My idea to abolish seat reservations

[lincolnshire]

Save a lot of time and messing about and get rid of all seat reservations and if your ticket is for that train then thats the train you have to be on and just find a seat. Its actually un fair if someone has bought a ticket months in advance and paid very little for there ticket as against buying one on the day from the station who has paid a lot more and then can,t get a seat is that fair? as all the seats are taken by the early bookers.
When did the £1 fee finnish? for seat reservations and how much would it be these days if it was still in force?
I wonder how many would be willing to pay for a seat reservation at todays prices as compared with the £1 years ago.

 

[VT 390]

Save a lot of time and messing about and get rid of all seat reservations and if your ticket is for that train then thats the train you have to be on and just find a seat. Its actually un fair if someone has bought a ticket months in advance and paid very little for there ticket as against buying one on the day from the station who has paid a lot more and then can,t get a seat is that fair? as all the seats are taken by the early bookers.
When did the £1 fee finnish? for seat reservations and how much would it be these days if it was still in force?
I wonder how many would be willing to pay for a seat reservation at todays prices as compared with the £1 years ago.

But anyone can book in advance if they choose to and even with anytime/off peak tickets you can still reserve seats. Most people who buy anytime tickets do not know exactly which train they will be getting till the day so there would be no point booking a seat that you may or may not use and if they know which train they will be getting then you would buy an advance ticket.
Though I do agree that a charge should be made for seat reservations. I thinnk it should be around £2 per for each train you book a seat on.

 

[_toommm_]

Save a lot of time and messing about and get rid of all seat reservations and if your ticket is for that train then thats the train you have to be on and just find a seat. Its actually un fair if someone has bought a ticket months in advance and paid very little for there ticket as against buying one on the day from the station who has paid a lot more and then can,t get a seat is that fair? as all the seats are taken by the early bookers.
When did the £1 fee finnish? for seat reservations and how much would it be these days if it was still in force?
I wonder how many would be willing to pay for a seat reservation at todays prices as compared with the £1 years ago.

I don't particularly agree with that - would you really want to travel from Kings X to Inverness for example, faced with the prospect of a mad rush and no seat until York at the earliest?

I feel we, as a country, have a good balance at the moment compared to the continent. What I mean, is that I can buy a walk-up ticket in an emergency or if I feel sporadic, but I know that if I'm going a long way, I can reserve a seat if needs be.

 

[73001]

And you instantly alienate all those people who use the train but would be unable to stand for long periods due to age or disability.

 

[s_null]

On a side note: I recently travelled from EBD - LDS on a CrossCountry service, making a seat reservation via their Twitter team. Helpfully, my surname was displayed on the electronic display along with the reserved duration.

Is there a reason why this isn't standard practice across all reservations? Certainly makes it easier to identify the seat, and makes it easier to answer the inevitable "no, this isn't your seat" questions!

 

[_toommm_]

On a side note: I recently travelled from EBD - LDS on a CrossCountry service, making a seat reservation via their Twitter team. Helpfully, my surname was displayed on the electronic display along with the reserved duration.

Is there a reason why this isn't standard practice across all reservations? Certainly makes it easier to identify the seat, and makes it easier to answer the inevitable "no, this isn't your seat" questions!

I suspect its because theres no way for other booking sites to communicate to CrossCountry or other companies the details of the booking, other than the seat number and distance it's reserved.

 

[AM9]

Another thread where the OP doesn't recognise why those prepared to make a commitment to travel way in advance get a better deal than those who rock up when it suits them and expect a train to be there. It has been explained here many times before, those who book advance tickets are using seats that might not be used if the casual travellers decide to use a different train. They are getting a good deal because they are sacrificing their flexibility for the benefit of railway operation. Conversely, those who insist on travelling when it suits themselves must pay a price that represents running trains for that convenience.
I will be going from St Albans to Birmingham International for an NEC even in a couple of weeks. I had the choice of low-cost advance tickets for £14 return, a faster advance return journey with booked seats for about £25 or an off-peak flexible return (no commitment until the day of travel) for between £30 and £66 depending on speed and convenience. If I can't travel on the £14 tickets that I purchased, that's my loss. You and everybody else have the same choices, 'you pays your money and makes your choice' so to speak. Any personal issues, that you might have about when you can commit to a journey are not the railway's problem. It's your lifestyle issue, you must decide.

 

[whhistle]

Once again, it appears seat reservations cause more hassle than they're worth.

