• Our booking engine at tickets.railforums.co.uk (powered by TrainSplit) helps support the running of the forum with every ticket purchase! Find out more and ask any questions/give us feedback in this thread!

'On Time Railway' - new performance measure

Status
Not open for further replies.

yorkie

Forum Staff
Staff Member
Administrator
Joined
6 Jun 2005
Messages
67,439
Location
Yorkshire
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-47664969
A more exacting standard for punctuality will be brought in on UK railways next month in an attempt to improve performance.

From 1 April, train times will be recorded to the minute at every stop.

This is against the current measure which deems a train to be "on time" if it reaches its final destination within five minutes of the timetable, or 10 minutes for a long distance.

Punctuality information will let passengers get a more accurate picture of exactly how good their service is.

Train firms will publish a spread of information about their services, such as how many were early, within a minute of the timetable or within three, five, 10 or 15 minutes.
l.
Here is a copy of an email sent from Steve White, the CEO of GTR .
Steve White said:
From 1 April – the whole rail industry will start to track and measure train performance using a new system called ‘On Time’.

The Rail Delivery Group (RDG) is announcing it publicly tomorrow, and I wanted to let you know first.

Rail companies, working in partnership with Transport Focus, have chosen to measure punctuality in this new way because it’s a more open and honest approach and will win us back some of the trust we’ve lost from our customers.

As you know, currently, we say a train is punctual if it arrives at its final destination within five minutes of the scheduled time – this is called the Public Performance Measure (PPM). But to our customers, the train has actually arrived late and they may have missed their connection. While in period 12 (ending 2 March) we recorded a PPM of 87.3%, which is the best for four and a half years. We know we can even do better.

On Time will track a train’s punctuality at every station on its route – and to be ‘on time’, a train must be within 59 seconds of its scheduled arrival time at each recorded station. This is clearer for our customers and will help us to rebuild their trust. What’s more, it will give us detailed information to help us pinpoint and tackle the small delays so we can become more punctual.

From now on, every second counts if we’re to run services on time. So we all need to do things differently. We’ve already started work on this with our PitStop approach and training to respond to a person ill on a train.

We’ve also started to talk to our drivers, station and signaller colleagues to dig deeper into what causes delays so we can do something about it. And groups of colleagues from across the business are looking into how we can improve punctuality in their individual areas of the business.

From 1 April we’ll publish On Time stats alongside our current Public Performance Measure (PPM). GTR will also run a customer campaign around the same time, so they know what part they play in helping trains to run on time.

On Time is being run in the business by Network Operations Director George McInulty. George and his team will keep you posted on everything you’ll need to know over the next few months. In the meantime, you might find answers to your queries in our On Time FAQs.

Finally, I want to be clear our main priority is to operate a safe railway. We’ll run our railway on time without compromising safety.

Our ambition is to deliver a safer, bigger and better railway together and our On Time Railway programme will help us to achieve this.

Thank you.
The website for it is here: www.mytrainjourney.co.uk

It sounds like a new performance measure statistic is being created, with the aim being to provide a more accurate picture than the existing PPM measure.

But will it result in more padded timetables? I hope not.
 
Sponsor Post - registered members do not see these adverts; click here to register, or click here to log in
R

RailUK Forums

The Planner

Veteran Member
Joined
15 Apr 2008
Messages
15,845
You won't be able to pad intermediate stops ("padding" is 99% misused term anyway). I expect it will be more delay minutes coming out of NR to TOCs for problems that in a lot of cases are going to be incredibly difficult to fix.
 

Highlandspring

Established Member
Joined
14 Oct 2017
Messages
2,778
Network Rail has started publishing the new stats internally this week and interestingly they’ve been including the direct costs associated with the top 5 delay incidents each day, which is something I’ve not seen before and has been rather eye opening...
 
Last edited:

ComUtoR

Established Member
Joined
13 Dec 2013
Messages
9,399
Location
UK
You won't be able to pad intermediate stops ("padding" is 99% misused term anyway). I expect it will be more delay minutes coming out of NR to TOCs for problems that in a lot of cases are going to be incredibly difficult to fix.

I agree with all points, especially those that are 'difficult to fix' I think the craving for a minute perfect timetable and the financial effect of delay minutes has a detrimental effect on the railway as a whole.
 

Failed Unit

Established Member
Joined
26 Jan 2009
Messages
8,857
Location
Central Belt
I wonder if it will result in more trains missing stops in GTR land as the already do this for the smallest delay.

I wonder how the following will be dealt with.

