"Fewer than 70% of trains on time"

[Skymonster]

I have seen numerous passengers complaining on twitter that their train is always 2 or 3 mins late and the driver never apologises but what can you say? 'Sorry we are late, this is due to waiting or people getting on off?!'

Bloody inconvenient these passengers :roll: I'm sure the railway would work much better if there weren't any of those pesky passengers around!

Stupid of the railway to not allow for them in large numbers - and not everyone is either agile enough or familiar enough to leap on and off within a few seconds.
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So my stoppers waits a minute or 2 every time it needs to.

The 2Fxx usually ends up catching the 2Oxx at New Malden or Raynes Park anyway and so runs under cautions to Wimbledon, by waiting that minute or 2 at Weybridge means I can run into Wimbledon on greens at line-speed and leave on time, no delay is recorded and no other trains effected but a lot of happy passengers that probably dont even realise we held the train for them in the first place and just think they were lucky.

whilst that may be laudable, punctuality isn't just about what time the train arrives at its final destination - or it shouldn't be. If a train arrives at an intermediate station late, then that should be marked down aS late against a TOCs overall performance even if the train subsequently catches up time and it arrives at its final destination on time. Every station is likely to be the destination for some passengers, so each station arrival should be judged for performance. It's no consolation to a passenger if their train arrives at their destination (which isn't the final destination of the train) late and then catches up time further on - the passenger was still late and thus the train should be marked down as late.

Andy

 

[hairyhandedfool]

....Pretty much the same way its done now with estimates of how many passengers missed connections and how late they would be added in, I reckon the figures would be shocking which is why it isnt done....

You would have hard facts based on 'estimates'???? I think you could find a job in Government with that sort of talk!

The only way you are going to get 'passenger delay' figures is with something like a smart card, but even then it would be very much affected by the time the passenger expects to arrive. For example, they might plan to miss a train in order to buy food on a long journey, or meet a friend, or go to the loo (my ex never used toilets on trains), and this may or may not make for a longer journey.

Would you go so far as to explain how catching a previous late running train could affect the figures? Could these 'passenger delay' figures explain to joe public how it is possible for someone to arrive at their destination earlier than expected without actually running a train early? Or would you have those estimates excluded to keep things fair and above board? (we are talking about lateness after all)

 

[Poggs]

whilst that may be laudable, punctuality isn't just about what time the train arrives at its final destination - or it shouldn't be. If a train arrives at an intermediate station late, then that should be marked down aS late against a TOCs overall performance even if the train subsequently catches up time and it arrives at its final destination on time. Every station is likely to be the destination for some passengers, so each station arrival should be judged for performance. It's no consolation to a passenger if their train arrives at their destination (which isn't the final destination of the train) late and then catches up time further on - the passenger was still late and thus the train should be marked down as late.

That's a very nice idea, but how do you propose anyone improves on punctuality? Run fewer trains and have them wait for two minutes at each stop? Or do you make sure trains depart on time no matter what, even if it means leaving people behind or allowing them to be over-carried because they didn't board or alight on time?

 

[WelshBluebird]

I have seen numerous passengers complaining on twitter that their train is always 2 or 3 mins late and the driver never apologises but what can you say? 'Sorry we are late, this is due to waiting or people getting on off?!'

Well maybe not the last bit, but I don't see why a quick "sorry we are slightly late" announcement can't be made.

Certainly dosnt help that most timetables allow the same amount of station dwelling time in the peak as they do off peak.

Then surely that is something that has to be looked at and not just dismissed as "passengers causing the problems".

I don't think anyone should ever leave less than 5 mins for a connection as I think it now needs to be accepted that most services will loose a minute or 2 for no particular reason. All it takes is heavy passenger flow, dodgy traction motor affecting acceleration, weak brakes, slightly slippy rails slowing acceleration, short speed restriction, pass com activation etc.

But thats hardly the passengers fault though.
I had a guard accusing me of being stupid a while back because I had an 8 minute connection. Sorry for the fact that is what your own website suggests.
But I agree less than 5 minutes is pushing it to say the least.

I was moaned at a few weeks ago as the kings Lynn train I worked to Cambridge was 3 mins late in as i was slowed at Hitchin by a late running up east coast so several people missed the Norwich 'connection'. It was due to leave 2 mins after I was due to arrive-I would never plan a journey with a 2 min connection!

