Making loading quicker

[whole diary]

[grahame]

This rang a bell the other day as I watched a senior person struggle onto a late running Voyager at Temple Meads with luggage and blocked the way for others waiting to get on as (s)he tried to secure it in the luggage racks.

The frustration of waiting for someone to put their bag in an overhead locker may soon be over if a trial to get people on planes quicker is successful.

Gatwick says it is working with EasyJet to try out new ways to board passengers at the London airport.

They include boarding people in window seats first, starting at the back, followed by middle then aisle seats.

Gatwick said different boarding methods could reduce the journey from airport gate to seat by about 10%.

Story from the BBC^» (British Broadcasting Corporation - home page)

[Bmblbzzz]

That could (does, it seems) work for planes, where there are limited entrances, everyone has an allocated seat and staff have control over passengers. None of those factors apply to trains, but there must be scope for thinking about luggage racks – ease of access, positioning and number – to make them quicker and easier to load in a way that allows others past. Also doors and their steps.

[stuving]

That could (does, it seems) work for planes, where there are limited entrances, everyone has an allocated seat and staff have control over passengers. None of those factors apply to trains, but there must be scope for thinking about luggage racks – ease of access, positioning and number – to make them quicker and easier to load in a way that allows others past. Also doors and their steps.

...except if they do? There's plenty of trains in the world with all seats reserved, and controlled access to platforms, where baording could be phased. Even with current procedures and gate equipment SNCF^▸ (Societe Nationale des Chemins de fer Francais - French National Railways) could do it where two TGVs^▸ (Train a Grande Vitesse) are coupled but given separate train numbers. For the biggest loading surge, at the start in Paris, you keep everyone waiting on the concourse and call the front train first. Perhaps they already do that...

But in any case I've seen that news item several times before. Airlines think about it every time the subject comes up in a management meeting (and does implementing it have anything to do with Gatwick?) In practice they can't be bothered, or in the case of Easyjet do the opposite and stop allocating seats altogether.

[didcotdean]

The random method with unallocated seating is just about the quickest simple method of filling a plane; there are theoretically quicker methods that require a precise order but are impractical, and share the same issue with the "outside in" method mentioned above that groups of people seated together have to be separated. As soon as you allow family groups etc in the same row to board together the advantage is eroded significantly.

One improvement with a plane is to have two entrances open rather than just the front. A simple lesson from a train maybe.

[stuving]

The (Gatwick-related) congestion issue I come across most often is on paltform 4 at Reading, when a train arrives from Gatwick. Since that train returns to Gatwick, a lot of its passengers have big luggage, and it's scheduled departure is in less than 15 minutes. So all those waiting passengers obviously have to board within seconds or ... something evil, I'm not sure what, will happen. Maybe people just can't visualise how few they are relative to the capacity of the train.

But anyway, P4 isn't that wide and all those leaving have to squeeze past the huddles of boarders-in-waiting all gazing intently at the doors and ignoring whatever happens behind them. The worst crush is at the last doorway, since it's the first from the platform entrance and collects all those who won't go further unless that queue looks huge. Add a ramp or two, with a station staffer who wants to use it to load or unload a wheelchair ASAP so they can dash off to the next booking...

[Bmblbzzz]

Sure, you can have compulsory reservations on trains, but you can't dictate the order in which people board unless you have sufficient staff on the platform, if not at every door, and sufficient screens or other method of communicating with waiting passengers.

One improvement with a plane is to have two entrances open rather than just the front. A simple lesson from a train maybe.

Every Easy/Ryan/Whizz flight I've been on has done this.

[Adrian]

When the Chinese first introduced their high speed trains, they had a system of passengers getting off at the front door on each carriage and getting on at the rear door.  However, I don't think that system continued for very long - so presumably it was either not as efficient as expected, or unpopular with passengers.

[eightonedee]

The (Gatwick-related) congestion issue I come across most often is on paltform 4 at Reading, when a train arrives from Gatwick. Since that train returns to Gatwick, a lot of its passengers have big luggage, and it's scheduled departure is in less than 15 minutes. So all those waiting passengers obviously have to board within seconds or ... something evil, I'm not sure what, will happen. Maybe people just can't visualise how few they are relative to the capacity of the train.

But anyway, P4 isn't that wide and all those leaving have to squeeze past the huddles of boarders-in-waiting all gazing intently at the doors and ignoring whatever happens behind them. The worst crush is at the last doorway, since it's the first from the platform entrance and collects all those who won't go further unless that queue looks huge. Add a ramp or two, with a station staffer who wants to use it to load or unload a wheelchair ASAP so they can dash off to the next booking...

Absolutely Stuving, as I've posted on this forum, platform 4 is inadequate as a departure place for Gatwick passengers. It's made worse by the fact that often when the scenario you've outlined is playing out, there's a nice wide platform 7A nearby, empty of trains because a reversing Cross Country train is parked up at 7B,  available for a much more pleasant tourist passenger experience.