I too sat in someone elses seat just a few days ago.
The train was cancelled at the next station.
Next to us there was a table set of seats with nobody sitting in it.
The person still quizzed us.
I pointed out the train would be terminating at the next station and they could sit across the aisle for the 10 mins to safe us faffing about.

 

[Mag_seven]

But once again, it appears seat reservations cause more hassle than they're worth.

Which I why I'd rather they be abolished - however that has been done to death in other threads.

 

[Journeyman]

Which I why I'd rather they be abolished - however that has been done to death in other threads.

If seat reservations were abolished, I'd rather fly from Edinburgh to London than risk having to stand for four and a half hours.

 

[Journeyman]

I'm very confrontation-averse. I recently had to ask someone to move a case off a seat I wanted to sit on, which I did politely and reasonably, and I got a load of abuse for it. It left me feeling pretty upset and tense for the whole journey, and I really could have done without that. It was completely unnecessary, given that there were only three people in the nine-seat first class area of a 170. There was loads of room for their case, but they seemed to think it was absolutely necessary to place it on the single seat that I quite reasonably wanted.

 

[Bletchleyite]

I would be quite happy with a system where no reservations were marked at all (other than a permanently marked unreserved coach or area), which is basically the Polish system other than on the Pendolinos, provided it was possible to obtain a seat reservation on a train at any time before or even after departure by multiple methods i.e. TVM, ticket office, telephone, web, mobile app and from staff on board e.g. the buffet, with seat selection available by all methods.

Such an option would near-abolish the Euston scrum, FWIW. On arrival go to the TVM, grab a reservation in your preferred seat, wander for a coffee and a 30p wee, wander down to the train at your leisure. None left? Perhaps best consider another train if viable, then. Either way goodbye to the stress and fairer on those who aren't so quick (yet need the seats more) and can't compete in what is a very rough and "dog eat dog" thing indeed.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Absolutely. I'm very confrontation-averse. I recently had to ask someone to move a case off a seat I wanted to sit on, which I did politely and reasonably, and I got a load of abuse for it. It left me feeling pretty upset and tense for the whole journey, and I really could have done without that. It was completely unnecessary, given that there were only three people in the nine-seat first class area of a 170. There was loads of room for their case, but they seemed to think it was absolutely necessary to place it on the single seat that I quite reasonably wanted.

I'm quite happy to confront people over that particular selfish and lazy behaviour. It's best done politely, though. "Can I help you put your bag in the overhead so I can take that seat, please?" An unfavourable response results in it being moved anyway. And "have you paid for that extra seat?" is a good sarcastic response if they carry on ranting.

 

[anme]

Another thread where the OP doesn't recognise why those prepared to make a commitment to travel way in advance get a better deal than those who rock up when it suits them and expect a train to be there. It has been explained here many times before, those who book advance tickets are using seats that might not be used if the casual travellers decide to use a different train. They are getting a good deal because they are sacrificing their flexibility for the benefit of railway operation. Conversely, those who insist on travelling when it suits themselves must pay a price that represents running trains for that convenience.
I will be going from St Albans to Birmingham International for an NEC even in a couple of weeks. I had the choice of low-cost advance tickets for £14 return, a faster advance return journey with booked seats for about £25 or an off-peak flexible return (no commitment until the day of travel) for between £30 and £66 depending on speed and convenience. If I can't travel on the £14 tickets that I purchased, that's my loss. You and everybody else have the same choices, 'you pays your money and makes your choice' so to speak. Any personal issues, that you might have about when you can commit to a journey are not the railway's problem. It's your lifestyle issue, you must decide.

This is simply not how it works.

Advance tickets are sold, sometimes at cheaper prices, because that makes more money overall for the railways. "Sacrificing your flexibility" does not save the rail company any money. They are going to operate the same trains anyway. They can't decide to cancel a service because it won't carry enough people to make a profit. Offering the same seats at different prices is about extracting as much money as possible from the train service as a whole. As has been explained here hundreds of times, offering cheap tickets is actually a mixed blessing for a TOC. It is better for them to carry one passenger for £100 than four passengers for £20, even if that means three seats being empty. Simply dropping prices to fill more seats does not necessarily make more money, because it may result in people buying cheaper tickets than they would otherwise have done.

As someone who travels on cheap tickets, you *need* the people who buy more expensive tickets to travel and buy those tickets. You pay less than your share for running the railways and they subsidise you. If they swap to the cheaper tickets, you will pay more. This is not a bad thing in itself, but please thank these people, don't patronise them with statements like "It's your lifestyle issue, you must decide".