As I said above, anything under 5 minutes is a bit dodgy.
For connections under 5 minutes I take the view that if I make it then that is a bonus as I would plan on the next one.
But then again, sometimes connections are useless on some lines that have lower frequencies so you can't blame people for trying to make tight connections when otherwise they would be waiting an hour or more.

 

[A-driver]

I personally won't apologise for late running unless we are over 5 mins or have sat somewhere at a red signal for ages. Otherwise it becomes meaningless to apologise for natural lost time as I have explained in previous posts.

In the rush hour most London commuter lines are quite simply over capacity and so it's not possible to run to time. On the southern region over 120% of the track is used in the peaks and so that means more than 1 train is booked on the same bit of track at a time. You can't just apologise every single day on every single peak train. If you extend dwell times for the extra passengers in the peak then not only will people initially complain their journey is getting longer but it will start to crumble the timetable behind it as they won't have time to fit all the services in without publishing 2 trains leaving the same platform at the same time.

It's a no win situation. People on this thread are moaning that trains leave a min or so after their booked time and yet there was another thread a little while ago complaining about TOCs advertising that doors are locked 30secs before departure-a move taken precisely to ensure trains don't run 1 or 2 mins late.

 

[455driver]

It sounds like a feeble excuse because it is one. If the TOC knows that the train running a service spends a couple of minutes at a station day after day, the timetable should show this. If there are more passengers than normal, or if the train is shorter than normal, then you can give that as a reason, but the fact that passengers use passenger trains goes no way to explaining why you can't keep to a timetable.

So you want different timetables for peak/ shoulder peak and off peak do you?
We try to run a clockface timetable to make life easy for the passengers, if they did their bit by using more than 1 door at each station (most of my trains are 8 coaches long with 16 doors) it would help us to help them but they dont so we cant.

It would be nice if train staff were more willing to announce to passengers why a train is still sitting there once its departure time has come and gone, though.

You assume the staff know!
You want us to start ringing up trying to find out why a train is a minute or 2 late do you? Yeah right, that would just cause more delay while "them upstairs" answer the phone instead of sorting the problem.
If people are so desperate for information then they should chill out a bit more.

 

[LE Greys]

So you want different timetables for peak/ shoulder peak and off peak do you?
We try to run a clockface timetable to make life easy for the passengers, if they did their bit by using more than 1 door at each station (most of my trains are 8 coaches long with 16 doors) it would help us to help them but they dont so we cant.

I agree with you there!

You assume the staff know!
You want us to start ringing up trying to find out why a train is a minute or 2 late do you? Yeah right, that would just cause more delay while "them upstairs" answer the phone instead of sorting the problem.
If people are so desperate for information then they should chill out a bit more.

Besides, the two most common reasons would be 'waiting for a red signal to clear' and 'waiting for some slow passengers to get on', which might be quite embarrassing for the last people to get on.

 

[A-driver]

Besides, the two most common reasons would be 'waiting for a red signal to clear' and 'waiting for some slow passengers to get on', which might be quite embarrassing for the last people to get on.

I often make announcements to that effect-only this morning in the morning peak I arrived at a station 90 secs late. Once the monitors were clear I closed the doors and at the last second some plonker jammed their arm in the back set of doors and forced them open. He then held it open for 3 others to also board. This could obviously have damaged the door and as it was the back set would have resulted in the unit being taken out of service there and then but I did make an announcement along the lines of 'sorry for the further delay, this was due to the selfish man at the back coach forcing the doors open even after they had closed.'

There was also a tweet on fccs twitter this morning from a guy complaining about poor customer service as the driver drove off from grange park whilst he was walking up the ramp to the platform. He may well also be one who complains on twitter when trains are constantly late by a few mins. Can't have it both ways!

 

[sevenhills]

I personally won't apologise for late running unless we are over 5 mins or have sat somewhere at a red signal for ages. Otherwise it becomes meaningless to apologise for natural lost time as I have explained in previous posts.

I find that the information about when the train is late, in my case the speaker at my local station; is a great help when compared to catching a bus. The LED displays at bus stops are useless.

 

[LE Greys]

I find that the information about when the train is late, in my case the speaker at my local station; is a great help when compared to catching a bus. The LED displays at bus stops are useless.

ARAIK, some of those run off GPS passing points, so their ETA is under clear traffic conditions, meaning that during congestion, you might have to multiply the ETA by two, three or even four. Putting up something sophisticated would be too costly.

 

[island]

My father does -2 min connections at Doncaster apparently....

I was doing those at MKC regularly.