Seat reservations on long-distance trains - how should they be done?

[TheGuy77]

Seat reservations, how are they allocated?

I’m on a sparsely occupied GWR, there are only four reservations showing in my coach, and three of them line up with the panels between windows. Needless to say they are all unoccupied as nobody wants to sit next to a blank wall. Particularly puzzled by the”window“ seat reservation (the others...

www.railforums.co.uk

I have recently been reading this thread about how seat reservations are allocated.

I noticed that there were many flaws with the reservation system, such as how people ask for a window seat and get one with a very obscured view!

It made me wonder, how should they be done?

Personally, I would let people choose specifications about what they would like (table, forward-facing etc) and 24 hours before the journey, automatically allocate the seats like this:

• Allocate people seats based on at least one of their specifications.
• Put families and group bookings in table seats, or in 2 opposite rows of airline seats if not possible.
• Put people who book bike spaces in seats on the same coach as the bike space.
• Put senior and disabled railcard holders in priority seats, or those with extra legroom.
• Try to have no-one sit next to each other, unless they book together.

What do you think? What would you do differently? Please let me know.

 

[Energy]

Compulsory reservations do not work since many people do not follow them, including me.

It's impossible to tell a genuine reservation that will be used and a compulsory one that isn't wanted. As such, it trains people to ignore reservations where there are minimal unreserved seats (e.g. XC) and hope that the reservation won't be used.

If people followed reservations, then it would delay boarding as passengers will faff finding the exact seat rather than finding any available seat.

 

[Leogilbert007]

For me it should be (1) choose your seat on a seat picker or (2) select your seat preferences and be allocated a seat, or (3) if (1) or (2) are not available choose between being automatically allocated a seat and not having a reserved seat.

 

[Bletchleyite]

A seat selector should be available, but should not be offered by default because it causes inefficient allocations, e.g. not allocating A-B and B-C to the same seat so there is then not one available for A-C.

I'd say offer preferences and respect if possible, but once the journey is in the basket the user can press a button to choose their seat and use a seat map to do so if it actually bothers them. Many people don't care.

Airline style allocation is what Indian Railways does (the list of names and seats is posted by the door) but I don't think that approach with its extra faff really works here.

 

[Leogilbert007]

An alternative could be to display on the electronic reservation display, for example:
Reserved STP-SHF L. Gilbert
free thereafter

 

[Bletchleyite]

An alternative could be to display on the electronic reservation display, for example:
Reserved STP-SHF L. Gilbert
free thereafter

That has been done before but I suspect would be seen as a data protection issue. And imagine going through a whole train to find your seat if you didn't know what it was? I think the Irish railway might still display a name though.

Only way you could practically do the thing suggested is having check-in like planes. But imagine the added faff.

 

[Leogilbert007]

is having check-in like planes. But imagine the added faff.

Yeah, the faff would be tremendous not to mention it truly being the nail in the coffin for any visions of a walk-up railway…

 

[The exile]

Go back to charging for seat reservations and have them available for only 50% of the accommodation. Advance tickets to offer “counted places” unless extra seat reservation paid for. No “on the day” reservations. And also (more a “middle distance” train issue) - no stupid reservations like Bristol Parkway to Filton Abbey Wood (journey time approx 2 minutes).

 

[Bletchleyite]

Go back to charging for seat reservations and have them available for only 50% of the accommodation. Advance tickets to offer “counted places” unless extra seat reservation paid for. No “on the day” reservations. And also (more a “middle distance” train issue) - no stupid reservations like Bristol Parkway to Filton Abbey Wood (journey time approx 2 minutes).

I think it is actually possible, with the effort, to set up the quotas such that the latter sort of nonsense doesn't happen, and those short journeys are allocated counted places (where the fake compulsory flag is on) or nothing at all in the case of a train with optional reservations.

 

[SynthD]

I noticed that there were many flaws with the reservation system, such as how people ask for a window seat and get one with a very obscured view!

That's bad data, that could happen with the best reservation system in the world.

 

[PeterC]

Go back to charging for seat reservations and have them available for only 50% of the accommodation. Advance tickets to offer “counted places” unless extra seat reservation paid for. No “on the day” reservations. And also (more a “middle distance” train issue) - no stupid reservations like Bristol Parkway to Filton Abbey Wood (journey time approx 2 minutes).

Too much common sense there.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Too much common sense there.

I still think, much as it's not my personal preference, that the vast majority of long distance passengers would probably prefer a fully reserved system like the TGV.

 

[The exile]

I still think, much as it's not my personal preference, that the vast majority of long distance passengers would probably prefer a fully reserved system like the TGV.

They probably would, but the vast majority of travellers on long distance services aren’t long-distance travellers, but medium and short distance travellers for whom other options either don’t exist or are inadequate.
Or rather they would until the day they had to make a journey at the last minute and found all services for the next 2 days fully booked.

