The Seat of the Matter

[mwmbwls]

A letter from a Guardian Reader.

I hold an annual rail season ticket from Spalding to London (via Peterborough) with Virgin Trains East Coast. Last year this cost £7,816, excluding underground travel. In theory, season ticket holders can reserve seats up to 12 weeks in advance, for which they fill in a spreadsheet and send to Virgin. However, this department appears to be only available via email. It is supposed to respond to requests within seven days, but sometimes I’ve had to chase it for up to a month. When someone responds, they simply say the train I reserved was full and to take a different one, which is not convenient.
For the last month my reservation was marked as from Newark rather than Peterborough – two stops before I get on. This has meant that almost every day I end up standing.
I called customer services, which told me to contact the online services team, which told me to call customer services. I even joined Twitter to try and get an answer, but all they could do was advise me to find the train guard to reclaim my seat. However, there isn’t a guard to be seen, partly because there are so many people standing it’s impossible to pass through. I have also visited the travel centre at King’s Cross, which advised me that a manager would be in contact, but weeks later I’ve heard nothing.
I do not understand how an operator can be so incompetent and unaccountable while charging so much. SK, Spalding, Lincolnshire


It is shocking that you pay nearly £8,000 a year for a regular commute, only to be forced to stand – and your tale reflects high levels of dissatisfaction across the country. When we checked with passenger group Transport Focus to find out what practice is across all rail operators, we (and it!) were surprised by the differing policies.
The vast majority (with the exception of East Midlands) accept season ticket reservations, although you cannot reserve places on many busy suburban commuter journeys. Operators such as Greater Anglia and Virgin Trains West Coast, meanwhile, only accept bookings a week at a time. We’ve even heard of cases of operators charging season ticket holders for reservations, which adds insult to injury.
You have since received an apology from Virgin and the rather ambiguous offer of a pair of free tickets to travel anywhere on its eastern network. Not very appealing if it’s your usual train journey to work.
A spokesperson said: “We are sorry SK has struggled to get a seat reservation. We are looking into our processes and how we can improve them, but unfortunately some of our trains are extremely popular and it might be difficult to reserve a seat at peak times.”
Surely this is an area crying out for reform.

This I suspect is not uncommon. It shows up yet another variant of the difficulties of seat reservations of long distance service that also double as outer suburban services. VTEC are now finding themselves in a similar position to Cross Country. There is no quick or easy solution. No doubt next week there will be a letter about trains operating with reserved seats that are unoccupied. My understanding is that once the train leaves the station named as the start of a reserved journey that the reservation on unoccupied seats is cancelled. Has any research been done on this? I often find that if my meetings finish early in London that I catch an earlier train home than the one that I had intended whereby my reserved seat on the later train would not be needed. Is it only me?

 

[misterredmist]

I think paying just over £150 per week return for such a long journey is good value for money, and like all long commutes, it's a life style choice.... obviously if there are people standing right through the train then it's a very popular service too....

as for reserved seats, if nobody is sat there after the 'origin' station stated, then it's fair game to sit down IMHO.

 

[Darandio]

Isn't the point being missed here about seat reservations? Or am I reading the article wrong?

It's all well and good saying it's fair game if nobody is sat in the reserved seat on departure, but how much good is that if the reservation is being added at the wrong station, or not at all?

 

[paddington]

VTEC's website is pretty good for reserving seats on advance singles (and I suppose for other tickets too but I've never booked any other ticket type online with VTEC)


I wonder how much work it would take to allow season ticket holders to have accounts on the website where they could reserve seats on one train per day in each direction, perhaps as soon as advance tickets are on sale for those trains.

 

[takno]

VTEC's website is pretty good for reserving seats on advance singles (and I suppose for other tickets too but I've never booked any other ticket type online with VTEC)


I wonder how much work it would take to allow season ticket holders to have accounts on the website where they could reserve seats on one train per day in each direction, perhaps as soon as advance tickets are on sale for those trains.

VTEC's website will just be a rebranded version of one of the 3 or 4 internet ticket sales services, which do reservations through the standard national reservations system (I forget the name). That means that any ad-hoc stuff to support VTEC season-ticket holders specifically would be very hard indeed.

You could certainly roll out a national system, but it would cost a few hundred thousand or more to develop, and at least 100k (probably a multiple of that) annually to maintain. Doing that to provide a full service solution to season tickets including renewal of monthly/weekly tickets and innovative new products might be worthwhile. I doubt you can justify the cost just for the number of people who currently have season tickets on trains where seats can be booked, and get on trains where they are too full to find a seat, and reliably use the same trains often enough to book.

You are also likely only moving the problem backwards from not being able to find a seat when you are on the train to not being able to find a seat online, since a widely-available service would lead to all the relevant season ticket holders booking. At best you are going to be leaving no free seats for walk-up passengers, who are paying a significant premium over the season ticket holders for their journey.

