Flamingo
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Do I need to give up my seat?
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Crikey, passengers must be pretty nimble round your way!
It is not uncommon for passengers boarding at Chesterfield on a southbound train to be still looking for their seat as the train speeds through Belper. The usual problem is people thinking they are reserved in coach A when, in fact, they have an 'Airline' seat, maybe in coach E.
Flamingo
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Two types of passengers on my trains, the quick and the dead (or at least dead on their feet ) 
ValleyLines142
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Well then unfortunately that's tough luck I'm afraid. One needs to know what train they're getting in order to reserve; if, for whatever reason, they're indecisive then they shouldn't have any right and must either hope for an unreserved seat.
ainsworth74 said:
I've never been charged once for a seat reservation and I've requested one, both when I had a Season Ticket and when I get Off-Peak Day Returns.
Which is fine if they can tell which are the unreserved seats.
Mutant Lemming
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Just before Christmas I was heading to Cardiff on a 1st advance only due to problems near Slough my train was cancelled. I was advised to catch the next available train and 'sit anywhere' as were all other prospective passengers for the 10:15. On the next train most of the seats in First were reserved (it being just before Christmas) and I was lucky enough to find a free place. As the train filled up it was pretty obvious there were going to be some heated arguments as people who had been told to 'sit anywhere' did and people who had reservations for that service came to claim their seats. Arguments along the line of 'That is my seat, I have a reservation' against 'Well I had a reservation for the cancelled train and was told to just sit anywhere on this one'. No announcements were made regarding reservations on the train and the guard (train manager or whatever you want to call him) was conspicuous by his absence and no on board ticket check was made between Paddington and Cardiff. Now who should have occupied those seats - those with reservations for that service or those who had been told (albeit by the platform staff) that they should sit anywhere as their train had been cancelled? (the seat reservations for that service were in place)
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Exactly and if they can't tell which are unreserved (because the reservations are broken/not put out) then I don't see why they should move just because someone waves a bit of card in their face.
Like I said, should be charged. Doesn't mean you will be charged only that on FGW if you're not buying a ticket, hold a Rail Rover or reserving for a wheelchair space/assisted passengers companion then you should be charged.
VauxhallandI
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By all accounts the reservations should have stood.
This situation would just lead to two sets of complaints.
It sounds like whoever was at the station wanted to avoid ear ache from a group of travellers so announced all would be fine on the next train.
BestWestern
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It probably doesn't, but in these situations we rely on that terribly old fashioned thing, 'common sense'...
If nobody knows throughout the whole journey that any of the seats are reserved, it is quite simply - and quite obviously - not practical to expect potentially large numbers of people in various coaches to up and leave their seats at every stop along the journey. It causes arguments, quite understandably, and the Guard has better things to do than spend the entire trip pretending to be Jeremy Kyle! It's very simple; no labels, no reservations. If you are ill, elderly, infirm or have some other pressing need then you will be found a seat, but otherwise it's a case of make the best of it and take it up with the TOC later I'm afraid. On the plus side, the chances are that if you complain about it you'll probably get some free vouchers worth a fair bit more than the Advance ticket you were likely travelling with in the first place!
That is a very sensible way of looking at it.
FGW don't insist anything, they use what rolling stock is made available to them, as with most other TOCs. This has been covered many times before!
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ValleyLines142
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But then you could argue that should it be fair that people get charged to get a seat? If the paying public, such as myself, folk out mega to travel on long-distance journeys, then personally I think I most certainly shouldn't have the risk of potentially having to stand up!
I agree for disabled passengers indeed. Plus I've not bought a ticket; I already have and I'm getting a reservation on top.
Fair enough. I've heard previously that there's a national shortage of carriages but how come the 0730 from Cardiff has a 150 attached as far as Bristol and how come the 0600 Portsmouth to Cardiff has a 153 attached between Westbury and Bristol? Also, I've never heard of what's being made available to them.
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I agree with BestWestern.
