Kindergarten Walk

[jis]

True, but you'll still run into seat maximization issues. There's a very clear parallel to the airlines. They can get away with allowing seat assignments because most flights run non-stop, everyone piles off, and then it becomes a new flight. But, the one airline that loves to make stops (Southwest) does festival seating. Why? Seat maximization. You buy the rights to a seat on Southwest, not a particular seat. Same principle applies on Amtrak.

Why oh why does everyone take an extreme all or none position on this issue I don't understand.
All over the world a part of the total inventory is sold assigned seat often for an additional fee, and the rest is unreserved. There is nothing so special about the US that makes this unworkable. There is no seat maximization issue unless one insists on making all reserved seats assigned seats, and even then mostly it is a contrived issue. As a matter of fact one could argue that Amtrak is actually leaving money on the table that it could have in the form of an assigned seat fee that it could charge to augment its revenue stream, just like the beloved of some, Southwest does too.

i just don't get this obsession of US railfans with defending Amtrak's indefensible position.

Heck the much more heavily used Indian Railways LD trains can manage all this without a huge seat maximization issue. Almost every railways system in the world is able to handle it on trains that make far more frequent stops than any Amtrak LD train. Railroads in US 60 years back could handle it without an issue, using those quaint daisy-wheel paper slips based reservation system. Suddenly now that we have IT systems that can handle all of that a hundred times better and faster, there is an issue making it impossible to do this? Give me a frickin' break!

 

[Bob Dylan]

Better Living through Technology! As was said, it's 2013, not 1971!!!("We've Always Done it this Way!" "It'll Never Work!" yada! yada!) jis Nailed it again!

 

[rusty spike]

Suddenly now that we have IT systems that can handle all of that a hundred times better and faster, there is an issue making it impossible to do this? Give me a frickin' break!

I don't know...is it budget issues, or is it because Amtrak is a quasi-government entitiy (aka beaurocracy) that does what is best for Amtrak and the passenger either takes it or leaves it? Or is it that, like much of its rolling stock, Amtrak is operating the mode of the 1980's or earlier, when ridership was not near what it is today?

Having taken Amtrak from STL to CHI in the late 70's, I can assure you that I had no problems getting any seat I wanted. As we all know, Amtrak is slow to adapt---look how long it took them to get e-ticketing in place. Just MHO. :unsure:

Edited for punctuation

 

[white rabbitt]

:giggle: here is the kindergarden walkchicago union station

that is one long long walk

 

[MattW]

The technology to assign seats is there. I have no idea why they don't implement it, at least for the LD trains.

If you recall, they attempted to do this with the initial launch of Acela they tried to do this, and you could see the flames shooting out of that (not literally, but close enough). On Long Distance trains it would be even more of a failure. If you let people pick their seats you'd end up with unutilized inventory because someone could book a seat say NYP-RVR, someone else books the same seat JAX-MIA, but someone who wants to go ALX-WPK might end up blocked out because the seat isn't available continuously. Additionally, it'd become a logistical nightmare for the on board crews working at low platforms. At JSP which is a short platform, you could have four people getting off and they're in four different cars, rather than just being right next to each other. Don't fix it if it ain't broke, and it ain't broke. Spend that capital expanding capacity instead of trying to fix problems that aren't problems.

This seems to work out ok with the Sleepers. If Amtrak can do it with 30 or more rooms, why can't they do it with coach seats?

 

[battalion51]

Don't forget that the dynamics of the trains have shifted over the years as well. You have a much smaller group of people working on board for both T&E and OBS. I'm not saying it's impossible, or that it would never work. But I would say that given the precious few resources Amtrak has there are higher priorities than throwing more issues to IT and T&E. As evidenced by this very forum there are still issues with tickets being cancelled because a ticket wasn't lifted properly. Let's get that problem fixed first, then we can move on to other priorities. I'd say from Amtrak's perspective eliminating Conductors from selling paper tickets would be a higher priority than trying to assign seats. Or how about digitizing the Delay Reports. Those are the sorts of things that will lead to a more streamlined, more efficient railroad, and therefore more profitable.

