A few days ago, on an Overground train from Highbury to Kensington, I had a shocking experience – I failed to get a seat.
If you know how crowded the Overground can get at rush hour, this might not sound all that surprising. Believe me, though, I was good at getting seats. I’d learnt the ropes and tend to overanalyse behaviour on public transport, so it had never been a problem. But I’d been away for a few weeks and my seat-acquisition skills had gone beyond rusty – they were useless.
Overground trains never look like this during rush hour
So, as a form of therapy, I decided to try to work out the “rules” of the seat-acquisition game on the Overground. Here they are, in illustrated form.
The theatre of conflict
The Overground train arrives and dazed commuters spill on to the platform. Everyone stands aside to let them pass. But this act of kindness is the exception, not the rule. Once you all step into the carriage the competition for seats begins. You are now in a theatre of war.
The strategic theatre where war is waged
Know your enemies
You share the strategic space of the carriage with many other players. Here’s a brief rundown of who they are:
- Aspirants – People standing who want to sit down. This includes you.
- Civilians – People standing who don’t want to sit down, maybe because they’re not going far.
- Occupants – People currently sitting down. Don’t be fooled though: they’re still in the game.
In a typical combat situation (or “rush hour”) here’s how the players might be distributed across the theatre of conflict.
Stepping into the arena
Civilians linger near the doors while Aspirants occupy strategic positions nearer the seats. I’ll come to these later. First, here’s an ill-advised opening move that could undermine your whole campaign.
Don’t take the wrong turn
When you first get on the train you might turn towards the divide in between two carriages. Don’t! This is an unforgiving quagmire. Much like Napoleon in Russia, your campaign will come to a crushing, drawn-out end if you venture here.
There are few seats here so chances of victory are slim. On one side you’re bordered by the crowded doorway, on the other you’re hemmed in by the barren, seatless inter-carriage zone, so withdrawing to another region could prove impossible. Stay well away.
Get into position – but act casual
Get yourself into the long aisle, where the seats are most abundant. This is the fertile valley of the Overground carriage.
But don’t push past people to get here. Try to act casual, like you don’t really want to sit down anyway. As Sun Tzu said, “All warfare is based on deception“. Seem too predatory and you’ll raise the suspicions of other Aspirants, losing the element of surprise. Let them think you’re a disinterested Civilian.
Find a good place to lurk, but don't appear too keen
A well-chosen spot gives you a tactical advantage over three, maybe four, seats. Take care when picking your spot, and check for things like:
- Have the seat occupants only just sat down? If so it might be a while before they get off.
- Can you guess where their occupants might be heading to? For example you can spot BBC people easily (branded building passes, reading Ariel, cooking up ways to irritate the Daily Mail). They’re going all the way to Shepherd’s Bush, so find a new spot.
- Who else lurks in the same area? If there are pregnant or infirm Aspirants you should move elsewhere – unless, of course, the Overground has completely erased your sense of ethics.
- Are the Occupants checking the station name or folding up their newspaper? If so then they may be close to departure.
Having found your spot you’re now engaged in a tactical skirmish with other nearby Aspirants. This will play out in a smaller and more manageable space.
What it all comes down to - hold your position to capture the flag
Things might seem straightforward from now on – someone will get up, you’ll sit down, mission accomplished. But it’s still too soon for complacency.
Entering end game
This might be the end of your campaign if earlier strategic decisions were sound and luck’s on your side. Other passengers, however, play by their own rules, so there could be some surprises ahead. Here are some end-game scenarios and how to handle them.
1. The Occupant’s Deceit
The Occupant of a contested seat puts their book away. Suddenly you’re interested in nothing else, watching them like a hawk to be sure you’ll bag their seat.
Don't be misled by someone putting their book in their bag. They're not leaving the train - they're just messing with your mind
Distracted, you fail to notice a seat that is legitimately yours becoming empty. An opportunistic Aspirant sneaks in to grab it. Then, to compound your error, the Occupant you’re eyeballing just sits there looking like butter wouldn’t melt in their mouth and you’re stuck on your feet. You lose this round.
Don’t let any single Occupant claim your undivided attention – sometimes people put their books away because they’re bored of reading, they want to sleep, or they simply enjoy messing with your mind.
2. 360-degree Combat
It’s easy to get a kind of tunnel vision when staring at the same three or four people for so long. You can easily forget that there’s a whole other row of seats immediately behind you.
