Rules of the seat-acquisition game on the Overground

http://www.brelson.com/2011/10/sit-down-on-overground-prepare-for-war/

by matant • 14 years ago

68 18 14 years ago

brelson.com

StavrosK2• 14 years ago

That was a good read, but I don't think it's relevant to HN. Therefore, I must not upvote.

matthewowen• 14 years ago

http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

"On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity."

This post is all about analysing the dynamics of a situation and finding the optimal behaviour within that situation. That seems highly relevant to this community.

StavrosK2• 14 years ago

I guess you are correct. I much prefer it over endless discussions about whether entrepreneurs are only the people who raise VC money or not. I'll upvote it.

cfq• 14 years ago

This is why we can't have nice things.

Not only talking about his subpar game (he didn't even know he could check windows), he introduced more players into the secret society of sit-down artists.

Pathetic.

h2s• 14 years ago

Sounds like quite a different set of tactics from to the cross-country theatre of war.

There is a whole other type of player on the x-country trains: the seat-reserver. These people allocate themselves an assigned seat number for their journey when they buy their tickets. This is a completely free-of-charge option available to all users of the UK rail network, but only a select few are ruthless enough to go through with it and wield those little cards against their fellow man.

Some of the saddest, most unnecessary arguments I've ever witnessed on public transport involved seat-reservers. On one journey, my girlfriend was sat next to a stranger, and with me having failed to find a seat I was stood nearby. A seat-reserver showed up and demanded the seat of the woman next to my girlfriend. This woman was somewhat old and did not want to give up her seat. An argument broke out (a polite British white middle-class argument, mind you), and my girlfriend decided that she would give up her seat before shit started getting real.

In the meantime, the conductor had been summoned. By the time he arrived, these two women who had just been arguing were now sitting uncomfortably close to one another and attempting to mend the fence. Things had begun to calm back down, but the ensuing discussion with the conductor stirred everything right back up. It transpired that the seat-reserver's ticket had entitled her to my girlfriend's seat all along, and the older lady next to her needn't have worried. The two people made an awkward show of offering to swap seats with each other and declining.

The stakes on the cross-country battlefield are high. Fuck it up, and you're jammed against the toilet doors nose-to-nose with three strangers for the next several hours. It's no wonder some people feel tempted to reserve seats, but I've always felt quite strongly that able-bodied people asking other able-bodied people to move based on the authority of a small piece of card is a bit pathetic. Don't reserve yourself a seat unless you have a legitimate need to sit down.

blibble• 14 years ago

with some ticket types (e.g. advances) the reservations are compulsory and technically you have to sit in your reserved seat!

alexkus• 14 years ago

Depends who you buy through, some of the websites (such as thetrainline.com) automatically request seat reservations even if you don't ask for them (and even if the service isn't going to provide them!) My seat reservation for my weekend train journey, London to Dorset on SW Trains, had no specific coach/seat assignemnt (it just had "Coach * Seat *" ) as the train didn't have any reservations on it.

I buy all of my tickets via eastcoast.co.uk (or wherever gner.co.uk now redirects to), regardless of destination or intended train line, because they are one of the few that still post them to you for free whilst others (such as thetrainline.com) charge for postage.

MindTwister• 14 years ago

I prefer to reserve a seat when traveling cross country, who wants to stand up in a train for 3+ hrs when I can sit down and read a book.

In Denmark when I travel with my dog I'm actually required to reserve a seat for him and myself... making it even more awkward since I have now reserved a seat for a dog who isn't allowed to sit on it.

After a few times allowing people to sit on my dogs seat I now politely decline, its no fun for or either passenger or dog to try and share the same leg space.

CJefferson• 14 years ago

I have the exact opposite point of view. If you do not reserve a seat, then expect to stand.

I reserve seats because I often make 6-8 hour train journeys and want a seat with my wife the whole way. I bother to organise a booking and get annoyed when people won't move out of it.

thisone• 14 years ago

maybe it's being up in the northeast, on trains that aren't standing room only past the first stop, but I generally see people respect the seat reservations. I've only seen a "that's my seat" discussion (not argument) maybe twice in the past three years.

My only complaint is people who think their ticket reserves a second seat for their jacket.

Oh, and the stag/hen dos in coming into Newcastle on Fridays, damn they can stink up a train.

nicholassmith2• 14 years ago

Stag/hen do's coming into Newcastle and the school holidays are a nightmare for rail commuting, invariably leading to stress and headaches all round.

neonshot• 14 years ago

Hard to describe how much i enjoyed this.

vytasgd• 14 years ago

+1. Reminds me of Urinal Game Theory:

http://people.scs.carleton.ca/~kranakis/Papers/urinal.pdf

NB: Haven't actually read that paper, only the abstract, I've just discussed the concept in a class...I think I might read it later today!

dhugiaskmak• 14 years ago

I was asked a question on this topic when I was interviewing to be an intern at Microsoft over a decade ago. To this day it is the only interesting interview question I have ever been asked.

johnthealy3• 14 years ago

In a way, I'm happy I'm not the only one who has thought about this situation.

I do this every time I'm on an outbound 7 train in New York. The train runs first through a hipster/young area, then a number of distinct ethnic neighborhoods, and finally ends in Flushing (the city's second Chinatown). Needless to say, strategically standing next to certain people in seats is the way to go.

3amOpsGuy• 14 years ago

Saw a young guy get on the DLR at bank with a limp. There was a bit of commotion as he excused himself past people and asked someone to shift out the disabled seats.

All the time I'm thinking 'typical Londoners, they could have made that so much easier for that poor guy if they just held back for 2 seconds'

He got off at Canary Wharf minus the limp! I laughed for about an hour.

cturner• 14 years ago

I've seen people act like this, and kind of understand it, but it's a high investment for a very low payoff. It reminds me of people who fight for position by lane changing in cities with big commutes.

Or being determined to get off the plane a bit earlier of being aggressive at baggage collection. The petty gains don't begin to compensate for the energy loss, and the effect on your personality.

Over multiple rounds of play it's highly unstrategic. The only way to win is to identify losing games, and avoid playing them. I have built a habit where I always stand unless the carriage is practically empty, and then I never have to interact with the situation.

Generally English commuters are a respectful bunch: reserved, quiet, they let people off the train before trying to get on, there are still plenty of men (who want seats) who ignore it if ladies are standing. Celebrate it. It's nice not to live in Italy.

nicholassmith2• 14 years ago

The interesting thing is this can actually be reapplied to something even more important than getting a seat on the tube, pub queues.

Pub queues have similar social dynamics, as the queue is a lie and it works much the same way (unless the bar staff are very, very good at tracking punters) as the seat-acquision game. You're looking for the specific formations of people who've ordered or are just ordering, where the densest clusters are and so on, but you are not alone. There's another thirsty, strategy minded drinker taking the same tactics, game on.

Rules of the seat-acquisition game on the Overground

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