Again you are trying to go off-topic, but can I point out that you can get free reservations if you obtain them at the time of booking, and that there is always a "risk of potentially having to stand up", reservation or no reservation!
I don't understand. You have not bought a ticket, but you already have?
This is off-topic. If you wish to discuss the allocation of additional carriages to specific services, please start a new thread in the Allocations, Diagrams & Timetables forum.
Flamingo
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That is a very good summary of the situation.
Invisible seat reservations are ridiculous IMO, but only in practice and only because of the childishness / ridiculousness of the travelling public.
Assuming it's a legitimate bit of card, I think they actually should. And if people were a bit more grown-up then there wouldn't be any argument about whether the TOC put out / up the reservations and/or the implied need for an "adult" (i.e. on-board staff) to verify the legitimacy of the bit of card.
In the European country in which I now live, invisible reservations are standard in the reservable carriages (which are a minority). Most people sit anywhere in these carriages, but if someone proffers a numbered seat reservation the incumbent moves without question. Perhaps it says more about the civility of people (on the trains) than anything else.
Admittedly, occupancy / crowding levels are generally much lower than for many parts of the UK, so I'm not exactly comparing like with like.
Assuming it's a legitimate bit of card, I think they actually should. And if people were a bit more grown-up then there wouldn't be any argument about whether the TOC put out / up the reservations and/or the implied need for an "adult" (i.e. on-board staff) to verify the legitimacy of the bit of card.
In the European country in which I now live, invisible reservations are standard in the reservable carriages (which are a minority). Most people sit anywhere in these carriages, but if someone proffers a numbered seat reservation the incumbent moves without question. Perhaps it says more about the civility of people (on the trains) than anything else.
Admittedly, occupancy / crowding levels are generally much lower than for many parts of the UK, so I'm not exactly comparing like with like.
ValleyLines142
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I know. I've got seat reservations both at the time of my booking and when I've had a Season Ticket and have made one.
yorkie said:
ainsworth74 said: ''Doesn't mean you will be charged only that on FGW if you're not buying a ticket, hold a Rail Rover or reserving for a wheelchair space/assisted passengers companion then you should be charged.''
So he said that you won't get charged for a seat reservation if you're not buying a ticket. In other words, he's basically saying that it's free to make a seat reservation if you already own a ticket; which is true and has been the case with me several times before.
yorkie said:
Oh no I know, I was just saying this in response to Best Western's point regarding what is given to FGW.
I think what it says is that everyone there knows it is standard practice to have no visible reservation labele as indeed it is, and always has been, the case in a number of European countries.
In contrast, the standard practice in Britain is that Reservation label (or recently, an electronic display) = seat reserved, no label/display = seat not reserved.
He said you SHOULD be charged, unless one of the exclusions applies.
Hmm, so you have trains that have loads of spare capacity, and a small number of reserveable coaches, which are labelled as such. In that specific case, invisible reservations may well work!
But on the route I use most often, there is only one coach that is not reserveable, and that coach has 30 seats on it. There could easily be 500+ people on the train.
So such a comparison would not work.
I could be forced to move at Doncaster, Retford, Newark, Grantham, Peterborough and Stevenage if that happened. Not convenient if I was using a laptop!
(And the last time I travelled, the train did call at all those stations and I was using a laptop!)
It sounds like a society which has had to adapt to a completely ridiculous reservation system rather than anything about the civility of the people using the service. In this country it doesn't work like that. If a seat is reserved, it is marked as such and you do not sit in it.
If a seat is not reserved, it is not marked and you would not reasonably expect to be moved once you have settled into your journey.
The points about relative capacity levels are fair enough, but are arguably about reservations per se rather than the invisibility thereof. And I will repeat myself just to be clear... of course invisible reservations are unworkable, in practice, in the UK.
Nonetheless, I maintain that there's nothing intrinsically wrong with the concept of (invisible) reservations - and in some sense one answer to the "I could be moving like a jack-in-the-box" issue is simply "reserve a seat, then".
