Seat reservations to be scrapped entirely?

[yorkie]

...the conductor said that seat reservations were going be scrapped altogether from the National Rail network. Is this true?!

No.

... I wouldn't be guaranteed a seat...

You are not guaranteed a seat even with a reservation, as unforeseen events may occur.

It'd be interesting to see how trains would cope! They'd probably be in more turmoil then they are now!!

You can do that now, simply take one of the longer distance SWT services e.g. to Weymouth to London Waterloo.

 

[dcsprior]

I wouldn't be guaranteed a seat

You are not guaranteed a seat even with a reservation, as unforeseen events may occur.

Though on at least some TOCs you get a refund by way of compensation - East Coast even refer to it as the "Seat Guarantee Scheme"

 

[IanD]

Because that evens it up for everyone and is fair, you get to the station first and get a seat, you dont you wont!

Not sure where you drive your trains but that is a load of [POLITE]rubbish[/POLITE]. You can turn up hours early at a station and still not get seat if the train doors are not opened until shortly before departure or if you happen to stand in the wrong place. Passengers waiting to board trains don't form an orderly queue like at a bus stop - they form an unorderly crowd with little regard for how long other people have been waiting.

And it's worse if you want to join a busy train mid route - then there is no point at all in arriving at the station early to try and bag a seat.

 

[David Barrett]

I think that the number of reserved seats could be quite easily reduced; re-introduce the charge for them. This way the number of "No shows" and people who find better seats than those reserved would surely be reduced making things much easier and less frustrating for other passengers. It annoys me when I see seats reserved for a particular journey that remain unoccupied for the duration, especially when passengers are standing elsewhere in the train.

 

[Andrewlong]

What I find irritating about seat reservations are those passengers who turn up late for their seats when train has just left. Plus what is the protocol on FGW trains with paper reservations when a train has arrived late at a station and the reservations have not been put out for next service. Who has rights to the seat - the person with a reservation or anyone has their is no seat reserved?

 

[dcsprior]

It annoys me when I see seats reserved for a particular journey that remain unoccupied for the duration, especially when passengers are standing elsewhere in the train.

Yes, though reserve seats that remain unoccupied could be made less of an issue with good electronic reservations: if no-one has sat in the seat for 10 mins after departure, the reservation would be cancelled and no longer displayed.

people who find better seats than those reserved

I've done this more than once in the past - in all cases when I've chosen a table-seat on the seat-booking screen, but not been allocated one, despite some being free.
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Plus what is the protocol on FGW trains with paper reservations when a train has arrived late at a station and the reservations have not been put out for next service. Who has rights to the seat - the person with a reservation or anyone has their is no seat reserved?

I've never experienced this on FGW, but on a trip from Aberdeen to Edinburgh on EC there was an announcement that due to a delay the train had suffered on its northbound journey, there was not time to put reservations out and the train should therefore be considered unreserved

 

[Darandio]

Yes, though reserve seats that remain unoccupied could be made less of an issue with good electronic reservations: if no-one has sat in the seat for 10 mins after departure, the reservation would be cancelled and no longer displayed.

How would that work then? How does the electronic reservation system know that the "reservee" isn't sat in the seat?

Please don't tell me the TM has to go and check every seat reservation after every station.

 

[AndyPJG]

Surely you can just sit in any un-occupied reserved seat until such time the reserver turns up.

 

[dcsprior]

Yes, though reserve seats that remain unoccupied could be made less of an issue with good electronic reservations: if no-one has sat in the seat for 10 mins after departure, the reservation would be cancelled and no longer displayed.

How would that work then? How does the electronic reservation system know that the "reservee" isn't sat in the seat?

Please don't tell me the TM has to go and check every seat reservation after every station.

Checking that the reservee isn't sat in the seat would indeed be challenging (though not necessarily impossible) which is why I suggested only cancelling the reservation if no-one had sat in the seat.

This could be checked relatively easily with a pressure-switch such as is found in the front passenger seat of most modern cars to activate/deactivate the seatbelt alarm and airbag on that side.

 

[Darandio]

This could be checked relatively easily with a pressure-switch such as is found in the front passenger seat of most modern cars to activate/deactivate the seatbelt alarm and airbag on that side.

OK. But what if someone was already sat in the seat before the station, wouldn't the pressure switch just activate immediately after the stop, maybe before the actual "reservee" had walked through the train to find their seat.

Not sure that made sense, but I know what I meant.

Then there is the cost of course.