 

[PaulM]

The primary reason that it did not work on the Acela is because Amtrak chose to not tell anybody anyting about it, and just sprung it on the unitiated and unsuspecting one fine day. Almost anything will fail if it is introduced in such a ham handed fashion, and therefore that one example does not indicate anything about whether something wil succeed or fail if introduced properly.

No knowing anything about the original implementation, the idea that optional assigned seating like Europe's would be rejected by customers always sounded to me like an old wives' tale.

 

[PaulM]

Back to the Kindergarten Walk topic -- I actually thought of starting one titled thus, after reading some of the snarky comments about it on other threads. Some people seem to assume that "adults" use redcaps, and that if you walk to the train, it's because you're either cheap or naive, or something.

When it comes to most questions, AU's don't represent a random sample of Amtrak patrons. Not that most Americans wouldn't ride in a cart if only they knew about it.

 

[AlanB]

But the problem on Acela is that half the seats ave backwards. And because they told no one, half of the passengers were assigned backward facing seats. Many did not like riding backwards, especially from the first stop to the last stop of the run. And even if this was not the case, they biased mid trip, found they were assigned a backwards facing seats and observed that there were 5-8 empty forward facing seats. So they moved.

Actually, in BC almost all seats face forward, only 8 at the tables face backwards IIRC. In first class of the 42 seats, 28 face forward and 16 face backwards.

 

[AlanB]

The primary reason that it did not work on the Acela is because Amtrak chose to not tell anybody anyting about it, and just sprung it on the unitiated and unsuspecting one fine day. Almost anything will fail if it is introduced in such a ham handed fashion, and therefore that one example does not indicate anything about whether something wil succeed or fail if introduced properly.

No knowing anything about the original implementation, the idea that optional assigned seating like Europe's would be rejected by customers always sounded to me like an old wives' tale.

Paul,

It wasn't optional. If you were paying attention when you booked your FC seat, then you could pick any available seat you liked. However, if you didn't pay attention, or your corporate travel people booked things, then just like Amtrak does with sleepers you were assigned a seat by the computer. And that seat number was printed on the ticket.

And I can attest to the fact that it isn't an old wive's tale that assigned seating was vehemently objected to by many people. Especially when they learned that they were assigned a table and didn't want it, or were assigned a seat but wanted a table, or worse were facing backwards. Amtrak actually had a couple of fights break out and had to bring in the police once or twice, or so I understand from reliable sources. I personally watched one confrontation get very close to blows.

As noted by Bill above, part of the problem was that Amtrak just sprang this on people. Everyone was used to the Metroliner format where all seats faced forward and there were no tables and you picked any empty seat. With no warning that they had been assigned a specific seat, many revolted. I'm sure that some would still have reacted badly even with publicity, as people seem to hate change. But the lack of publicity made things far worse.

The resistance to assigned seats however was only part of the reason that Amtrak stopped doing assigned seating. With the failure of the eTicketing program planned at that time, which was to work in conjunction with assigned seating, there was no real reason to keep doing assigned seats and pissing off their best customers.

 

[Mackensen]

You say "it ain't broke." It sure is broke when a family of 4 can book travel months in advance and not have assurance that they will be able to sit together. It sure is broke when a retired couple in the Philadelphia area will not consider Acela First Class for travel because the ability to get seats together in F at PHL is pure luck.

I will add that this is a problem in BC, too, on acela when boarding at many mid-point stations like PVD, New Haven, BWI, PHL, etc.

And while I'm all worked up, let me add this. My first long distance train trip was in 1963: Philadelphia to San Francisco to Los Angeles to Philadelphia. It was a family trip, coach all the way. What's the big deal about that? Every seat on every train was pre-assigned at booking. Every one. In 1963, FIFTY YEARS AGO.