Overground veterans develop 360-degree perception of their surroundings, much like chameleons
So when a seat behind you becomes vacant, will you be quick to notice? If not then it’s a lost opportunity. The trick here is to somehow know what’s going on behind you without overtly gawping – remember your Sun Tzu. As always on the Overground, subtlety is essential.
Edit: A few people commenting after this was posted mentioned that they look in the window to see the reflections of people behind them. I didn’t know this trick. No wonder I’ve been spending so much time standing
3. The Art of Misdirection
Imagine two Aspirants have equal claim to a seat and the Occupant gets up. Who wins? Sometimes it’s about who acts smartest, not who acts first.
The Occupant's direction of departure can be influenced to your advantage
The departing Occupant decides which door to head towards. Sometimes it’s the nearest door, but on a crowded Overground carriage they’ll usually choose the path of least resistance.
Exploit this to your advantage by shifting your position to create an easy route for them. As they move past, do that “orbiting” kind of motion that people do in busy spaces, spinning around them so you switch places while gracefully intruding between the seat and your thwarted enemy.
Get it right and you’ll effortlessly drop into their seat while looking like a helpful and polite person, and not the scheming and conniving seat-fancier you are.
A final note – and a confession
This guide should help you achieve comfort on the Overground, but I must confess that my last few journeys have been spent standing up, so maybe I’m not the best teacher. Maybe I’ve lost the hunger, the brutality, the sharpness of wit that’s needed to compete on these trains. The truth is that I don’t need that hunger any more – my company is moving next weekend, to an office 20 minutes’ walk from my house. I’m pretty happy about this.
So while my days as an Overground commuter are over, yours may be only just beginning. If so, be careful out there – and don’t let the war for seats escalate any more than it has to. Enough blood has been shed.
Edit: There’s now a follow-up to this post, about the Geneva Convention of public transport – the sacrosanct, unspoken rules that we all must obey
I sterling piece of strategic thinking.
Do you remember the old Silverlink trains? Back in those days the main strategy was ‘how do I get OFF this train’, nevermind finding a seat.
If you can remember the old Silverlink trains, jump over to FCC and get a service to Moorgate – you may even get one of the old trains if you’re (un)lucky. Sure, there will be seats tucked in the corners, but if you grab one, you’re on the train until it terminates…
Another tactic I employ is this: always offer the recently-vacated seat to the aspirant. This means that a) you remove other aspirants from the competition by confirming that there are only two real contenders for the seat. And b) more often than not, your casual ‘I-don’t-really-need-this-seat’ manner will throw off your main rival and make them feel greedy if they take it, so they’ll gesture to you to sit down.
Bingo.
Then get off the tube at the next stop, head to the life shop and buy one.
How terribly sad. Gentlemen don’t sit when there are women and/or elderly standing. That is all.
This is the best thing I have ever seen.
I had to do a quick mental check to see if I had written this myself (especially at the mention of a rush hour a few days ago between Highbury and Kensington, my two stops, where I also didn’t get a seat – it was traumatic).
This is so wonderful. I might even let you take the available seat next time we’re competing on this overground route :)
The even distribution of seating in these new trains has removed one of my favourite seat obtaining strategies from the Silverlink days. There used to be a row of 3 seats adjacent to the carriage entrance, opposite a row of two. This meant you could stand in a space that was close to the doors, had first choice of 5 possible seats, and was sheltered from the rip tide effect of having to move down the carriage. There were only two other plausible strategies, standing by the entrance or getting gradually forced to the back of the carriage where you may have found a seat, but would have spent the remainder of the journey suffering from acute exit anxiety as the number of passengers between you and the exit piled ever higher.
Simply superb. Very thorough! Other types of rolling stock certainly have different techniques, as we Met users are realising now that the A stock is being replaced by the S, which is similar to the Overground layout but with some nuanced differences.
I should point out though that in this age of equality, women have no more right to a seat than men, and if there’s no ‘baby on board’ badge, you must assume obesity. The age of chivalry died some time just after Harriet Harman joined the government…
Despite being a superb account of life on the Overground, and stunning tactical advice, you’ve failed to identify one particular type of miscreant: the people who sit down for one stop
Their behaviour is unpredictable at best
How you can prepare for these people I just don’t know. They dive in and dive out like thieves in the night, constantly leaving me left to rue my missed opportunity.
The slags.
Brilliant
I think the diagrams and tactics for ‘Getting served at a busy Pub Bar’ would be quite similar…
certainly, the orbiting motion required to maneuver into a bar-side position is very similar to step 3 of the end game – with the added consideration of allowing enough space for people with hands full of drinks to get out, without inadvertently allowing some other punter to take their space
Though of course, getting served is a two stage process, where the final play involves actually attracting the bartender’s attention.