 

[gnolife]

I think that if reservations were scrapped on long-distance services it would result in some of the customers which rail has won from air travel moving back - which would benefit no-one in the long term.

However, I'd have nothing against something like:

• You were charged the greater of £5/10% per reservation
• You could reserve by text/web up to the minute the train was due. I've yet to see a good way of displaying reservations electronically, but I'm sure it can be done well with sufficient effort.
• If you turned up and used your reservation (e.g. you texted in a pseudo-random code from the electronic reservation) seat, you'd get your reservation charge back.
• Similarly, if you cancel your reservation then you'd get your reservation charge back.

As an aside, one thing that may make it worse at present is that some booking systems force you to make a seat-reservation, even when on an open ticket: If I'm booking travel for work (I mean travel that work is paying for rather than journeys to/from work) I have to use a HRG's website, and you can't book a ticket through that without specifying a service which generates a reservation if its a reservable service.

10% of what exactly? The price of a tin of beans?

If its 10% of a specific price of a ticket between the two stations, then it would be fair, I think, to be charged a reservation fee, so that if you're a cheapskate, you can pay less, but have less chance of getting a seat. What wouldn't be fair would be if it was 10% of the cost of the ticket paid for - this would mean that someone who needed flexibility, for example because they're connecting from a flight (other than at Manchester onto TPX services), would be getting a stupidly high cost for a guaranteed seat.

 

[LE Greys]

10% of what exactly? The price of a tin of beans?

If its 10% of a specific price of a ticket between the two stations, then it would be fair, I think, to be charged a reservation fee, so that if you're a cheapskate, you can pay less, but have less chance of getting a seat. What wouldn't be fair would be if it was 10% of the cost of the ticket paid for - this would mean that someone who needed flexibility, for example because they're connecting from a flight (other than at Manchester onto TPX services), would be getting a stupidly high cost for a guaranteed seat.

£5 for each reserved seat, £10 in first class, might be a reasonable charge. I'm sufficiently eccentric that I always insist on not reserving a seat if possible, meaning that I can move around if a better seat is available, ideally even go home earlier/later/by a different route than planned. The 'sea of reservation labels' someone mentioned earlier was brought home to me the first time I went to Wolverhampton, and came home behind a Class 87. Literally the entire train was covered in reservation labels, but virtually nobody sat down until the guard had gone through as we headed towards Sandwell & Dudley removing about 50% of them - presumably all no-shows.

 

[Tibbs]

But they wouldn't be in an any better position if reservations were abolished. It's just that everyone would loose out then.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

Especially since those who can afford the walk-up fares on reservable (i.e. long distance) trains probably have far better things to do than sit at a station tor 30 minutes watching the departures board to run to the platform. Euston is a great case in point where it's common for the platform to be announced only a few minutes before the train is due to leave, but not always...

The TOCs having a system that allowed people to reserve a seat right up until the doors open for boarding, and doesn't go completely out the window because a printer fails would be much more useful.

 

[dcsprior]

£5 for each reserved seat, £10 in first class, might be a reasonable charge.

Yeah, I think my earlier suggesting could perhaps do with a simplification like the above... however whilst I think it'd be reasonable to add this to a flexible ticket, for an advance I think that forfeiting the price of the ticket is encouragement enough for people to catch the train on which they have a reservation.

 

[Tibbs]

Not sure where you drive your trains but that is a load of [POLITE]rubbish[/POLITE]. You can turn up hours early at a station and still not get seat if the train doors are not opened until shortly before departure or if you happen to stand in the wrong place. Passengers waiting to board trains don't form an orderly queue like at a bus stop - they form an unorderly crowd with little regard for how long other people have been waiting.

And it's worse if you want to join a busy train mid route - then there is no point at all in arriving at the station early to try and bag a seat.

And of course it will also mean that the elderly / disabled / very young / infirm people would be the first to miss out on a seat, precisely the people who need them most.

I guess 455 only wants prime examples of humanity on his train.

I wonder if the next step will be to make sure they're blonde haired, blue eyed and over 6 feet tall. :roll:

 

[Bungle73]

It seems to me that some people here want to change the system purely for the benefit of a handful of people and to the detriment of the rest of us.

The current system is the fairest. If you want a seat you reserve one.

 

[IanD]

What I find irritating about seat reservations are those passengers who turn up late for their seats when train has just left.

If they turn up late, they won't be on the train.

If they're on the train then they obviously haven't turned up late and are just a little slow at getting to their seat. Not everyone knows exactly where to stand so the door of the coach their seat is in ends up right in front of them.