 

[NCT]

Other than the Birmingham HS2, virtually all our inter-city services will continue carrying short distance travellers many of whom could be on Season tickets. Think Macclesfield - Manchester and Wigan - Preston. Chippenham - Bath - Bristol will realistically always be a bunfight at peak times. If you leave Bristol or Paddington in the evening peak, chances are you won't even get through the vestibule to your booked seat until past Chippenham or Reading when the train thins out a bit. Inter-city seat reservations on Britain's network will always have a large 'advisory' element.

 

[crablab]

I still think, much as it's not my personal preference, that the vast majority of long distance passengers would probably prefer a fully reserved system like the TGV.

It just wouldn't work for many "long distance" routes, which are actually short/medium hops between cities, with commuters on seasons etc.

"Wouldn't work" to the extent of being unenforceable and probably counter productive.

---

I agree with comments up thread:
- make seat reservations non-default, and abolish general use of counted places (eg. on local/commuter services)
- actual allocation could be a combination of preferences and seat picker - I don't really care
- make it easier to remove/modify/add seat reservations to existing bookings

Charging for seat reservations I'm more meh about, because it just looks petty & creates bad press. I don't really see any reason to charge for them.

Of course, seat reservations only really mean something if the train displays actually work reliably...

 

[NCT]

Given the cultural nature of seat reservations being advisory (avoiding confrontation when your seat is occupied, and the age-old issues of reservations not displaying, wrong set / short set turning up etc), paid reservations would just create aggro. The slightly shambolic seat reservation system is one aspect of British railways that I don't want to become Germanised.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Other than the Birmingham HS2, virtually all our inter-city services will continue carrying short distance travellers many of whom could be on Season tickets. Think Macclesfield - Manchester and Wigan - Preston. Chippenham - Bath - Bristol will realistically always be a bunfight at peak times. If you leave Bristol or Paddington in the evening peak, chances are you won't even get through the vestibule to your booked seat until past Chippenham or Reading when the train thins out a bit. Inter-city seat reservations on Britain's network will always have a large 'advisory' element.

Generally on those sections of the WCML up north there's enough spare capacity that there would always be space for extras.

Paddington to Bristol is a funny one (as is London-Birmingham and London-Norwich). We've talked about this before, but I think there is an argument to stop thinking about these as InterCity services in the traditional sense, because they're short journeys where most people will want flexibility. The huge popularity of the WMT London-Birmingham services, on which the core offering is reasonably priced walk up fares, demonstrates that well enough. The only true InterCity services on the GWML these days are the Cardiffs (comparable to Euston-Manchester) and the Cornish services, which themselves "run as RegionalExpress"* within Cornwall.

I think one could indeed argue that if they'd bothered to get the wires to Temple Meads via Bath they'd be better off just running 12 car 387 formations twice an hour with mostly walk up fares and no reservations and being done with it. There are plenty of Northern services that are no less InterCity than this one other than the lower demand.

* Deutsche Bahn actually does this sometimes.

 

[LittleRedTrain]

I think it is actually possible, with the effort, to set up the quotas such that the latter sort of nonsense doesn't happen, and those short journeys are allocated counted places (where the fake compulsory flag is on) or nothing at all in the case of a train with optional reservations.

Anecdotally, I think CrossCountry may already be doing this.
I recently tried to book a train from Banbury-Birmingham International and it wouldn't give me a reservation, but if I changed the journey to Banbury-Wolverhampton on exactly the same train, it would let me reserve a seat.

My preference is making reservations a nominal fee, waived for Senior/Disabled Railcard holders or for any group including at least one child. Maybe also free for any journey over 2 hours.
Reservations should be limited to one or two coaches only (no more than 25% of total seats in that class), first come, first served.
It should be possible to change/cancel a reservation at any time, but not allow new reservations once the train has started its journey.

That way, people making long journeys or who really need a seat should be able to guarantee one, but there's still plenty of unreserved seating for 'walk ons' and you don't get the dwell time penalty of passengers dawdling down the aisle finding their seats and potentially having to make someone move.

 

[WideRanger]

Travelling a lot in Japan, I have come to appreciate the Japanese approach on long distance trains where a large number of carriages (and on some routes, or at peak times, all carriages) are reservation compulsory. (The counter-example being off-peak Kodama services where demand is much lower than number of seats, where most carriages are free seating) Seats can be reserved up until a couple of minutes of getting on the train (regardless of how far into its journey the train is). No need for reservation indicators, because in the carriages containing reserved seats, they are all reserved. On the busiest services, a seat will be reoccupied over and over again on the same journey.

There is a strong drive for people to buy their tickets and reserve their seats on apps on their phones, or failing that at machines at the station, with a pretty hefty queuing penalty for reserving in person at the ticket office at busy times. My understanding is that although your ticket and your reservation are separate, they are linked in the system. This discourages speculative and multiple reservations - and it is noticeable that it is rare to see empty seats, even in carriages where a reservation is compulsory.

In the UK, it seems the main reason people don't want to reserve is because 1) it is hassle, 2) they may not know far in advance what train they need. If you can deal with both of those, I don't understand why we shouldn't be heading towards a presumption of reservation for services with limited capacity.