Simply repeating the meme doesn't help. The original point was about whether someone should give up their seat when faced with a clearly valid reservation, and "whether there's a notice" (or a grown-up to adjudicate) being central to the piece. If you MUST have a notice (or a grown-up) then you're basically saying that you choose not to trust nor to give a damn about other passengers at all.
If you support visible reservations but not invisible ones, aren't you effectively saying that your "right" to a seat "because you got here first" trumps that of someone who has reserved it? I think that if you take that line to its logical conclusion you actually arrive at "no reservation free-for-all" much more quickly than I suspect you'd like.
Nonetheless, I maintain that there's nothing intrinsically wrong with the concept of (invisible) reservations - and in some sense one answer to the "I could be moving like a jack-in-the-box" issue is simply "reserve a seat, then".
Simply repeating the meme doesn't help. The original point was about whether someone should give up their seat when faced with a clearly valid reservation, and "whether there's a notice" (or a grown-up to adjudicate) being central to the piece. If you MUST have a notice (or a grown-up) then you're basically saying that you choose not to trust nor to give a damn about other passengers at all.
If you support visible reservations but not invisible ones, aren't you effectively saying that your "right" to a seat "because you got here first" trumps that of someone who has reserved it? I think that if you take that line to its logical conclusion you actually arrive at "no reservation free-for-all" much more quickly than I suspect you'd like.
No, not at all. What is said is that if the TOC is unable to provide any indication as to whether a seat is reserved or not, then it is, to all intents and purposes, not reserved.
This is a long standing principle on the railways in the UK, going back as far as I can remember (1970's) and probably long before that. All current TOC's that have reservations accept this quite reasonable interpretation, except, apparently, for one.
Sorry, but I'm getting a little irritated now. We all know the above, and simply repeating it doesn't help. I'm asking "why is this the case?" and you're saying "it's the case".
So let me try one last time. WHY is it reasonable that someone with a valid reservation can't use it (in favour of someone whose only "rights" are related to that they got there first) simply because there isn't a notice?
I merely answered and challenged your earlier assertion. You did not ask the question above in my quote.
Why is this the case, because it is the most equitable and fair way of doing it, as has been recognised for decades!
Let those who support the status quo try for one last time then! It is more reasonable that all reservations are void if there are no notices to that effect because that is what the rules say, and it prevents large numbers of people in the train having to play musical chairs at every stop, all with their personal belongings to boot.
It is absolutely the fault of the TOC if they are unable to put the appropriate signs and notices up, not the innocent person who has no way of knowing if they are sat in a reserved seat or not!
As has been stated quite a few times, not everyone is able to reserve a seat, and one of the great advantages of rail travel is that it retain an element of flexibility to make even long journeys at the drop of a hat. You may not agree that this is agood thing, but that doesn't make it wrong or undesirable.
Because it's not reasonable to expect somebody to move part way through a journey unless they themselves have contravened a published reservation.
With no notice on the seat, there is no way to tell its reserved. Somebody who sits in a seat in good faith should not, and is not, be compelled to uproot themselves from it and have to find somewhere else to sit simply because of an error on the part of the TOC.
In the case of seats without published reservation details on them, it *is* about 'Who gets there first' and there is no fairer way to do it.
Any issue that arises as a result is between the passenger with the reservation and the TOC. Not an innocent third party.
BestWestern
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Quite simply, because it is not practical to do anything else.
Look at it another way. If a passenger occupies a seat which they have absolutely no reason to think is not available to them, why should they have to move and thus be inconvenienced by the person with the reservation, any more than the person with the reservation should be inconvenienced by not having their specified seat? Indeed, if one person has to move in more than one instance during their journey because they have been unfortunate enough to occupy multiple 'invisibly' reserved seats, they are then being put to greater inconvenience than anybody with a reservation would be had they not moved at all. Is that fair?! An added issue in the UK is that in many cases the person with the reservation is likely to have an Advance ticket, and probably has paid less than the person with no reservation who is slowly working their way up the train, seat to seat!
