Known before a trip exists
What Has to Go In With Them
People and their luggage are two different constraints and a vehicle can satisfy one without satisfying the other. This is the entry that gets shrugged at when it is asked and remembered at the curb.
- What the desk writes down
- How many pieces, counted as pieces that have to go in rather than as bags a person is carrying. Anything unusual in shape is written in words rather than counted.
- Why no number can be named without it
- Seats and space are separate limits. A vehicle that seats the party comfortably can be unable to take what the party is traveling with, and the operator needs both numbers to answer.
- What happens when it changes
- A piece added before the car is committed is a re-ask. A piece that appears on the day is the commonest cause of trouble at the curb, and it has its own entry in this intake.
Two limits, not one
A vehicle has a seat count and it has a space, and those two numbers do not move together. It is entirely ordinary for a car that seats a party easily to be unable to take what the party is traveling with, particularly on the outbound run when nothing has been unpacked yet.
The operator knows its own vehicles and can answer the question in a second, but only if it is asked. So the desk asks it every time, including when the answer seems obvious.
Why it is a count, and where words take over
Ordinary cases are a count. What matters is the number of things that have to go in.
Anything that is not an ordinary case is written in words instead: a folded chair, an instrument, a boxed item, anything long or rigid. Those are not more luggage, they are a different question, and an operator would rather read one sentence than discover the answer on arrival.
The desk does not judge the answer
If somebody says four pieces, four goes on the record. The desk does not decide that four sounds like a lot for two people, and it does not quietly round it down to make the job easier to place. A number the operator can trust is the whole point of writing it down.
When it changes
Before a car is committed this is a re-ask and costs nothing. On the day it is the situation described in a piece nobody counted, which is filed under the third moment because it can only be true then.
Known before a trip exists, one of three moments in the intake