 

[MarkyT]

I suggest separately priced legs at a number of standard levels, with a check in system that encourages the making or confirmation of reservations LATER, so demand can be spread around trains and there's an opportunity to offer upgrades for variable fees. You could still use the basic fare types without reservation in their normal time bands, but the check in system could be used to guarantee a seat and nudge people around different services while making upgrade offers for departures outside the normal time bands, if the TOC sees fit based on expected real time loadings. As today this could be offered alongside deeper discount more restricted advance quotas.
Say your meeting's over at lunch and you think you'll be able to make a fourteen hundred something departure then curse for paying full price on the home leg when you could have got away with a super off-peak, even though you had to go full price because you thought the business might drag on. The system could offer upgrades in real time based on yield management techniques so if the peak was proving slow you could make offers to passengers who have unused tickets for that leg. Hence our businessman on finding the meeting did indeed go on until the mid afternoon merely asks for the best upgrade offer on his super off-peak for a new defined time band. He has always known that worst case the additional fare would be up to the full open price, but a range of offers might be considered to travel on various trains.

 

[gordonthemoron]

All seats will likely be full of people who got on at earlier stations

 

[Journeyman]

As I've said countless times before, if you abolish seat reservations, I'll stop travelling long distance by train. It just won't be worth the hassle and inconvenience of trying to find a seat, and I'd far rather just travel by plane instead.

 

[PeterC]

I can see some value in abolishing reservation of specific seats if access is limited to the number of seats available. Not feasible in the present railway, although BR used to manage it on holiday trains and Pullmans, but according to the press HS2 will have no standing so it would be an alternative there.

With seat regulation you can, at least, have proper yield management with fares adjusted up or down according to the level of bookings and the possibility of cheap standby tickets to fill otherwise unpopular trains.

 

[Journeyman]

Save a lot of time and messing about and get rid of all seat reservations and if your ticket is for that train then thats the train you have to be on and just find a seat. Its actually un fair if someone has bought a ticket months in advance and paid very little for there ticket as against buying one on the day from the station who has paid a lot more and then can,t get a seat is that fair?

Yes, it's perfectly fair. If you're willing to sacrifice flexibility to get a cheap ticket, booking a long way ahead, you're doing the TOC a favour, because you're paying money up front and helping them predict exactly which trains will be busy and which ones won't. In many cases, cheap advances are bought by people who otherwise wouldn't have travelled by train.

Despite the astronomical price of some anytime tickets, there's still plenty of takers, and they're bought by people who know what the issues are, so I don't see a problem here. Virgin can charge nearly three hundred quid for a ticket to Manchester in the evening peak because there's trainloads of people willing to pay for them.

When did the £1 fee finnish? for seat reservations and how much would it be these days if it was still in force?
I wonder how many would be willing to pay for a seat reservation at todays prices as compared with the £1 years ago.

The fee was abolished some time ago, but National Express East Coast reintroduced it in a skinflint move just prior to them losing the franchise. Clearly an attempt to make some more cash.

 

[anme]

Despite the astronomical price of some anytime tickets, there's still plenty of takers, and they're bought by people who know what the issues are, so I don't see a problem here. Virgin can charge nearly three hundred quid for a ticket to Manchester in the evening peak because there's trainloads of people willing to pay for them.

Actually there aren't trainloads of people willing to pay Virgin's peak time prices. Have you been on the trains? You won't have a problem getting a seat!

 

[Bletchleyite]

HS2 will have no standing

I'm not aware of any decision having been made on the ticketing and reservation model for HS2, and there is no specific safety reason not to allow standees. It could just as easily use the Germanic model (basically what we have now) as the Romance or Slavic model (airline style fares and compulsory reservation).

 

[Richard P]

The issue is that ultimately the TOC's run a horrendously antiquated & restrictive system of reserving seats. As soon as a train fails or is cancelled it is impossible for them to transfer reservations to another service and I find it amazing that in the 21st century you still can't turn up half an hour before a service, book a ticket & reserve a seat at the station. I would make three points:
1. As a disabled traveller myself I book a seat so I can be sure I can sit down whatever the length of the journey as I have artificial legs and can't stand for any length of time. The TOC's are still unable to identify a disabled booking despite me booking with a railcard and as a result don't offer you an easy access seat, unless it's Virgin West Coast you have to take the seat your allocated. Equally when a train is cancelled they have no way of identifying people with special needs who genuinely need a seat, frankly ignore them and shy away from this issue. That is flawed and wrong
2. If someone reserves a seat they are entitled to take it. It's not acceptable to sit in a seat knowing it is reserved, it's called having respect for your fellow traveller. Last week I had a booked seat on a packed Virgin West Coast train back from London to Manchester. When I got to my seat someone was sat in it, I asked them to move, pointed out my disability and my railcard and explained why I had reserved and needed the seat. I was told to f**k off in no uncertain terms and I ended up having to a) get off & get the next service and b) pay the extra fare as I no longer had a valid ticket for that service
3. Charge for a reservation a nominal £1 and make the TOC's honour the reservations and put in place a system that works, right now they offer a service that regularly fails and ultimately lets down passengers
Maybe it's all about the individual but even with my disability I would never sit in a reserved seat