 

[Kite159]

Or this gentleman can board the Great Northern services which start from Peterborough for a better chance of getting a seat (assuming that is allowed with his season ticket).

Might take a few minutes longer even with the services which are limited stop, but better than crowding on a service coming from Leeds or Newcastle. Bit like those who moan at boarding an EMT service at Bedford that it is full and standing, or a Virgin train at Milton Keynes (or on a smaller scale a Paddington HST at Reading, a SWT long distance service at Woking)

 

[brompton rail]

Just comparing WEEKLY SEASON with Anytime Return.
£199 for Weekly Season
£116 for Anytime Return

Fare set by VTEC and route Any Permitted

Seems like a very good bargain to me!

 

[theageofthetra]

I stopped taking any interest at Guardian Reader. It's a lifestyle choice to long distance commute, no one is forced to.

 

[Master29]

I wonder if this was someone who voted for a government that encourages privatisation. That being the case what can you expect. Of course TOC`s are going to try and profiteer during peak periods. Sauce for the goose.

 

[westv]

Isn't the point being missed here about seat reservations? Or am I reading the article wrong?

It's all well and good saying it's fair game if nobody is sat in the reserved seat on departure, but how much good is that if the reservation is being added at the wrong station, or not at all?

That's what I thought too but it seems this is being ignored by some posters.

 

[SquireBev]

I stopped taking any interest at Guardian Reader. It's a lifestyle choice to long distance commute, no one is forced to.

Absolutely this. Why would you voluntarily extend your working day by an hour at either end?

 

[WelshBluebird]

Absolutely this. Why would you voluntarily extend your working day by an hour at either end?

Because house prices and rents in certain bits of the country and simple way out of control and so the only option you can actually afford is to move further away?

 

[brompton rail]

Or this gentleman can board the Great Northern services which start from Peterborough for a better chance of getting a seat (assuming that is allowed with his season ticket).

Might take a few minutes longer even with the services which are limited stop, but better than crowding on a service coming from Leeds or Newcastle. Bit like those who moan at boarding an EMT service at Bedford that it is full and standing, or a Virgin train at Milton Keynes (or on a smaller scale a Paddington HST at Reading, a SWT long distance service at Woking)

By taking GN service from Peterborough instead of joining a train that started from Leeds an hour before our Guardian reader left Spalding, the arrival in Kings Cross would be 08.55 as opposed to 08.34 on VTEC. EMT timetable for the Spalding line actually gives this arrival as the connection off the 07.00 from Spalding, the first train.

 

[WelshBluebird]

Regardless of how good value the season ticket is, or why people would want to commute, or if the person should get a different ToC's train or not, the description of the issues with reservations is utterly laughable if true. How the hell can they get it so badly wrong.

 

[Hadders]

By taking GN service from Peterborough instead of joining a train that started from Leeds an hour before our Guardian reader left Spalding, the arrival in Kings Cross would be 08.55 as opposed to 08.34 on VTEC. EMT timetable for the Spalding line actually gives this arrival as the connection off the 07.00 from Spalding, the first train.

It's interesting to look at connections at Peterborough which might explain what's going wrong here.

The Spalding train is scheduled to arrive at Peterborough at 0719.

There is a VTEC departure at 0721 which arrived Kings Cross at 0812 (not an official connection but if the Spalding train arrives on time I'd expect a regular traveller to make it, particularly as the VTEC is likely to be a couple of minutes late at Peterborough)

There's a Great Northern Departure at 0726 arriving Kings Cross at 0828 (again not an official connection)

The first official connection is the 0733 Great Northern service arriving Kings Cross at 0855

Then the fastest official connection is to get the 0741 VTEC service arriving Kings Cross at 0834.

Now, I do wonder whether the OP is reserving a seat on the 0741 but actually travelling on the 0721, or v.v. The seat reservation might be nothing to do with him!

If I was the OP I'd try and make the very tight 0721 from Peterborough, if not I'd get the 0726 Great Northern which although technically not an official connection would be no problem unless the Spalding train was more than 10 minutes late.

 

[TheEdge]

Might take a few minutes longer even with the services which are limited stop, but better than crowding on a service coming from Leeds or Newcastle. Bit like those who moan at boarding an EMT service at Bedford that it is full and standing, or a Virgin train at Milton Keynes (or on a smaller scale a Paddington HST at Reading, a SWT long distance service at Woking)

We get the same on the GEML. The Mk3 sets will be packed out but no-one wants to get on the limited stop EMUs. Look at the "how busy are our trains pages", you can see the hauled sets are surrounded by relatively quiet units.

 

[Llanigraham]

Absolutely this. Why would you voluntarily extend your working day by an hour at either end?

I did exactly that when I joined the railway. Why would I want to move from a nice property in a nice town where we had a nice life, to move to a much more expensive area where we knew no one?
And to put it in a local context for you; why do people move to Worcester but still work in Birmingham or Gloucester?