Re: Booked out Melb XPTs

[Eddie Oliver <eoliver@efs.mq.edu.au>]

WhaleOilBeefHooked wrote:
> 
> David Langley wrote in message <37971993.D99D9373@ancc.com.au>...
> 
> >Now try the above NZ example at Strathfield on a busy morning. Words to
> describe
> >the ensuing disaster fail me. I agree with Eddie that the NZ style of
> booking is
> >at best appalling, at worst ..............
> >
> >If you book late, you take your chances.
> 
> But there may be 40 seats on a train that are not reserved. But none of them
> may be together. Under the coach way of seat allocations, a group of 2, 3,
> 4, etc. would be able to be accommodated. With the railways, they *may* not.
> If they insisted on being together, they would be turned away. Is this good
> business sense?

Yes, because you will create far more illwill, and consequently lose far
more patronage, by your alternatives - and also your alternatives will
cause delays to trains (both the trains in question and the others on
the network), and there are very real costs involved from those delays.
Indeed I would think that RAC as the track owner/manager would very
rightly refuse to allow Countrylink to operate a system which caused
excessive and unpredictable station dwell times.

Moreover a sensible algorithm for seat allocations will try to leave
some groups of seats free till a relatively late stage of the booking
process, so your alleged problem is otherwise manageable anyway.

Eddie