Should Mandatory Seat Reservations Be Removed For Advance Tickets?

[py_megapixel]

I do think the practice of issuing seat reservations to passengers who don't want them at all is a bit silly and should be discontinued. But even then there would still be plenty of passengers who would book seats and then not occupy them for whatever reason.

With almost all reservable services now having electronic displays, I would say the solution is a rule that you must occupy the seat within 5 minutes of departure, otherwise you forfeit the reservation. Reservations should then disappear from the displays after the 5 minutes have elapsed.

I am definitely opposed to any requirement that you must occupy the reserved seat for the ticket to be valid. There are many problems with the idea of forcing someone to sit somewhere specific, and still more problems with placing an effective duty on them to evict anyone who might already be in the seat. Plus it's just generally unfriendly policy that makes the railway look mean while having very little benefit to anyone, so it would probably go unenforced most of the time and then cause problems when some member of staff decided to be strict about it.

 

[Bletchleyite]

With almost all reservable services now having electronic displays, I would say the solution is a rule that you must occupy the seat within 5 minutes of departure, otherwise you forfeit the reservation. Reservations should then disappear from the displays after the 5 minutes have elapsed.

This is how it works (or at least did) in Germany. In the days of yore guards would go round removing paper slips when the "from" station had passed, too.

The Pendolinos and 805/807s are meant to be fitted with technology to detect unclaimed seat reservations and release the seat back into the pool, and also to prevent seats being reserved from under people. In the Pendolino's case it's done with the cameras in the ceiling - they aren't CCTV, that's elsewhere - whereas on the Everos I believe it's a sensor in the seat itself. I have not seen much evidence of it working, though, in particular because seats do seem to be reserved from under people.

 

[yorkie]

I do think the practice of issuing seat reservations to passengers who don't want them at all is a bit silly and should be discontinued.

Supposedly "compulsory" reservations (as in, according to the data, i.e. requiring booking sites to issue a reservation when any such itinerary is selected) only exists on a very few TOCs such as LNER or Avanti.

With almost all reservable services now having electronic displays, I would say the solution is a rule that you must occupy the seat within 5 minutes of departure, otherwise you forfeit the reservation. Reservations should then disappear from the displays after the 5 minutes have elapsed.

Maybe 10 mins, but yes, agreed.

I am definitely opposed to any requirement that you must occupy the reserved seat for the ticket to be valid. There are many problems with the idea of forcing someone to sit somewhere specific, and still more problems with placing an effective duty on them to evict anyone who might already be in the seat. Plus it's just generally unfriendly policy that makes the railway look mean while having very little benefit to anyone, so it would probably go unenforced most of the time and then cause problems when some member of staff decided to be strict about it.

Don't tell LNER that; it will only encourage them!

 

[Rail2002]

But even then there would still be plenty of passengers who would book seats and then not occupy them for whatever reason.

That's true but making seat reservations optional would alleviate the issue.

would say the solution is a rule that you must occupy the seat within 5 minutes of departure, otherwise you forfeit the reservation.

How would this be implemented? I'm not au fait with technology. Would you suggest some sort of device to the seat that registers when a person sits in it? Some sort of sensor on the seat back perhaps?

 

[AlterEgo]

No thanks. Split ticketing customers quite like getting a consistent seat, even if their overall combination of tickets happens to include a short distance flow or two.

This, basically.

Also, seat selectors matter. That so few TOCs bother with one shows a lack of concern for a small but important part of the passenger experience.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Also, seat selectors matter. That so few TOCs bother with one shows a lack of concern for a small but important part of the passenger experience.

They certainly do, and so do accurate representations of the carriage layout including window positions, which they so often don't include. (Not having a dig at Trainsplit there by the way - I use it in conjunction with TOC published seating plans which rarely contain that information even if they wanted to add it!)

One thing that astonishes me is that Trainline have never built one with the intention of monetising it (both to the end user and by flogging it to TOCs using their whitelabel site/app). Is it perhaps an accreditation fail to charge for reservations?

