In other words, what had been standard BR practice. Even that is not without its problems - though. How do you define “facing” and “back” in a train that reverses en route. Used to be a regular dilemma as to how to reserve 3 seats on the Scotland - West Country trains with reversal at Waverley, Carstairs, Birmingham and Gloucester.
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TransPennine Express checking the appetite for charging for seat reservations?
- Thread starter Puffing Devil
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Tetchytyke
Veteran Member
It wasn’t that perverse as the behaviour they were trying to discourage was the reserving of seats on multiple trains.
An advance ticket holder is basically either on their booked train or the holder of an expensive but useless piece of orange paper. So you may as well give them the seat. Those with flexible tickets can- and do- reserve seats on multiple trains and only use one if then.
At which point (and I recognise this becomes easier to do with e-ticketing), you make it so that each ticket is limited to one reservation at a time.
D1537
Established Member
Although there are multiple scenarios in which you might have a reservation on train X but have a valid reason to change it to a different train instead, so you'd need some functionality to release the reservation on the initial train.
Absolutely - and that's inherent in what I'm suggesting. I hate it when I can't nake one train, alter my reservation, and find that my old reservation is still in place. That's simply unfair
Killingworth
Established Member
I have already completed the TPE survey. Waves of nostalgia came over me as I recalled my father booking seats for us on the ECML in the 1950s and 60s. It cost £1, later increased to £2 a ticket. Did those charges finish with privatisation?
Whatever, this was the situation in the summer of 1989.
Every seat reservation was written out by hand and manually attached to the stud above each seat. On TPE's 185s paper reservation tags still have to be added manually at the start of each journey, thankfully printed out. Obviously it's less laborious in the more modern units.
Then what happens? No charge for a reservation so if we spot a 'nicer' seat we go and sit there. We see a friend and go and sit by them. The net result may be a third to half the booked seats aren't occupied. But they may have been earlier or will be further along the route. On some trains! On a few (3 car when it should be 6?) you can't get to your reserved seat through the crush! A reserved corner of the 1st class floor might be good.
As usual there are no easy answers. My usual route is Sheffield to Manchester/Liverpool. EMR gave up reservations some years ago. That's another lottery job - will it be 2, 3, 4, 5 or 6 cars? Will it turn up? Until all trains run with the same rolling stock at the planned length without delays and cancellations EMR's policy may not be so far wrong - perish the thought!
If TPE want to introduce a £2 charge for a guaranteed seat I could live with that when wanting to sit with family or someone else. If travelling alone I'd take my chance, possibly paying Seatfrog to get a 1st class seat.
Whatever, this was the situation in the summer of 1989.
Every seat reservation was written out by hand and manually attached to the stud above each seat. On TPE's 185s paper reservation tags still have to be added manually at the start of each journey, thankfully printed out. Obviously it's less laborious in the more modern units.
Then what happens? No charge for a reservation so if we spot a 'nicer' seat we go and sit there. We see a friend and go and sit by them. The net result may be a third to half the booked seats aren't occupied. But they may have been earlier or will be further along the route. On some trains! On a few (3 car when it should be 6?) you can't get to your reserved seat through the crush! A reserved corner of the 1st class floor might be good.
As usual there are no easy answers. My usual route is Sheffield to Manchester/Liverpool. EMR gave up reservations some years ago. That's another lottery job - will it be 2, 3, 4, 5 or 6 cars? Will it turn up? Until all trains run with the same rolling stock at the planned length without delays and cancellations EMR's policy may not be so far wrong - perish the thought!
If TPE want to introduce a £2 charge for a guaranteed seat I could live with that when wanting to sit with family or someone else. If travelling alone I'd take my chance, possibly paying Seatfrog to get a 1st class seat.
Transilien
Member
I would say that Advance fares should only become available on journeys that are over an hour. Journeys over an hour are less common to be made by commuters and therefore, less seats would be reserved.
Great in theory, but how does that work with (say) Romsey to Bristol Parkway? Over an hour, but with a short leg involved.
Tetchytyke
Veteran Member
You shouldn't have Advance tickets for York to Newcastle? Interesting idea.
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How do you do that with ranger tickets or season tickets though?
I'd say a more productive solution would be to allow people to cancel their reservations. When I'm travelling around on my Britrail passes I usually reserve seats against the itinerary I expect to follow. But, as you can imagine, plans change when using rovers. I really wish I could release the seats I've reserved but I can't.
Cancelling reservations is absolutely what I have in mind. As for edge cases like seasons or rovers, I should define my terms more precisely - the restriction should be on the journey so that no more than one* is held between the same station pair on the same day. It won’t be perfect but very few people will find themselves making repeated journeys between the same two points.
* - before someone asks, I’m reservation means an individual or a set of reservation or set of reservations on the same account.
stevieinselby
Established Member
So Chesham to Aldgate, then ... or Whitby to Great Ayton
There are a number of problems with that kind of cliff-edge cut off.
1 - if it's done strictly then you could find that different trains on the same route between the same stations could allow reservations on some but not others if the stopping pattern varies and some are just over the hour and others are under – this would be confusing for passengers.
2 - if you removed all reservations between, let's say, Leeds and Doncaster, and instead allowed those seats to be reserved for journeys from Leeds to Peterborough or London, that's going to make it a lot more difficult for people making medium distance journeys to find a seat, or find seats together if there are a group travelling. And yes, if I'm making a 45 minute journey on a busy intercity train (that isn't designed for lots of standing passengers) then I want to be able to reserve a seat. It isn't reasonable to tell people making journeys of up to an hour that even planning ahead they might still have to stand.
trainophile
Established Member
Avanti's system was good (not sure if it is still happening, haven't seen it for a while), where the electronic reservation display changes to "available if unoccupied" a few minutes after departing the station from where the reservation applied. Obviously this would be trickier with paper reservation slips, requiring manual intervention by a crew member, so probably not practical.
Avanti now have a strange system, where some seats are displayed as "reserved to ***", without any indication of where they are reserved from. Thus if they are unoccupied you daren't take one in case the rightful passenger boards at the next stop. Sometimes they do show "reserved between *** and ***", which is much more helpful. One can only assume in the prior case the rightful owner was travelling the entire route to the destination where their reservation ended, but found a seat they preferred, which is where the "available if unoccupied" option would make a lot more sense.
Avanti now have a strange system, where some seats are displayed as "reserved to ***", without any indication of where they are reserved from. Thus if they are unoccupied you daren't take one in case the rightful passenger boards at the next stop. Sometimes they do show "reserved between *** and ***", which is much more helpful. One can only assume in the prior case the rightful owner was travelling the entire route to the destination where their reservation ended, but found a seat they preferred, which is where the "available if unoccupied" option would make a lot more sense.
Charlie978
Member
The 222’s on the MML have had this since day 1 and they use it to show that it has been reserved from the start/to the end of the service.