Sydney’s mainline train fleet consists almost entirely of ‘double-deck’ trains. At each end of a typical carriage, there is a vestibule area at platform level. This is where the doors are located (as well as an accessible seating area). From the vestibule, there are stairs leading to the upper and lower seating decks. The layout of seating in these areas is ‘3+2’ (this means 3 seats on one side of the aisle and 2 seats on the other). See the picture below for reference.
Above: The interior layout of the Waratah train's lower deck '3+2' seating area (Wykymania, 2011)
Have you ever noticed...
If you are a regular commuter on Sydney’s rail network, it’s likely that you’ve observed a curious trend in the way people choose their seat on the train. When the carriage is empty (and the train is expected to get busy), people usually go for the window seats first. After all the window seats are taken, the next ones to go are the aisle seats on the side with 3s. Then, it’s the aisle seats on the side with 2s. The last ones to go are always the seats in the middle of the 3s.
I’ve got a simple theory for why this happens – most people just don’t like sitting next to others they don’t know! This would explain why sitting in the middle of a 3-person seat is the least popular choice of train seat. A person sitting there has to rub shoulders with not 1, but 2 complete strangers. If you catch the train regularly, you can probably visualise what I’m talking about. I’ve made a diagram with these 4 stages below if you need some help. Overall, I’d say it’s quite common to see all the seats occupied except for the middle seats in the sets of 3 (marked orange in the below graphic). It’s not unusual to see this even when the vestibules are considerably crowded with standing passengers.
Above: My theory of the 4 stages of a Sydney Trains carriage filling up
You might have seen in the first picture that the ‘3+2’ seating arrangement leaves a very narrow aisle. It’s barely enough space for two normal-sized adults to squeeze past each other. When the trains are packed and the aisles are filled with standing passengers, this can cause the dwell time at busy stations to blow out to around 90 seconds while people fight their way from the middle of the carriage towards the vestibule. So the observation that the middle seat is often unoccupied leaves us with an interesting dilemma: if it's not often being used, should this 3rd seat be removed altogether to create a wider aisle? On first look, removing the triple seats would (obviously) reduce the overall seated capacity of the train. But would the benefits of a wider aisle offset the loss of seating?
What would a wider aisle be good for? Here are some of my thoughts:
The wide aisle would likely be wide enough for 2 people to stand comfortably side-by-side. This would offer much greater flexibility when multiple passengers are entering or exiting the seating area.
Able-bodied passengers with large bags or other bulky items would have more room to move up and down the aisle, which would reduce demand for the vestibule seating.
Physically larger people won’t need to brush up so closely against seated passengers when walking through the carriage.
Due to all of the above reasons, circulation through the train would improve and this should reduce instances of excessive dwell time at busy stations.
The train would have overall higher capacity. This would be useful for crush-load peak services and special events (e.g. after a sporting fixture at Sydney Olympic Park).
How many seats would it cost?
Let’s run some numbers on a typical Waratah train (also known as the ‘A’ sets). The standard Waratah train has a seated capacity of 894 (including fold-up wheelchair seating areas). This is made up of:
2 x driving trailers (101 seats each)
2 x trailers (110 seats each)
4 x motor carriages (118 seats each)
If all the 3-across seating (except for the very ends of each carriage) was removed and replaced with 2-across seating, the number of seats would add up to 758:
2 x driving trailers (85 seats each)
2 x trailers (94 seats each)
4 x motor carriages (100 seats each)
So, the price of a wider aisle and better circulation would be the loss of 136 seats in the train – about 15% of the current seated capacity.
Wait... we've tried this before!
There was actually a trial (of sorts) done with a couple of Tangara carriages back in 2013. Two different layouts were tested. One had a bench-style transverse seat, while the other had a 2+2 layout. Below is a rather low-quality screenshot from a Seven News bulletin showing the 2+2 layout as trialled. You can clearly see that there is much more space in the aisle for people to move around the train.
Passenger verdict on Tangara "bench-seating" trial (Seven News, 2013)
However, a Sydney Morning Herald article by Jacob Saulwick in 2016 questioned the validity of this experiment as "it was not generally possible to rely upon the data which had been supplied because the methodology use to collect it … had no transparency and was inconsistent". So a decision was made to stick with the current 3+2 seating, and that was that.
In my opinion, the negative public perception regarding the previous trial may have been directed chiefly at the bench-style seating rather than the 2+2 layout. One of the passengers seated in the 2+2 section who was interviewed in the Seven News clip (see the 1:05 mark of the video) specifically mentioned that he thought it was a better layout, and that the 3+2 layout suffered from a lack of space in the aisle.
And I'd also like to add that one of the benefits of creating a wider aisle would be to reduce the dwell time at busy stations. But this only works if every carriage in the train is modified as part of a trial. The 2 modified carriages in the 2013 trial may well have improved passenger circulation in those 2 carriages, but the dwell time would have seen zero change because the other carriages in the train retained their 3+2 layout.
Conclusion:
Is the loss of 15% of seating on our trains a price worth paying for a wider aisle and the greater accessibility it would permit? Personally, I think it's worth it. Obviously, the failed trial in 2013 is easy to point to and say, "we already tried that, it didn't work!". Nonetheless, I think the time is right to try again. My hope is that a new 2+2 seating trial would include the entire train, not just 2 carriages!
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