0700 service is 5 mins late - runs non stop.
0702 service on time. Stops everywhere.

Will the 0702 be held or depart on time. Previously it would probably arrive on-time at its destination. Now it will be late at many stops.

I am cynical as this initiative is from the anti-passenger railway delivery group I can’t see passengers benefiting.

What can they do about places like Welwyn North?
 
Last edited:

221129

Established Member
Joined
21 Mar 2011
Messages
6,520
Location
Sunny Scotland
Passengers are in no way going to benefit, but so many people have been crying for it and not fully thought about what the results will be. A case of being careful what you wish for.
 

Spartacus

Established Member
Joined
25 Aug 2009
Messages
2,907
I wonder if it will result in more trains missing stops in GTR land as the already do this for the smallest delay.

I wonder how the following will be dealt with.

0700 service is 5 mins late - runs non stop.
0702 service on time. Stops everywhere.

Will the 0702 be held or depart on time. Previously it would probably arrive on-time at its destination. Now it will be late at many stops.

I am cynical as this initiative is from the anti-passenger railway delivery group I can’t see passengers benefiting.

What can they do about places like Welwyn North?

I suspect they'll make the decision based on who's wallet the money's coming out of as they do now :lol: They do seem to have a tendency to try and get back to right time as soon as possible if it's one of their incidents, but will happily run late all day (ok, a bit of an exaggeration) if it's one of Network Rail's....
 

CdBrux

Member
Joined
4 Mar 2014
Messages
768
Location
Munich
If these kind of measures are not already made, even if not made public, I would be quite amazed, it seems a fairly basic requirement of helping to pinpoint where things go wrong and therefore being able to fix them.

As for 'padding': if it's needed to ensure a reliable timetable based on reality as opposed to an aspirational one then it should be done, that is a no brainer!
 

The Planner

Veteran Member
Joined
15 Apr 2008
Messages
15,845
If these kind of measures are not already made, even if not made public, I would be quite amazed, it seems a fairly basic requirement of helping to pinpoint where things go wrong and therefore being able to fix them.
Delay attribution does that, but if it is the odd minute here or there then it isn't necessarily picked up as it doesn't flag an incident.
 

Failed Unit

Established Member
Joined
26 Jan 2009
Messages
8,857
Location
Central Belt
One thing at could come out of this that is in the public interest is a train with the following calling pattern, times in brackets are the actually times it departs most days.

Station A - 0700 (0700)
Station B - 0705 (0705)
Station C - 0718 (0720)
Station D - 0723 (0724)
Station E - 0728 (0727)

It could be argued that amending the timetable to make station C's time reflect reality is in the public interest. I know of many routes were intermediate stations are always late but the train then gets back on time during the route. However in my example what is the problem. None really. (although I know an example where station C was Market Rasen, they train did actually turn up on time to the minute once and many missed it as they were so used to it normally departing 3 minutes late)
 

ComUtoR

Established Member
Joined
13 Dec 2013
Messages
9,399
Location
UK
I think in reality what will happen is that Station C gets 2 minutes added to the timetable and bumps D/E by the same 2 minutes. That in turn causes a knock on affect of another service. Which loses its path and then gets cancelled. Or the calling pattern changes to A/B/D/E and station C gets missed. The easiest option could be to remove the service altogether.
 

306024

Established Member
Joined
23 Jan 2013
Messages
3,942
Location
East Anglia
This could have all sorts of unintended consequences. Yes trains should run on time throughout the whole of their journey, but for that to happen sectional running times (including freight) have to be spot on, and it has to be recognised that in some locations station dwell times cannot cope with the volume of passengers. That can only be improved by re-writing timetables (if possible), yet this new performance measure was announced way after the May 19 timetables were conceived. Of course the industry couldn’t possibly cope with such wholesale revisions all at the same time.

It has taken many years for so called ‘defensive driving’ to be incorporated into timetables, and doubtless there are still some areas where this still hasn’t happened. Now we have a new stick to beat ourselves with, but perhaps that is the intention.
 

Starmill

Veteran Member
Fares Advisor
Joined
18 May 2012
Messages
23,234
Location
Bolton
Will this actually make any difference to operational decisions in the short term? Franchise contracts won't be using this measure to mark performance, will they given most stipulare results based on PPM? London Overground had already moved away from PPM to T-3.

I got the impression this was more to do with customer information and service than any operating decisions? Surely the regulation policy that's agreed upon hasn't changed because of this? So what 'unintended consequences' are likely?
 

