Irish Rail loophole saw free travel pass holders reserving seats on multiple trains each day 

The board of the rail operator was told some customers were booking 'numerous seats for several trains', which was causing difficulties as some services appeared fully booked even when they were not.

Irish Rail had to shut a loophole where pensioners and other free travel pass-holders were reserving seats on multiple trains each day to give themselves flexibility over what service to actually take.

The board of the rail operator was told some customers were booking “numerous seats for several trains”, which was causing difficulties as some services appeared fully booked even when they were not.

A note said these passengers were doing this to “provide themselves options at no cost”, and the sharp practice needed to be curtailed by reducing the number of seats that were available for reservation on each service.

An internal briefing paper said during the covid-19 pandemic, mandatory reservations had been introduced so Irish Rail could limit the number of passengers on board each train to allow for social distancing.

This meant passengers who were not making their bookings online could reserve themselves a “space” on a train at no cost.

The proposal said: “This leads to the possibility of the free seat functionality being abused, as customers may be inclined to book capacity they don’t need to ensure travel.” 

The paper, prepared by Irish Rail’s head of revenue management, said on some services, up to 40% of seats on a train were being reserved at no cost to the passenger.

Phantom reservations

It gave an example of one train last November with a capacity of 290 passengers, where already 138 seats had been booked without the person paying anything – and some of them were likely to be phantom reservations.

However, Irish Rail was worried if it went straight back to pre-covid rules, there was a risk of adverse “customer feedback and resistance”, and that the situation needed to be delicately handled.

The proposal said one possibility would be to offer up to 20% of seats at a reservation cost of €0, but that once this limit was hit, it would be charged at full price, or €2.50 across all ticket types.

The loophole of unpaid reservations had been raised with the National Transport Authority and later with the board of Irish Rail at it meeting in February of this year.

The meeting was told unused bookings were “directly impacting on customer experience”, but that 25% of seats would continue to be allocated as unreserved on each train.

“The current arrangements reinstate [what was] in place before covid restrictions,” said the minutes of the board meeting.