Great Western Coffee Shop

In "normal times", have you ever walked along a carriage looking for an unreserved seat - faced with a sea of labels, red lights or little text messages shouting "don't sit here" at you, even if the seat they are indicating is unoccupied?  That is the intent of the system - to have you leave a seat open for someone who has gone to the trouble to 'leave their towel on the deckchair before breakfast'.

But have you looked back along the carriage later and seen just how many of those reservations have not been taken up - some due to no doubt genuine changes of plans on open tickets, but others because of a booking system which asks which train you want and (almost) forces you to make a reservation, even though you really don't know over a period of a few hour which half-hourly train you'll be on.

I'm not sure how this is working with "reservation only" trains at present - whether a train with (say) 100 places all reserved actually carries 100 people - but I do note that Longleat, even with a 50p booking fee to charity, is finding up to 25% no-shows for a limited resource.

From Somerset Live (https://www.somersetlive.co.uk/whats-on/whats-on-news/longleat-announces-changes-clampdown-no-4333100)

How are "reservation only" trains being enforced?

If you are obliged to book a specific train, the principle of "open" tickets doesn't really exist, so I suspect no-shows are far fewer.

Open tickets were largely purchased by those travelling on business, since this is currently (and likely in the future) much reduced, probably less of an issue?

I / we / perhaps even the experts really don't know how it's going to pan out.

The fare and reservation system had many elements that had grown to be unfit for purpose six months ago, and they have come to be even less appropriate for some situations now.  Into the future ... if unchanged, perhaps they will provide an even less logical model and we'll continue to ask "what is the objective of this fare" and tell people how to get the best legal price for a journey even when the industry does not.

Anytime Melksham to London return for the day £182.00 - purchasable from the TVM at 05:20  on Tuesday. 6 people on the train ... saw a London express leave Chippenham virtually empty a bit later.  Hardly "peak" and logically should be off-peak.  Yet I suspect that traffic is building on Friday lunchtime services London to the West Country ... £93.10 Paddington to Exmouth - half the fare for what must be about twice the distance, and valid back on Sunday afternoon trains which I suspect might be the new peak from Exeter to London.

Don't get Off-Peak 'open' and Anytime 'fully flexible' tickets such as the £6234 Anytime return from London to Manchester mixed up.  The former are/were quite popular, for example Banbury to Wolverhampton return at £26.80 which didn't require any reservations.  However, at the moment if you travel on a valid CrossCountry train of your choice "If you are making a journey with CrossCountry, we strongly advise that you book a place on the train as availability is limited due to social distancing. If you don't book a place you may not be able to travel on your preferred service." 

That isn't rigorously being enforced, but it does mean that you might not be able to get on a train with plenty of seats available unless you have a reservation, which of course isn't usually the case.  So, there's a more pressing need to choose your train, unless of course you travel on non-reservable trains from Wolverhampton changing at Birmingham New Street, Coventry and Leamington Spa - though that would be a somewhat painful journey!