DarloRich

Veteran Member
Joined
12 Oct 2010
Messages
29,182
Location
Fenny Stratford
You won't be able to pad intermediate stops ("padding" is 99% misused term anyway). I expect it will be more delay minutes coming out of NR to TOCs for problems that in a lot of cases are going to be incredibly difficult to fix.

Network Rail has started publishing the new stats internally this week and interestingly they’ve been including the direct costs associated with the top 5 delay incidents each day, which is something I’ve not seen before and has been rather eye opening...

Agreed x 2
 

The Planner

Veteran Member
Joined
15 Apr 2008
Messages
15,845
I think in reality what will happen is that Station C gets 2 minutes added to the timetable and bumps D/E by the same 2 minutes. That in turn causes a knock on affect of another service. Which loses its path and then gets cancelled. Or the calling pattern changes to A/B/D/E and station C gets missed. The easiest option could be to remove the service altogether.
To be fair, it shouldn't, most TOCs are happy to revise running times if the evidence is there to back it up, both up and down. But like @306024 has said, dwell times are an issue in a lot of cases now.
 

CyrusWuff

Established Member
Joined
20 May 2013
Messages
3,944
Location
London
For reference, the "new" performance measure has been running alongside PPM since 1st April 2013. The change from 1st April this year is that it'll replace PPM as the official measure.

Figures can be found in the ORR Data Portal: https://dataportal.orr.gov.uk/displayreport/report/html/250126c9-8cd9-4a76-993b-b3933b7657b3

Here are some of the highlights for Moving Annual Average as at Period 1912:
  • PPM - Merseyrail (95.2%), c2c (94.4%), London Overground (94%)
  • Early - Caledonian Sleeper (54.14%), c2c (48.31%), TfL Rail (42.16%)
  • On Time - c2c (81.74%), Heathrow Express (77.94%), TfL Rail (75.64%)
  • Within 5 minutes - c2c (97.42%), Merseyrail (97.13%), TfL Rail (96.39%)
  • Within 10 minutes - Merseyrail (99.43%), TfL Rail (99.14%), c2c (99.09%)
Bottom three:
  • PPM - TransPennine Express (76.1%), London North Eastern Railway (74.7%), Hull Trains (70.5%)
  • Early - London North Eastern Railway (20.18%), TransPennine Express (18.25%), Hull Trains (10.82%)
  • On Time - London North Eastern Railway (38.11%), TransPennine Express (36.83%), Hull Trains (34.21%)
  • Within 5 minutes - TransPennine Express (70.73%), London North Eastern Railway (69.77%), Hull Trains (68.34%)
  • Within 10 minutes - TransPennine Express (86.85%), London North Eastern Railway (84.88%), Hull Trains (84.84%)
 

infobleep

Veteran Member
Joined
27 Feb 2011
Messages
12,558
I expect some news reports to come out on this once it becomes the official measure.

Passengers are definitely one of the reasons for delays. Sometimes people are slow to press the door release butron.
Other times I see someone standing obscuring the door button.

Thsn you get stations were services are few, compared to demaned and so it takes time for people to board the train.

This also applies to trains where there Is a large gap between services. For example fast services on the South West Main Line in the evening from Clapham Junction. The first couple of trains will always be busy following the hour+ gap between services.

Of course there are also services timetabled to depart late. The 8:19 Clapham Junction to Basingstoke is timetabled in the working timetable to be at 8:20. There maybe good reason for this but surely it would often show up as delayed.
 
Last edited:

infobleep

Veteran Member
Joined
27 Feb 2011
Messages
12,558
Already being worked on. The data doesn't paint a pretty picture, I'm afraid.
Well at Wimbledon, in the last 100 days, only one train from New Malden has on average been right time. The 0:09 arrival. I was using Recent Train Times.

Not sure how I check all service averages without putting in a starting station. Not sure if any other sites offer this.

I admit some of the average delays are just ½ minute but that probably wouldn't matter to someone reporting on the stats.
 

FenMan

Established Member
Joined
13 Oct 2011
Messages
1,364
I support tight rules measuring performance at interchanges. At stations without interchange facilities, not so much.
 

notlob.divad

Established Member
Joined
19 Jan 2016
Messages
1,609
I support tight rules measuring performance at interchanges. At stations without interchange facilities, not so much.
Do you include interchange with other forms of Public transort. ie Train stations that have a bus stop next to them?

If the train misses the bus, or the bus misses the train, it still as big a problem (potentially even bigger) in some locations.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Top