possible to place a reservation after the train has started its journey, thus potentially meaning an off peak/anytime ticket holder sitting in a seat which was marked as available when he/she sat in it, then being forced out of that seat further down the line.

 

[50010 Monarch]

I don't know how true this is but anecdotally, and in my expierience, it has become significantly harder to reserve seats with a non-advance ticket on cross country. A few weeks ago I travelled for a job interview and, booking a week in advance, could not reserve a seat on any train after 12 and before 8 between Durham and Birmingham. I also tried the text reservation on the day, and had no luck. Yet, when using the train, fewer than half the.seats in my carriage - the quiet coach, so not a normally unreserved coach - were booked. I'm bot particularly complaining about this, but I do wonder if there has been a.decision to reduce the availability of reservations, in favour of more unreserved seats

I'd agree with that.

I travelled from Stourbridge to Plymouth & back yesterday using XC from Cheltenham to Plymouth. I split the tickets for the journey from Stour to Worcester, Worcester to Bristol, Bristol to Taunton & Taunton to Plymouth (all off peak day returns).

When I booked the tickets on the FGW website I was told for all legs of the journey that no seats were available. In reality the trains were nowhere near full & seats were easily obtained on the XC trains. This has happened on quite a few occasions recently & XC must have a policy where reservations are not offered when advance fares are not used.

 

[yorkie]

What if you could book on the train though right up until 5 minutes before departure from your station? With electronic reservations this should be possible.

At a time when ticket office staff are being reduced? Or would more machines (that cost tens of thousands of pounds each) be required? How would it be enforced? Would this apply for local services? What about TPE?

Sorry but this is not going to be workable IMO.

The option to turn up and go must remain.

 

[EM2]

It amazes me that you can buy an advanced ticket for what is no more than loose change and get a seat reservation included. Yet you can pay more than for a train ticket than a return flight to New York, which doesn't include a seat reservation.

Because your 'return to NY' ticket is flexible, allows multiple breaks of journey on the outward and return legs, and is valid for five days out and a month back.
So how do you propose to reserve a seat on all the possible trains you could take?

 

[bb21]

If these fares were increased more then less people would use them and so there wouldn't be overcrowding.

Smacks of TOC talk.

As for your point about not making trains reservation only, do the railways really need to offer people the luxury of a journey without booking on a specific train?

Using your example, what is the point of fully flexible air fare?

What if you could book on the train though right up until 5 minutes before departure from your station? With electronic reservations this should be possible.

Let's see how XC's 10-minute reservation system get on before proposing something more drastic, shall we?