 

[Rail2002]

Supposedly "compulsory" reservations (as in, according to the data, i.e. requiring booking sites to issue a reservation when any such itinerary is selected) only exists on a very few TOCs such as LNER or Avanti.

Are we talking about resrrvations to be on the train in general or seat reservations? According to real-time trains, some operators are "Reservations Compulsory", such as LNER but I've never heard of any legislation to enforce it.

My understanding is that when someone purchases an Advance ticket, be it at a booking office or on the Internet, they are automatically required to make a seat reservation. The exceptions being on services operated by companies such as Northern who don't have reservations.

If customers were given a choice whether or not they'd like to reserve a seat, then more seats could be available for all customers.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: Wednesday at 22:53 ==

Also, seat selectors matter. That so few TOCs bother with one shows a lack of concern for a small but important part of the passenger experience

Some operators are unable to guarantee the desired seat, for example if the train reverses en route or leaves the depot in reverse formation or if there is a set swap.

 

[AlterEgo]

Some operators are unable to guarantee the desired seat, for example if the train reverses en route or leaves the depot in reverse formation or if there is a set swap.

So what? That's common with loads of train companies worldwide and even airlines in the latter case.

 

[Rail2002]

The fact of the matter is, for whatever reason, there are people who reserve seats and chose not to use them. Although removing the mandation for seat reservations with Advance tickets wouldn't completely eliminate the problem, it would surely help and it would still allow Advance ticket users to reserve a seat if they so wish.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Are we talking about resrrvations to be on the train in general or seat reservations? According to real-time trains, some operators are "Reservations Compulsory", such as LNER but I've never heard of any legislation to enforce it.

It's not enforced. It's a stupid fudge to give them control of which trains are on sale at an individual train level, and to slightly manage expectations on how many people might squash onto one train. Notably Deutsche Bahn also partake in this stupid fudge - buying a Flexpreis for the wrong train to avoid the issue is commonplace.

The only trains in the UK where you will be turned away if you don't have a seat reservation are the Caledonian Sleeper and Eurostar.

 

[Rail2002]

So what? That's common with loads of train companies worldwide and even airlines in the latter case.

It's an example of why someone may choose not to occupy their assigned seat. Your post pinned importance on preference but if preference isn't guaranteed then customers might and seemingly do sit elsewhere, e.g. if they want to be near the toilet. Making reservations optional lessens the issue, as those Advance ticket holders who would rather 'wait and see' can do so and then there isn't an extra seat going to waste.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: Wednesday at 23:04 ==

It's a stupid fudge to give them control of which trains are on sale at an individual train level, and to slightly manage expectations on how many people might squash onto one train

I agree that it is stupid.

 

[AlterEgo]

It's an example of why someone may choose not to occupy their assigned seat. Your post pinned importance on preference but if preference isn't guaranteed then customers might and seemingly do sit elsewhere, e.g. if they want to be near the toilet. Making reservations optional lessens the issue, as those Advance ticket holders who would rather 'wait and see' can do so and then there isn't an extra seat going to waste.

I'm not arguing against your premise, I'm just saying seat selectors are important and there's not a good reason why some TOCs don't have them. More people will occupy their booked seats (compulsory or not) if they get to have control of where they are.

 

[py_megapixel]

How would this be implemented? I'm not au fait with technology. Would you suggest some sort of device to the seat that registers when a person sits in it? Some sort of sensor on the seat back perhaps?

You could do that but it seems a bit complicated. My suggestion is that the reservation should just disappear from the display automatically after 5 minutes.

After all once the occupant has found their seat there's no need to display the reservation any more.

 

[Kite159]

Keep seat reservations, however go back to the older method where once the train departs the origin station no more seat reservations can be made. Stops the issue where seats marked as Available suddenly change to reserved by someone doing a short distance journey. (Or for LNER to go back to displaying "May be Reserved Later").