@JK, Of course you must give up your seat for anyone infirm but why women? You may not have received the memo but nowadays we practice gender equality which means that female Aspirants have just as much right to feel the wrath of my seating tactics as their male counterparts.
A valiant attempt at trolling, JK, but could try harder.
Interesting but over complicated. The person is clearly a noob because they are taking the overground to do a trip from Highbury to Kensington.
I play a higher stakes game because I do this every day. I am aiming for a corner seat and a newspaper. I am usually successful in this aim.
Since you are on a tactical one I will quote Sun Tsu:
“To fight and conquer in all your battles is not supreme excellence; supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy’s resistance without fighting.”
I consistently get that corner seat by bypassing the seat battle described above with correct deployment.
Get on at the right stop. If I was doing your journey I would get on at Canonbury and get a seat and be comfy in it while you all crowd in at Highbury.
Get on at the right carriage. 2nd from furthest away is normally the best for tubes because it avoids the slightly increased furthest away from carriage traffic.
If you want the corner seat, aim for the seat nearest to it, then slide down when it is empty.
On many occasions I have been known to casually put my book away to elicit exactly the kind of response shown in Fig.1
I’m an ar*ehole
To monitor the row of seat behind you, you should use the reflection in the windows. This is the preferred strategy as to the people in the seats in front of you, it looks like you are just avoiding awkward eye contact.
It is also a great way to look at woman without seeming like the creep you really are.
I’ve always taken the strategy, aim for something obtainable, during rush hour.
Aim for the area near the car end. There are only four seats here but there is also something to lean on, while you wait for the precious seats. And never as much of a crush, owing to the lack of hand rail.
There is no point getting tired out waiting!
“Victory is the main object of war. If this is long delayed, weapons are blunted and morale depressed.” – Sun Tzu
Paddington to Moorgate, Circle / Hammersmith and City Line
Dear men,
In between our bouts of preening and pouting at our reflection in the windows, we do notice you staring at us and we still think you’re creeps. The same goes for inter-carriage staring, that glass is not one-way…
Yours,
Women
This is a subtle and tactical form of art. Techniques like this should be handed down and not published on the internet
This is brilliant – didn’t realise other people put so much thought into this too :), I thought I was just a bit OCD. Well, except for this one bloke who’s like my early morning nemesis at Lee station. Good stuff.
There are a couple more tricks:
If you usually get the same train at the same time, you may start to notice a few of the same people. I haven’t noticed many, but there are a couple of people who I’ve started to recognise and remember where they get off.
Much more fun though is when you do get a seat, and spot the same people standing very near to you so they can grab your seat when you get up. These people have probably started to recognise you too, and will stand as close to you as possible. (Why else would the same person always stand near me?) The solution here is a bit extreme, but you can totally confuse them if you have more than one stop where you can get off. Instead of getting off at your normal stop, ride to a later stop. You only need to do this once to avoid being crowded by the same people over and over again even when the rest of the train is empty.
Its always reassuring when you find out that other people are as calculating and ruthless in the pursuit of the prize as you are.
This is all well and good but none of you have managed to characterise much less solve the problem of the most nefarious denizen of the undergound, The Seat Hopper.
The Seat Hopper will jump seat at the first opportunity to be closer to a nearby, seated cohort (typically without telegraphing the pairing for fear of contravening the tube’s no-talking rule). In doing so, they believe that being an existing seat owner grants them carte blanche to claim any other free seat in the vicinity, even one already claimed by an aspirant. This in turn frees a seat under the juristdiction of another Aspirant, dashing your carefully laid plans of seat annexation.
Any ideas how to combat these snakes in the grass?
In a situation with relatively few aspirants (off-peak) then they often crowd near the door. In this case (and this case only) then the inter-carriage gap is the best place to stand. You are clearly nearest to the empty seat in two half-carriages. There are likely two or three people in the door area and those people can lay claim to only half a carriage each. This is my best strategy in a less-crowded situation — by subsequent turning and making firm eye contact with aspirants in the two adjacent door areas you can clearly establish dominion over “your” half carriages and by careful surveillance and an early turn and move you can get slightly more than half by being “obviously closer” to someone about to get off.
Well I’m usually wondering if someone else needs a seat more than I do to be getting smug about getting a seat. I know this is in semi-jest but the battle for seats and selfish pushy passengers are one of the reason I try to walk everywhere.