This debate could rage forever, the simple answer is that it is far more practical and far less disruptive to adopt the stance that no labels means, regretfully, no reservations. I can't see that changing any time soon.
ValleyLines142
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Why so?
Because people such as myself have gone out of the way and physically made the effort to make a reservation. As the saying goes, you can only get what you put in.
That's not always the case. I NEVER have Advances unless I'm making a long-distance journey; so I always pay the full smack so I deserve a seat.
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Have those asking for regulations (bylaw 19)or reasons actually read through the thread?
Invisible reservations could potentially work, if this was an expected and understood concept.
However as I posted two days ago, and none of those who have screamed 'but why' have cared to respond to, under the current system,
I think we're going round in circles.
Invisible reservations could potentially work, if this was an expected and understood concept.
However as I posted two days ago, and none of those who have screamed 'but why' have cared to respond to, under the current system,
cuccir:1349851 said:
I think we're going round in circles.
I should say that I'm not in favour of invisible reservations as a policy. Visible ones are obviously better, all else being equal. However, that's not always possible and I think in times of "irregular operations" it is reasonable for those without reservations (rather than those with) to be the ones to suck it up. Apparently most of you disagree.
In that sense we agree. Of course it isn't practical to do anything else... but it isn't automatic that it should be the case.
What DTM185 said above.
This is what-iffery and rather unlikely... but the answer in any case is yes, those without reservations should be more inconvenienced than those with.
I don't think you really believe this to be relevant.
Nothing to disagree about there then.
In that sense we agree. Of course it isn't practical to do anything else... but it isn't automatic that it should be the case.
What DTM185 said above.
This is what-iffery and rather unlikely... but the answer in any case is yes, those without reservations should be more inconvenienced than those with.
I don't think you really believe this to be relevant.
Nothing to disagree about there then.
This premise is contestable. Many tickets are only sold with a reservation. Often reservations are added by simply selecting the train. The premise that all people who have reservations have made extra effort over those who haven't is false. The extra effort that many of those who have made reservations is negligible.
Furthermore, under the current system, those with reservations who are inconvenienced are compensated for that.
Based on what ethical principles?
I don't recall asking for an ethical justification of the status quo - merely suggesting that it is (or rather, people are) a bit daft when a piece of paper stuck on the seat is a game-changer.
Describing the materiality of the reservation does not support your argument. I might as well just that say that it's a bit daft when a bit of orangey-white card held in a pocket is a game-changer. Neither arguments work.
The argument I made above is based on a mixture of:
- Practicality of enforcement
- Fairness as those with reservations who can't use them will receive financial compensation
Your argument is based entirely on ethics - the notion that:
We've already established that the argument that people who have made reservations have gone to extra effort - which could potentially justify that claim - is a false one.
If you're making an argument based on ethics ie that x should be different from y, it's pretty reasonable to ask under what principles, axioms, claims or premises your making that argument. If you can't produce any, your argument is invalid.
Practicality is not in dispute.
I personally think it's unnecessary and undesirable for TOCs to dish out compensation to reservation holders who could be able to use their reservations, simply because "I got here first" punters without reservations have occupied their seats. I would also wonder how many people entitled to such compensation know about it and/or actually claim it.
I have not made the "effort" claim.
This would all be moot if (some) passengers had less of an "I'm all right jack" attitude. In fact I'm sure you find that much of the time it is moot and people sort it out without fuss.
I personally think it's unnecessary and undesirable for TOCs to dish out compensation to reservation holders who could be able to use their reservations, simply because "I got here first" punters without reservations have occupied their seats. I would also wonder how many people entitled to such compensation know about it and/or actually claim it.
I have not made the "effort" claim.
This would all be moot if (some) passengers had less of an "I'm all right jack" attitude. In fact I'm sure you find that much of the time it is moot and people sort it out without fuss.
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