Experience with 'RT' and on-time performance

[samuelmorris]

After observing that services on one of the two lines I use into london seem to arrive at least 2-3 minutes after they are timetabled almost every day, curiosity got the better of me and I decided to start recording my own RT and 'on-time' performance ratings for my commute into work, whichever route I used. The results are interesting as at the moment they seem a lot worse than the standard expected values (which I have at about 50% for RT and 90% for 'On time') This isn't a rant about punctuality (you get enough of those on customer feedback twitter feeds!) but an interesting observation.

So far I have 18 journeys logged (admittedly not a big sample). A little skewed compared to my normal journey as I had to use the GEML exclusively last week whereas I would normally use c2c most days, but my results are so far thus:

Journeys completed: 18
'RT' for entire length: 0 (0%)
'RT' for section travelled: 3 (17%)
'On time' for entire length: 14 (78%)

Now presumably RT/On time is normally only measured at the final terminus?
I'm interested to know if other people's experiences match this.


For ref, journeys measured are as follows:
Y10823 [1st Oct]
Y10833 [3rd Oct]
Y10868 [30th Sep]
Y11286 [23rd Sep]
Y12660 [25th Sep]
Y14551 [24th Sep]
Y14565 [26th Sep]
Y14593 [23rd & 27th Sep]
Y14619 [24th Sep]
Y14682 [25th Sep]
Y14692 [27th Sep]
W50101 [30th Sep, 1st & 3rd Oct]
W50102 [2nd Oct]
W50104 [2nd Oct]

 

[jnjkerbin]

Looking at my last 1178 journeys (since May 2012), 40.8% were bang right time (doesn't include trains arriving early) while 91.9% were less than 5 minutes late.

 

[samuelmorris]

I have to admit, I haven't excluded trains running early from the 'RT' list, even though I should, but that said, it feels a bit mean to exclude a service from being 'RT' throughout for it being 1 minute early at one of its stops. Interesting point. Over a big enough sample size your results seem roughly what the published statistics show.

 

[jnjkerbin]

I would have included early trains but couldn't work out an excel formula quickly.

 

[The Planner]

Worth remembering that 59 seconds late is right time in TRUST.

 

[455driver]

Are you working on the public timetable times or the working timetable times?

 

[reb0118]

I don't think I have ever had a train bang on time at every point on its journey. The closest I got was from Edinburgh to Aberdeen. With the exception of 30 seconds late at Princes Street Gardens it was right time to Portlethen then 3 mins. early to Aberdeen. The driver came close to getting a bar of chocolate as a reward.

I am a hard taskmaster for timekeeping. I expect my trains to pass the passing times on time too. To be fair most are there or thereabouts.

 

[jnjkerbin]

Are you working on the public timetable times or the working timetable times?

I've been working on public times. Having included early trains as RT and done a bit of recalculating, the RT performance goes up to 76.0% (897/1181) (a lot of my trains arrive early!), with 2.6% of journeys (31) delayed by more than 15 minutes, 1.4% (16) delayed by more than 30 minutes and 0.1% (1) by more than an hour. I've used 5 minutes as being on time as most of the journies are grouped in the London & South East category.

Average delay per journey is about 1m 20s.

 

[reb0118]

Are you working on the public timetable times or the working timetable times?

Yes, this does make a big difference. This can cause a major perception discrepancy for the travelling public. Certain trains are shown as late every day at a certain location. This in theory should not cause major problems as train connections are in fact worked out from the WTT. That said if you have a non rail connection (e.g. with a bus) at an intermediate station with a significant PTT/WTT discrepancy you will not happy if you miss your bus!

 

[The Planner]

I am a hard taskmaster for timekeeping. I expect my trains to pass the passing times on time too. To be fair most are there or thereabouts.

You are never going to be bang on as everything is based on ½ minutes, and even then rounding comes into play.

 

[reb0118]

You are never going to be bang on as everything is based on ½ minutes, and even then rounding comes into play.

Very true, but maybe once it will happen. A lot of variable factors will have to fall into place. E.g. being delayed by the exact amount of time of any allowances (TSR/Pathing/Performance) between the two points where the allowance falls.

I think my bar of chocolate is safe for a while yet.

 

[The Planner]

Only place it could ever happen IMO is on departure from a station otherwise it is pretty remote.

 

[greatkingrat]

Exactly on time throughout

http://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/train/P35606/2013/10/05/advanced

 

[michael769]

Good job!

Give that driver a Bonio.

 

[samuelmorris]

Got one in at the very end of the (working) week:
http://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/train/W50170/2013/10/04/advanced

Went back to do a week prior to when I started and found another, also oddly enough friday evening:
http://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/train/W50264/2013/09/20/advanced

 

[causton]

http://causton.railmiles.org/

If anyone wants to scroll through and see how many times the journey comes up as "On time"...

(Measured against PTT though!)

 

[jnjkerbin]

http://causton.railmiles.org/

If anyone wants to scroll through and see how many times the journey comes up as "On time"...

And thats why I use a spreadsheet

 

[Matt Taylor]

There will always be a discrepancy, it all depends on where the timing point is in relation to the stopping point. Personally i record arrival time as the time that the doors are released as until that point you can't get off. I recently worked a train into Waterloo that was recorded as arriving at 1614 and a quarter but it was over a minute before the doors were released as we had to make an attatchment.

 

[causton]

And thats why I use a spreadsheet

I can use Ctrl+F however and find out that roughly 1 in 7 journeys I make are RT on arrival at their destination!

 

[The Planner]

There will always be a discrepancy, it all depends on where the timing point is in relation to the stopping point. Personally i record arrival time as the time that the doors are released as until that point you can't get off. I recently worked a train into Waterloo that was recorded as arriving at 1614 and a quarter but it was over a minute before the doors were released as we had to make an attatchment.

How can it be recorded as a quarter? TRUST can't do that, it can't do halves either! For the purpose of running times, it is to a stand or from wheels turning.

 

[louis97]

How can it be recorded as a quarter? TRUST can't do that, it can't do halves either! For the purpose of running times, it is to a stand or from wheels turning.

I think he is referring to Realtime Trains, which shows quarter, half and three quarter minutes.

 

[Tom]

And at Waterloo, RTTs offsets are directly derived from the SMART dataset - it just doesn't chop off the seconds (instead it rounds to the lower quarter)