 

[Bletchleyite]

2. If someone reserves a seat they are entitled to take it. It's not acceptable to sit in a seat knowing it is reserved, it's called having respect for your fellow traveller. Last week I had a booked seat on a packed Virgin West Coast train back from London to Manchester. When I got to my seat someone was sat in it, I asked them to move, pointed out my disability and my railcard and explained why I had reserved and needed the seat. I was told to f**k off in no uncertain terms and I ended up having to a) get off & get the next service and b) pay the extra fare as I no longer had a valid ticket for that service

Why, out of interest, did you not ask staff for assistance? If your disability makes it impossible to move through the train to find them, it would strike me as a not entirely unreasonable use of the passcom.

Mind you I'm amazed nobody else offered their seat.

 

[randyrippley]

Booking seats means that those who pay the lowest fares get to hog the seats while those who pay the highest fares have to stand.........
If I'm paying a full walk-on fare I should be entitled to a seat, not like those buying cheap advance purchase tickets, they should be last in the queue for seating

 

[Wychwood93]

Booking seats means that those who pay the lowest fares get to hog the seats while those who pay the highest fares have to stand.........
If I'm paying a full walk-on fare I should be entitled to a seat, not like those buying cheap advance purchase tickets, they should be last in the queue for seating

Really? I would hope that Mr. tongue is in Mr. cheek?

 

[al78]

Booking seats means that those who pay the lowest fares get to hog the seats while those who pay the highest fares have to stand.........
If I'm paying a full walk-on fare I should be entitled to a seat, not like those buying cheap advance purchase tickets, they should be last in the queue for seating

Hasn't this been done to death already? I thought it had been established that a walk-on ticket entitles you to use the service of being transported between two stations (subject to peak time and route restrictions if applicable), that's it.

 

[Parallel]

If nobody occupied reserved seats on 4 car voyagers, the aisles would be so packed with passengers, people who had reserved seats wouldn’t be able to get to them!

There is nothing wrong with people occuping reserved seats as long as they move when requested. (If the tickets are out/screens are on)

 

[sheff1]

On a side note: I recently travelled from EBD - LDS on a CrossCountry service, making a seat reservation via their Twitter team. Helpfully, my surname was displayed on the electronic display along with the reserved duration.

Is there a reason why this isn't standard practice across all reservations? Certainly makes it easier to identify the seat, and makes it easier to answer the inevitable "no, this isn't your seat" questions!

You might think so, but the only time my name was on the reservation was the only time the person who was sat in the seat refused to move. My surname is pretty uncommon so I asked whether it was their name. They confirmed it was not, but would not move. The story had a good ending as the guard upgraded me to first class.

XC always honour seat reservation, marked or unmarked. But I suspect that is motivated by the fact that they give you money if you don't get your seat! In their defence they always announce this policy after each station call if the reservations are not working.

Guards might be supposed to announce but often do not - quite possibly because they think the policy is silly.

 

[PeterC]

I'm not aware of any decision having been made on the ticketing and reservation model for HS2, and there is no specific safety reason not to allow standees. ...

The Times has other ideas https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/hs2-promises-end-to-overcrowding-with-booking-app-sckm6wxsd

Passengers will be required to reserve a seat to travel on HS2 trains under plans to prevent standing travellers from clogging up aisles and doorways.

The Times has learnt that passenger numbers will be limited according to the availability of seats to improve journey comfort, eradicate overcrowding and ensure travellers know exactly where to board HS2’s huge trains.

However, a passenger group warned that the move represented a “huge cultural shift” that could frustrate the travelling public, particularly if the booking system is not user-friendly enough.

 

[Mugby]

Instead of having one unreserved coach on many trains, perhaps it would be better to have just one reserved coach.

And when they're gone, they're gone!