 

[NCT]

Services with limited reservation should NOT have a presumption of reservation. Being permitted to travel in someone's armpit is still preferable to being denied travel, and those people pay the highest fares the industry can ill afford to forego. Reserved carriages are a bad idea as at crunch times you need the aisle and vestibule space for standing.

 

[TheGuy77]

An alternative could be to display on the electronic reservation display, for example:
Reserved STP-SHF L. Gilbert
free thereafter

Not a half-bad idea at all, seat reservation displays should be something like this:

If the seat is currently reserved, and is afterwards free for the remainder for the journey (show red):
RESERVED Sheffield to Leicester
AVAILABLE from Leicester

If the seat is currently reserved, and is afterwards reserved for another person during another point in the journey* (show red):
RESERVED London Euston to Warrington Bank Quay
RESERVED Wigan North Western to Edinburgh

If the seat is currently available, but will be reserved during another point in the journey (show amber):
AVAILABLE to Doncaster
RESERVED Doncaster to Newcastle

If the seat is available for the whole of, or the remainder of, the journey (show green):
AVAILABLE

If the seat is currently reserved, but then reserved again immediately afterwards, then it would show as one reservation period (see top example)
You could also include the names of the reservation holders if you'd like, to help them find their reserved seat easier.

 

[Bletchleyite]

They mostly do work like that. Only annoyance is that some show two consecutive reservations as if it were one, which is annoying if you didn't realise that and then get turfed out.

 

[JohnElliott]

On LNER you can also find seats showing amber with "May be reserved later" - even on the last leg of the journey with no possibility of further boarding.

 

[mchunt]

Main problem I see with reservations is that you are often given them on flexible tickets by default but if you decide to change your travel time there is no way of altering the reservation, thus leading to unused reserved seats.

For advanced tickets reserve the seat during purchase, for all other ticket types (including contactless) create a reservation app/website where a reservation can be purchased for a small fee.

If too many people are reserving seats they are not using then maybe need a larger fee but get a refund if you scan the QR code at the seat to prove you are using it.

 

[The exile]

Given the cultural nature of seat reservations being advisory (avoiding confrontation when your seat is occupied, and the age-old issues of reservations not displaying, wrong set / short set turning up etc), paid reservations would just create aggro. The slightly shambolic seat reservation system is one aspect of British railways that I don't want to become Germanised.

The only reason I suggest paying for reservations is in an attempt to cut down the number of “no shows”. An alternative would be to require the ticket number to be entered when reserving to discourage multiple reservations on the same ticket for the same section of route.

 

[Indigo Soup]

Airline style allocation is what Indian Railways does (the list of names and seats is posted by the door) but I don't think that approach with its extra faff really works here.

The Indian rail reservation system with all sorts of quotas, waitlists, etc. would make the 'Reservations Compulsory' people very happy!

That has been done before but I suspect would be seen as a data protection issue.

IIRC paper reservation tickets, when booked associated with a name, used to show something like
RESERVED
DENTON - TEESSIDE AIRPORT
BLOGGS

FWIW, regardless of how seat reservations are allocated, the reservation list ought to be closed before the train actually leaves.

 

[Bletchleyite]

The Indian rail reservation system with all sorts of quotas, waitlists, etc. would make the 'Reservations Compulsory' people very happy!

India has a fairly unique problem (though it might be replicated in other nearby countries e.g. Pakistan) in that demand massively, massively outstrips supply (by huge factors, maybe 10 or more at certain times) but because people are often very, very poor the idea of using dynamic pricing to price people off isn't really acceptable. Almost all trains have second class unreserved, in a 3+3 layout (the trains are quite wide, about a foot and a half wider than UK loading gauge) and there are no controls on the number of people using this, so it tends to get rather overcrowded - from personal experience even on overnights it can look rather like the Tube before COVID at Bank at 5:30pm, but with people hanging on the outside too, and many will be left behind at each stop.

As a result of this, compulsory reservation is the only way to effectively ensure an even vaguely acceptable journey experience in the classes above this.

And because of that, if you want to fill all the seats you do need stuff like waiting lists. It's not a concept that's needed in the UK because the number of passengers in excess of the reserved number is manageable in almost every case.

IIRC paper reservation tickets, when booked associated with a name, used to show something like
RESERVED
DENTON - TEESSIDE AIRPORT
BLOGGS

I think GDPR put paid to this.

 

[yorksrob]

They should be on request only, if at all.

There's no reason why AP tickets should automatically churn out reservations where they're not wanted.

 

[JamesT]

They should be on request only, if at all.

There's no reason why AP tickets should automatically churn out reservations where they're not wanted.

How do you know they're not wanted? If someone is booked on a specific train, they almost certainly want a seat on that train.

 

[The exile]

How do you know they're not wanted? If someone is booked on a specific train, they almost certainly want a seat on that train.

Well for a start, there’s all the ridiculous “one stop reservations”. But the time you’ve found your reserved seat between Filton Abbey Wiood and Bristol Parkway, you’ve missed your stop.