And seat reservations are forfeited if you don't take up the reserved seat within 10 minutes of departure, to prevent someone sitting elsewhere (ie a table seat when they have an airline seat reserved) moving back 40 minutes later when they get evicted from the table seat to evict whoever is sitting in their original seat (who saw it was reserved from A to D, boarded at B to find it empty)

 

[Bletchleyite]

You could do that but it seems a bit complicated. My suggestion is that the reservation should just disappear from the display automatically after 5 minutes.

After all once the occupant has found their seat there's no need to display the reservation any more.

It's fairly handy in summer if you go to the loo and have no jacket or similar to leave on it, I suppose.

 

[William3000]

Should mandatory seat reservations be removed for Advance tickets? I believe so. I've travelled on a 5 coach and an 8 coach train today and yet again, most seats were reserved but not occupied, with no indicator of being used and they can't all have been in the toilet at the same time. It causes problems for customers and operational staff as it means the aisles get blocked with those wanting to avoid the £50 penalty for occupying a reserved seat. As someone who prefers flexible tickets, I tend to pay more only to find I can't sit down because someone's paid less and chosen to sit elsewhere, leaving the seat they booked unusable.

Places could still be limited by limited Advance tickets per train but reservations could be optional to allow more seats for flexible travellers.

I my opinion, this would improve customer experiences, staff function and stop aisles being blocked (negating delays) and also improve Revenue Protection by allowing TMs and RPOs to make it down the train to check tickets more easily. I think everyone would win.

What do you think? Do you support compulsory seat reservations for Advance tickets? Feel free to vote and say why.

I wasn’t aware that you could get fined £50. I just sit in one and on the 1 in 20 times somebody actually wants it I get up and let them have the seat. Do they really fine people for sitting in them?

 

[AlterEgo]

I wasn’t aware that you could get fined £50. I just sit in one and on the 1 in 20 times somebody actually wants it I get up and let them have the seat. Do they really fine people for sitting in them?

No. There's no legal basis for this and I wager it has never happened.

 

[renegademaster]

I'll go one further. Scrap seat reservations full stop.

Leave priority seats and maybe a few others on certain trains as reservable by Passenger Assist and staff only, otherwise first come first served. They cause so many needless arguments and issues both amongst passengers and between passengers and staff. Get on the train and sit on your a**e. It's notable that the trains that carry the most passengers, the London commuter TOCs, do not have reservations at all, aside from Intercity trains which also shift commuters.

EMR got rid of them on Liverpool-Norwich and GA got rid of them on London-Norwich during Covid and neither brought them back. Quite rightly so. How is it right that someone can pay an expensive anytime fare and then find themselves booted out of the seat they're in for someone who's paid next to nothing on an advance single?

Scrap them. There's no arguments over short formations, different units being used, reservations not being displayed, people refusing to move out of booked seats, people causing delays by insisting on boarding the carriage their seat is in despite there being 12 other doors available on the train, people kicking off because they can't get to "my seat which I've paid for", and so on.

I am of this camp too.

National Express and Flixbus don't see a market for seat reservations beyond the first few rows as well.

This would be highly controversial but you could generate some extra money by designated say ~50 reserved seats and making them a £5 upsell.
I've also read when they did trials of it with planes, unallocated seating it's the quickest way of loading them.

 

[Dr_Intoxicated]

Advanced ticket holders are not the problem. If reserved seats are unoccupied isn't it more likely to be due to people with flexible tickets. Advanced ticket holders have to be on that particular service. Flexible ticket holders can reserve seats on more than one service to ensure a seat with flexibility thereby leading to unoccupied reserved seats

 

[pokemonsuper9]

Advanced ticket holders are not the problem. If reserved seats are unoccupied isn't it more likely to be due to people with flexible tickets.

Yes that is very true.
I made a connection I hadn't planned earlier today so I am sat in Coach C on an Avanti leaving my reservation on the TPE 40 minutes behind unoccupied.
If I was on advance tickets I obviously wouldn't be on this Avanti.

Flexible ticket holders can reserve seats on more than one service to ensure a seat with flexibility thereby leading to unoccupied reserved seats

I'm not really sure that many people would do that, most people don't even know about making standalone reservations via the GWR website.