Just please, please tell me you’re not one of these awful creatures who get on trains whilst people are still getting off
Brilliant. However, I think the battle really begins much earlier than this. I’d love to see your tactics for actually getting on the bloody train in the first place. We are already running through our battle plan in our minds about how to take your position on the platform where we believe the doors will be, and how to “hold, hold, hold” as William Wallace said, making sure nobody blocks you. You also need to play that, politely let people off the train and time your dash onto the train perfectly. Too soon and you’re an obnoxious moron, too late , like stalling at the green lights in and F1 race, and you’re destined to be a desperate aspiring occupant.
“The Overground train arrives and dazed commuters spill on to the platform. Everyone stands aside to let them pass. But this act of kindness is the exception, not the rule.”
It is actually a bye-law offence not letting people off the train before getting on yourself.
Top tactical tip for getting on the train in the first place are to stand at the very side of the door, rather than in the middle.. the middle alwas attracts the longest queue and also is forced to stand aside when people exit.. standing at the very corner of the door means you can nip in like a nuala the lioness queen while everyone else is distracted by the proverbial buffalo stampede of people exiting.. 12 months of overland warfare from homerton taught me much..
The trick I usually pull on the London Bridge to Brighton train (at East Croydon) is to act as if I’m getting off the train… look determined to get off, focus ont he door, not the seat. Other Aspirants don’t see you as a threat.
And then … *BAM* … you sit in the chair your co-aspirant was going to take after he’d let you walk past to get off.
this is seriously brilliant. it feels like you’re inside my head while i’m on the tube in a way i’ve never been able to articulate. can you work on a strategy for avoiding tourists from ‘the continent’ on oxford street next???
@Women of London’s public transport.
Dear Women,
Some of us are men are gay and we’re likely staring at your atrocious split ends, clown make-up or dress sense of a 5 year old who’s been raiding Mummy’s dressing up box again.
Smooches,
Gay Men
“Gentlemen don’t sit when there are women and/or elderly standing. That is all.”
Gentlemen don’t treat women like little china dolls, and instead recognise that the birth of the women’s movement means that women have equal rights and equal cause to suffer standing up from West Brompton to Highbury and Islington.
I will always stand up for:
The elderly
The disabled
Those who are pregnant
People who look exhausted
Anyone else, unless there is a really good reason, can stand.
there were times I was left standing at Stratford station, as my aggressive husband pushed his way onto a commuter train, leaving me ‘the wife’ left standing. He always said I could fight my own battles. Sure did, I held the car keys so he would be waiting further East Essex :P
Brilliant. I’ve fallen for the The Occupant’s Deceit far too many times. Could you post a follow up on strategies for the #29 bendy bus?
I find the best place is to stand near to the corner of the door.
People will need to get past you to get off, and this impossible in your blocking the door. So, you have to tell them to move a little so you can move in to their area, which gives them room to move into your area by the door so they can exit. Keep eye contact with the occupant at all times in the movement process, avoid any with aspirants as they will figure out your movements. You will then be stood near to the now empty seat.
Be careful not to let other aspirants get involved in the ‘shuffle’, at most it should be used as a distraction to other aspirants while they have to think where everyone else is moving to. If need be, make them move further away by asking the other aspirant to move, or else they may move in to the occupants space and you failed.
Sometimes a circular shuffle is required, it’s like moving through a rotating door, face the occupant, move in a circle in tandem, and boom you have the seat next to you. Great for blokes if it is a cute lady, you can get close to them, and sometimes you get a cute smile from them. Best not doing the circular shuffle on a hot summer’s day with smelly carrier bag men with long beards.
I do this every day, subconsciously, on the Northern Line. But I find the best way to monitor both sides of seats is to stand looking either backwards or forwards (which you choose will depend on the occupants of the seats and whether there appears to be a more likely free seat coming up soon – I look towards that). Then if one surprisingly does come up just behind you, you can always try the ‘slides effortlessly bum-first into the seat manouevre’. It’s a classic.
I get on the Piccadilly line at Southgate and travel all the way to Hammersmith every day. Getting a seat is not normally an issue but on the rare occasion that it is (such as this morning), my usual tactic is to stand in the centre of the seating sections and take my first opportunity at one of the three passenger departure points – Finsbury Park, Kings Cross or Holborn. If that all fails, meh, I sit down all day at work anyway.
