Should RARS (or future iterations) be able to integrate with other modes?

[Bletchleyite]

From https://www.railforums.co.uk/thread...portsmouth-to-ryde.303979/page-2#post-7843908 with regard to the Solent hovercraft, but there are larger issues such as Caledonian MacBrayne.

That is . how they worked for years but they will now even offer through fares to Sandown via this route or at least Southern will. Without any rubric about booking a flight anywhere. I assume that the booking engines are permitted to sell an infinite number of such fares - I can buy one now for instant departure - which for a ferry of limited capacity running a half hour service ending at 20.00 is plainly ludicrous.

So should it be possible for the booking system (Rail Availability and Reservation System - I think!) to integrate with external systems? This no doubt wouldn't be economic for just the Solent, but there are other applications - SailRail, MacBrayne etc.

That way these services could be marked reservations compulsory and an actual reservation issued automatically instead of these fudges about having to contact them.

In 2026 this doesn't strike me as that expensive in IT terms nor as difficult.

 

[Helvellyn]

You could flip it round - could RARS or a replacement in the future be able to support smaller non-rail operators who may not be able to afford their own reservations system but would benefit from using one? Could see through-ticketed coach links better promoted if guaranteed seats could be offered as well.

 

[zwk500]

If we are serious about having multi-modal integration then I would argue it is essential for the central railway reservations system (whether that be RARS or it's replacement) to have some form of external connection to any approved partner.

As a complete IT Layman, it doesn't even strike me as requiring external integration, just an API or similar to allow partner organisations to query the database and process reservations. Presumably something like this already happens to allow all the different rail booking engines to process reservations.