I don't see what relevance this has. No one's saying it can't be done--obviously it can. However, implementing this change would require capital expenses upfront--investment in IT to enable this procedure when ticketing, training for on-board service personnel, training for call-center personnel, potentially some maintenance costs to verify that all seat numbers are present in coaches since that's now a thing that matters, etc. These will all come out of Amtrak's limited resources. What's the upside for Amtrak? How does this generate more revenue? Will whatever limited increases in customer satisfaction might result from this change offset the capital costs? The ability to pick my seat has never made me more likely to fly; honestly it's just one more set of prompts to click through. There's also the issue that not all coaches have the same carrying capacity; I don't know how this is finessed at the moment but assigning an actual seat would limit Amtrak's options even more. Unlike Europe and Japan, Amtrak doesn't have much operational flexibility with its equipment.

 

[TimePeace]

I still think it might be appropriate to rename the forums "Amtrak Unlimited Complaints Forums"... maybe? Not to get off topic or anything... :huh:

 

[Ted Bell]

I still think it might be appropriate to rename the forums "Amtrak Unlimited Complaints Forums"... maybe? Not to get off topic or anything... :huh:

No ****, right? Why does everyone feel the need to *****? The system works, right?

 

[battalion51]

Back in my day we had chocolate. None of this carrot cake... :giggle:

 

[AlanB]

However, implementing this change would require capital expenses upfront--investment in IT to enable this procedure when ticketing, training for on-board service personnel, training for call-center personnel, potentially some maintenance costs to verify that all seat numbers are present in coaches since that's now a thing that matters, etc.

Actually any IT costs would be minimal, since the necessary routines to book seats already exist in ARROW. They're still there from the Acela project, so they just need to be turned back on and applied to whatever trains Amtrak wishes to allow people to book specific seats.

Heck, even now Amtrak has the ability to let us pick our room in a sleeper via the online system. It just needs to be turned on; nothing more.

 

[Steve4031]

I definitely would pay the extra fee to select a seat. Is it possible for Amtrak to have seat maps line airlines?

This would eliminate the need to line up and race others for a more desirable seat.

 

[battalion51]

Don't forget though that the east coast long hauls are typically the only trains that have their cars oriented a specific direction generally speaking. So how do you explain to someone on Superliner, Amfleet I, or Horizon equipment, "Well the yard put the train together this way, so today you're on the opposite side of the train than what you wanted to be on." At least with the present system you've got a decent shot at pulling it off if you want to. Granted the Superliner sleepers already have this issue, but they're also not putting a diagram on the web for folks to pick their room.

 

[amamba]

I still think it might be appropriate to rename the forums "Amtrak Unlimited Complaints Forums"... maybe? Not to get off topic or anything... :huh:

No ****, right? Why does everyone feel the need to *****? The system works, right?

But that's the point - it doesn't work when people can't find seats together when boarding in mid-point stations on the NEC.

 

[TimePeace]

But it also doesn't work if you are assigned a seat next to someone who is very unpleasant and there are open seats all around - and attendants or conductors are enforcing assignments.

 

[battalion51]

I think we all play the "least of all evils" game when we get on the train at a mid-point. I personally shoot for the attractive female without a ring on her left ring finger.

 

[PRR 60]

You say "it ain't broke." It sure is broke when a family of 4 can book travel months in advance and not have assurance that they will be able to sit together. It sure is broke when a retired couple in the Philadelphia area will not consider Acela First Class for travel because the ability to get seats together in F at PHL is pure luck.

I will add that this is a problem in BC, too, on acela when boarding at many mid-point stations like PVD, New Haven, BWI, PHL, etc.

And while I'm all worked up, let me add this. My first long distance train trip was in 1963: Philadelphia to San Francisco to Los Angeles to Philadelphia. It was a family trip, coach all the way. What's the big deal about that? Every seat on every train was pre-assigned at booking. Every one. In 1963, FIFTY YEARS AGO.

