Seating Rituals

Studies show that people follow the same predictable pattern when choosing where to stand in a lift depending on how many people are in the lift ahead of them. If there is nobody in the lift a passenger will stand at the back directly behind the button board. If a second passenger gets on, he/she will almost always choose to stand at the back in the opposite corner. If a third person enters, he/she will stand in front of the second passenger. And if a fourth passenger enters he/she will stand in front of the first passenger. So, all four corners now being taken, when a fifth passenger enters he/she will take the center. If a sixth or seventh passenger joins we now enter that terrifying phase (especially for Brits) where talking to (in the form of 'scuse me and pardon me) and, God forbid, even touching other passengers comes into play.

A similar, but possibly even more labyrinthine, game of human sudoku is played out by commuters each morning on trains all around the country as they unconsciously make their seating choices. Here is how it unfolds on the Chiltern Line (Note: these observations apply only to the 'Networker' Class of train. AKA...the older ones).

Before we start...the seating plan: on the Networkers there are by the doors and in the mini-cabins at either end of the carriage, a series of double seats on both sides of the aisles which face the backs of the seats in front (doubles). In the central part of the carriage the bulk of the seating consists of double seats facing double seats (quads), and across the aisle, triple seats facing triple seats (sixers).

The accepted (yet unspoken) rule in this daily game of elimination is to choose a position in the carriage which places you in the best available and most desirable seat (window/leg room/no obstructions) which is also the farthest away from anyone else. Decisions are made on the go as static calculations will cause loss of ground (and seat) to your hungry rivals. Once a passenger sits down it's game over as it's very bad form to get up and move again, though this does happen a bit on homeward-bound journeys where trains start full and get emptier stop by stop.

So...here's how it plays out: Two people entering an empty carriage will invariably choose a front facing window seat in a quad or a sixer at opposite ends and opposite sides of the central part of the carriage. If the first of these two is really in the zone, he/she will select the side of the train least likely to be 'greenhoused' by the morning sunlight.

As more people enter they will make the same selection as the first two, soon filling all the remaining prime seats. For passengers joining after all the prime seats are gone, the trade-offs will begin.

Those boarding the train at the next stop will now select aisle seats in the quads and sixers so as to avoid sitting opposite or beside the people in the window seats.

At the following station new passengers face a deeper dilemma; despite only 2 out of 4 places in the quads being taken, and only 2 of the 6 in the sixers, it is now no longer possible to sit in one without being beside or opposite someone. As the last compromise to be made in this game is usually direct contact with another human being, the doubles now start to get popular. The double guarantees only one person beside you (and potential none if the train does not fill to capacity) but the leg room is reduced and they're a bit claustrophobic.

When the first seats in the doubles are gone you have a train still less than half full and yet has no more free seats that aren't beside or opposite another passenger. With distance from others now removed from the selection criteria, the hierarchy of desire shifts back to the original priority list. So now any remaining front facing or aisle or window seats go, rendering the quads full.

With quads full and the sixes now full at their four corners (leaving only the dreaded middle seats free), the remaining seats in the doubles are now quickly gobbled up.

Passengers joining at the next stop are now confronted by a carriage with only middle seats in the sixes reaming. As direct contact with 3 other passengers is now unavoidable (one on each side and one opposite) one must quickly calculate which of the available middle seats offers the best chance at personal comfort. The experienced commuter is quickly scanning for a tiny woman vs a fat man. Someone reading a paperback as opposed to a newspaper. Perceived odors from food or drink and perceived noise from mobiles or headphones come into play in this phase of the game.

This is not quite the end game, though. That comes when there are literally only 2 or 3 seats reaming in the whole carriage. With passengers pouring in from both sets of doors you must now simply dive for any seat you can as you absolutely positively do not ever want to stand.