I take to wearing dark glasses and carry a white stick. The trick is NOT to make an obvious move for the seat until ushered by a gentle hand leading me to a seat vacated by an unlucky sod due to my poor eyesight. Of course you run the risk of being ‘outed’ as soon as you pick up a newspaper by mistake and begin to read it (even if it is upside-down)
With regard to giving up a prized seat I say that if you travel on a train during rushhour you’re fair game, pregnant women and the blind are the only exception to the rule.
I often use The Art of Misdirection when waiting to buy beers at the bar. Ensure that the person currently being served leaves you the opportune space and block out your competition.
Lewes to London Victoria – elbows and ruthlessness are all. Nice liberal people live in Lewes, which means they reach depths of viciousness unknown in London. Fight.
There are a few things missing here:
1. Learn where the train doors will be when the train arrives. Make sure you are there exactly! one step to the left or right will put you behind someone else.
If you end up at the join between 2 carriages, its game over and everyone else will shower you with shame.
2. Learn which doors have the least number of people pouring out of them. by entering a less popular door, you can follow the crowd who are leaving and steal the last empty seat before the battle even starts. (infiltrate and conquer method)
3. A trick i often use on the underground is to get the un-popular train and switch.
example: I’m at Temple, and want to get to whitechapel… 1 minute before the train that goes there directly, there is a train that only goes as far as Tower Hill. I get on that, which usually has quite a few empty seats. Then I get off one stop BEFORE tower hill – if i stay on, it pulls onto a terminating platform (game over). I simply step off and wait 1 minute for the train that i really wanted. Tower hill is a busy interchange, so i then employ my infiltrate and conquer method to claim my seat.
You’re overanalyzing indeed…
Thanks for the fun read, though!
Excellent. I’m no longer a London occupant but I executed many of these strategies on the rube during my time there.
It rather goes against the etiquette of ‘dont talk/no eyecontact’ but smiling at a person sitting sometimes resulted in then directly asking if I’d like a seat as they left’ Bingo
And I’m just going to say it, I’m a woman and if a guy offers me the seat when two of us battle for it then I’m going to take it. The tube has different rules, if you’re offering away your seat then prepare for the concequences.
I’ve now moved to a new city and an currently developing a new transport based strategy.
Happy commuting all
It’s pretentious cobblers like this that makes the rest of the UK hate folk who live in London. Stop f**king moaning, idiot.
I recognise many of these strategies, and find that this seat-mating dance more amusing than angry birds for delaying boredom on a train.
Re waiting for people to get off – during my first year in London, early one Friday morning on the central line, a huge Kiwi was obviously feeling the effects of the night before during morning rush hour. He stood to leave the tube but as it was just him getting off, the dirty rotten City folk surged forward, only to have him vomit over the first two rows of suits. It was absolutely priceless, and my money is on every single person who witnessed that never pushing forward ever again!
On @2. 360-degree Combat:
“The trick here is to somehow know what’s going on behind you without overtly gawping”…
…THE TRICK is to utilise the internal reflection from the carriage window you are facing.
Using this method, you can keep one eye on the Occupants and Aspirants within your immediate field of vision – and the other eye on those taking up strategic positions to the rear.
Don’t forget that someone with a bike or a mum with pushchair screws it all up due to taking up a lot more space than a normal passenger.
I travel often with a folding bicycle and recall one night some 20 years ago when, on the third attempt I managed to board a train from Moorgate at Finsbury Park, and managed this only by placing the folded bike just inside the doors, against the draught screen and standing on top of it to wedge myself against the ceiling. On less crowded trains I have been known to use the bike as a seat, as the main tube of a typical small wheeled folding bike is at just the right height to do this.
Another good maxim for all travel, and handy for those bank holiday trips by any form of public transport is to always buy luggage you can sit on comfortably. This can be a valuable alternative strategy to rising above the battle for a seat and falling foul of the dreadful emerging discovery that the seat you have so easily captured was actually not being used for a reason (that damp feeling or the way you start sliding forward and downwards because the stop bumpers on the seat squab are bent or broken, and it slopes like the main street in Clovelly when your weight hits it.
I mus confess however to being a real creep as a kid, when I was for a while attending Great Ormond Street for eye treatment and making regular trips on the Piccadilly Line to Holborn, and positively seeking ladies to offer my seat to. The residual effect of this is that I have spent years practising to be a gentleman, reading all the right books – like Emily Post – but of course facing the conundrum that a gentleman never asks whether he has been behaving like a gentleman
Joel Lothian – of somewhere outside of London, unless you live in the mighty capital, you won’t understand. i’m sure there are plently of seats on your steam train. this is a great blog.