Anyway, we have this argument every time reservations get mentioned. My view is that as long as reservations are available then for a reservation between A and B the reservation holder is entitled to claim the seat from any point between A and B and not just between A and "a point just a few minutes after leaving A". (I've yet to see anyone provide any official published evidence in the public domain, or even otherwise, which states that this is not the case.)

I guess 455 only wants prime examples of humanity on his train.

I think 455 would be happiest if he had no passengers at all.

 

[chris89]

It seems to me that some people here want to change the system purely for the benefit of a handful of people and to the detriment of the rest of us.

The current system is the fairest. If you want a seat you reserve one.

Seems like that. The system at the moment is perfectly fine.

I think that if reservations were scrapped on long-distance services it would result in some of the customers which rail has won from air travel moving back - which would benefit no-one in the long term.

However, I'd have nothing against something like:

• You were charged the greater of £5/10% per reservation
• You could reserve by text/web up to the minute the train was due. I've yet to see a good way of displaying reservations electronically, but I'm sure it can be done well with sufficient effort.
• If you turned up and used your reservation (e.g. you texted in a pseudo-random code from the electronic reservation) seat, you'd get your reservation charge back.
• Similarly, if you cancel your reservation then you'd get your reservation charge back.

As an aside, one thing that may make it worse at present is that some booking systems force you to make a seat-reservation, even when on an open ticket: If I'm booking travel for work (I mean travel that work is paying for rather than journeys to/from work) I have to use a HRG's website, and you can't book a ticket through that without specifying a service which generates a reservation if its a reservable service.

What happens if someone sits in it and refuses to move? What happens if Resevation system is broken (Screen ones) Or people remove the resevation cards?

All that would do is add more confusion to many people, especially those who are not to confident on rail travel to begin with.

Also i'd rather just risk it then having to spend £5/10% extra as rail fares already are expensive for some journies or are extremely busy.

Chris

 

[cambsy]

I can't remember having never managed to find a seat on a full and standing train for whole of the journey i have been doing, there is always some seats reserved and not occupied, sometimes it the window seat and one needs to just look, also the trains i use the most, the 390 pendolinos, i know the unreserved coach or coaches if 11 car, and normally get on at start of the service, can't see reservations being scrapped as advance tickets give a seat on a particular train, i would have to say the current system could be improved, needs be more reliable, especially the electronic reservation system on board modern trains, half time it doesn't work or has been given up on so paper reservation tickets are put out, or not put out at all so lots of confusion, must admit the worst trains for looking for un reserved seats are the fgw hst's with their high backed seats.

 

[brianthegiant]

Then stop forcing me to have one when I buy an advance ticket or allow me to pick where I sit when I'm forced to get a seat reservation.

This is a good point

There are numerous reasons why you might not want to sit at your automatically allocated seat - might be long way from your bike, away from luggage, in/not-in quiet zone, no socket, etc, etc. I would agree with an opt-in system of reservations. However I suspect a lot of people who buy advanced tickets are new/marginal train users, for whom the automatic reservations they get improves their satisfaction & might be one of many many small things which have driven the pax numbers explosion.

The eurostar sytem where you can select your own seat is brilliant, but they only have 1 train formation & 1 website... From memory I don't think it works if you book E* via db.de with a London Spezial.

I don't anticipate paid for reservations any time soon, but if they were, then anyone with a senior /disabled railcard should be exempt.

 

[mrmatt]

Midland Mainine used to say if the reservee wasnt in their seat within 5 minutes of leaving the reservation departure station then it was up for grabs. Seems fair enough to me

 

[amcluesent]

I'd never get out the car if reservations were scrapped. Standing from PBO to EDB as the service was rammed from KGX? No thanks!

N.B. Regarding no show/peeps sitting at a better seat, how hard can it be for the guard to walk through and remove the slips which are no longer relevant from the seat backs? I release that's easier on EC, Virgin's electronic system does that semi-automatically although it's a bit rubbish really.

 

[andykn]

The issue of sitting in your reserved seat if you have one can be vexed.

I use Greater Anglia between London and Norwich frequently in the opposite direction to the rush flows. I always book in advance in 1st and never sit in my booked seat because I like a window seat at a table of four and they never come up for single travellers. But in two years of doing this route once a week on average it's never been busy enough to be an issue - I've only had to share my table twice when a cancellation has resulted in two trains merging into one.