I don't see what relevance this has. No one's saying it can't be done--obviously it can. However, implementing this change would require capital expenses upfront--investment in IT to enable this procedure when ticketing, training for on-board service personnel, training for call-center personnel, potentially some maintenance costs to verify that all seat numbers are present in coaches since that's now a thing that matters, etc. These will all come out of Amtrak's limited resources. What's the upside for Amtrak? How does this generate more revenue? Will whatever limited increases in customer satisfaction might result from this change offset the capital costs? The ability to pick my seat has never made me more likely to fly; honestly it's just one more set of prompts to click through. There's also the issue that not all coaches have the same carrying capacity; I don't know how this is finessed at the moment but assigning an actual seat would limit Amtrak's options even more. Unlike Europe and Japan, Amtrak doesn't have much operational flexibility with its equipment.

What relevance does this have? In 1963 a family of four could travel cross-country on six trains on six railroads with seats assigned on each train and no worries about seating arrangement. In 2013, fifty years later, that is not possible. That's the relevance.

 

[Nathanael]

If you let people pick their seats you'd end up with unutilized inventory...

Not if you did it right. Doing it right would mean teaching the reservations system a lot of information. First, the consist of each train, and the layout of each car within the consist. Second, it would have to know which stations had short platforms, and which cars platformed at those stations. This would have to be standardized and formalized for each train, rather than being "conductor's discretion". Third, the attendants' knowledge regarding "how to pack the train" would have to be programmed in, so that short-haul passengers could be forced into the short-haul carriages by the reservations system, rather than at boarding time. Fourth, it would be necessary to use deliberate blocking to preserve seat pairs and foursomes against reservations by solo travellers trying to hog the window seats.
In short, it would actually require a lot of programming, and continuous manual tweaking to adjust to different demand in different seasons and changing demand over the years. Honestly, it might be a good idea because it would create consistency where there is currently "attendant's discretion", but don't kid yourself, it would be expensive to do it right.

 

[Nathanael]

I guess to put it in simplest terms, this is not Amtrak's top-priority project, Amtrak has limited capital funds, and Amtrak would rather spend its capital funds on other projects right now. Remember, Arrow is being replaced, because it's extremely outdated code.

 

[Heading North]

Two other thoughts:

1) Depending on when you book, Amtrak may have no clue what the makeup of the passengers will be on your travel day. Let's say you book 6 months out on the LSL. Until close to departure, it's unclear whether there will be one carfull of New York-Chicago passengers, or three. And it is helpful to group people together with the same endpoints (like all the Cleveland folk getting off in the middle of the night). Do you only open up one coach at a time for reservations? Or do you wait until the day before (the airline equivalent of check-in) to let people pick seats?

2) I understand keeping families together, and appreciate the "reserved for 2 or more" signs I've seen on the Carolinian and Palmetto, etc. But for single travelers, WHO you sit with is as important as WHAT seat you're in. I've been on long flights where I picked a great seat, but for one reason or another, the seatmate was awful (especially when I'd have a window seat, and the ability to get up matters). If I'm going to be sleeping next to someone in coach, I'm going to weigh my options carefully. That is, if the seat isn't assigned to me.

 

[chakk]

On the eastbound CZ leaving EMY, the Amtrak crew typically assigns all of the coach "shorts" -- those traveling to Elko or places west -- in the 610 car; all of the
"longs" -- those traveling to Denver or points east -- in the 612 car; and all of the others in the 611 car. But, this also depends on what the expected boardings and departures are at all of the stops down the line.

My biggest frustrations have been when the crew closes off one coach completely on trips with really light loads, so that they don't have to watch and clean every coach. Nowadays, I have seen many days when one coach is left off the train completely in Chicago or EMY, so that the entire trip is made with just two coaches instead of the usual three.