The one time I was on East Coast in first class it seemed that I was expected to sit in my reserved seat, there was some consternation because they stupidly lay out the two main 1st class carriages differently and had then put on two carriages of the same type so my reserved seat didn't exist.

So whether or not to sit in your reserved seat seems to be a TOC variation.

 

[Hellfire]

Nothing like seat reservations to get everyone going.

I travel every week between Preston and London and always reserve a seat because I use peak trains which are often full. I also want to sit in the quiet coach so I reserve a seat there in both directions. My ticket does not restrict me to specific trains but nine times out of ten I do travel on the services on which I have a reservation.

Occasionally if I leave London earlier than planned I may get an earlier train and find an unreserved seat which is usually pretty easy on a Pendo with the electronic system...providing it's working. That does mean that my reserved seat on the next train will be unoccupied. That's always going to be the case with open tickets, the whole point of which is to offer a measure of flexibility to people who cannot commit to a particular train. That's not a good reason to do away with reservations though.

I also confess to finding an unreserved seat on my chosen train if I find my reserved seat is next to a blank wall...pretty common on a Pendo.

 

[island]

There is in practice no compulsion to use the seat you have reserved. You can use a different one.

 

[ModernRailways]

I don't want them to be scrapped but they could do with a bit of an update. For example, when I travel with friends on advances we may not be able to book seats next to each other, even with East Coast their seating map doesn't always work properly.
I have been told to move to my reserved seat twice now and that they could have made me pay full anytime fare but told me as long as I moved to my seat I would be let off! To me this is an extreme and if you are moving to a seat that isn't reserved surely it should be fine. Especially since one of the times I moved was on the 0703 Flying Scotsman service from NCL and so since no-one was standing it should have been fine moving! I understand advance ticket means you must sit in that specific seat, but surely you should be allowed to move.
I would prefer an advance ticket which ties me to a train and reserves me a seat, but doesn't tie me to a specific seat - if that makes sense. So, for example I could buy an advance NCL - KGX and then I would be added to the list of people reserved to that service, so say all seats are filled once 200 people are on board, then once that 200 mark is reached advance tickets wouldn't be able to be purchased. But the only catch on doing this is I wouldn't be guaranteed a seat upon boarding as other passengers may have Anytime tickets or Off-peak tickets.
I've also been on a service that was unreserved due to a printer issue at the depot and as I had an anytime ticket I thought I was extremely lucky as it meant getting a table seat since the train was from the depot and so it was empty. Upon reaching York a very grumpy family boarded (2 adults, 1 baby) who started shouting at me telling me to move seats as they had reserved those seats, I pointed out there were no reservations on this service and as such you could sit anywhere, bearing in mind there were still 3 seats around me, I then told them they could still sit down, to which they shouted saying 'There are four of us you idiot!'. I pointed out you can't reserve a seat for a child under 5 unless they have paid the fare. Thankfully the TM was at the door's just at the end of the carriage so I left my bag on my seat (it only had a few sandwiches in) and asked him to come along when he had the time. About 10 minutes later, he came along and told the family there were no reservations, they then started kicking off at the TM. He threw them off at Doncaster as they were being extremely abusive.
Normally, I would move as soon as I was asked but the way they came along and started mouthing off at me straight away and as there where three seats around me they could have sat down with the baby on their lap, or on the table as they didn't have any luggage or food. Although this was probably a rarity, it shows just how much people think a reservation is important to them and that if they can't sit down they can't actually get on that train.

 

[Darandio]

I understand advance ticket means you must sit in that specific seat

But this isn't the case, is it?

 

[ModernRailways]

But this isn't the case, is it?

I thought it was, the TM's seem to think it is too.

Found this on East Coast's website

Your ticket(s) are only valid for the date, on the East Coast train(s) and reserved seat(s) shown on your ticket(s), plus those of appropriate connecting Train Companies. If your ticket shows a route "EC and Connections", you will be reserved on to all necessary East Coast trains and connecting trains of other companies at the time of booking. Please note that if you take connecting trains other than those shown on your ticket, you will need a seat reservation to travel by any connecting train shown in the timetable as reservable.

 

[Darandio]

I thought it was, the TM's seem to think it is too.

I am not entirely sure myself, but a couple of posts earlier in the thread suggested otherwise.

 

[Bungle73]

Where applicable, you must travel in the Class and reserved seat(s) shown on the ticket(s).

http://www.nationalrail.co.uk/times_fares/ticket_types/46546.aspx

NRE is the definitive source for information is it not?