Predicting delays - linking a delayed incoming service with a delay to the outbound

[DJL]

This one has baffled me for a long time.

Why can the departure boards system not link up a delay on an incoming service with a delay on the outgoing service which it forms?

I was sat at Orpington today waiting for a Victoria train.
The board quite clearly stated that the incoming 1347 was running approximately 9 minutes late - expected to arrive at 1356. And yet it showed the outgoing 1355 as being on time.

Since the same unit forms both services this is clearly impossible.

If I can make that connection - how come the computer can't?

In the event the outgoing service was about 7 minutes late leaving.

 

[Bald Rick]

A fair point and good observation. The CIS system is driven from TRUST - a system which is almost exactly the same now as it was on my first day on the railway in 1992. TRUST does not hold diagrams, so can not do this prediction automatically. It is particularly annoying for homegoing punters waiting at Waterloo East when the service is having an off day.

Happily the new traffic management systems being implemented in the next few years do have this functionality. Expect it at a station near you soon.

 

[DJL]

Yes I've had that problem a lot at Waterloo East.

Sometimes you hear the staff announce that "the inbound train is still at Sevenoaks" or something equally ridiculous - and yet the board says "on time".

Until due time that is when it switches to simply "delayed".

Actually the only thing worse than that is when the board still says "on time" even though it should have departed several minutes ago.


I look forward to the new system!

 

[The Planner]

Not sure why this can't be done already in ARS areas as the schedules are associated with their next workings as far as I know.

 

[Bald Rick]

Not sure why this can't be done already in ARS areas as the schedules are associated with their next workings as far as I know.

I thought that. It would require an output of ARS into TRUST and some clever stuff in TRUST itself, but it must be possible. Wonder what Delta rail would charge.

Also it would have to be editable, possibly in ARS, for when control intervene.

 

[DJL]

Sorry - what is ARS?


There should be something built in to this site that you hover over common abbreviations and class numbers for a brief description and/or photo!

 

[306024]

I guess you would have to be careful how much delay you show to the returning service. Say the inbound working is 10 mins late, with a 10 minute turnround. With a keen driver on the last leg of his diagram it could turn round in 4 minutes.

However the general point is valid, although as Mr Rick suggests, Control could have a cunning plan to prevent a late start on the return working.

 

[Bald Rick]

ARS = Automatic Route Setting. Essentially a computer reads the timetable and routes the train accordingly with the signaller intervening only if the service is running out of course. This has 'associations' for trains arriving at terminating stations so that a the computer knows what the outbound service is.

 

[DJL]

I guess you would have to be careful how much delay you show to the returning service. Say the inbound working is 10 mins late, with a 10 minute turnround. With a keen driver on the last leg of his diagram it could turn round in 4 minutes.

However the general point is valid, although as Mr Rick suggests, Control could have a cunning plan to prevent a late start on the return working.

Agreed that turnaround times can (sometimes) be reduced (especially if padding was added) - but if the expected arrival is 2 mins after the scheduled departure it should at least show that departure as 2 mins late!


I guess sometimes the digram could be changed. If spare stock is available and a crew change was expected anyway.
But it seems likely that control would know this more than 2 mins before scheduled departure!
And I would venture that it is not likely for a delay of "only" 10 mins...
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

ARS = Automatic Route Setting. Essentially a computer reads the timetable and routes the train accordingly with the signaller intervening only if the service is running out of course. This has 'associations' for trains arriving at terminating stations so that a the computer knows what the outbound service is.

Thanks - I should have known that one from using simsig

 

[LBSCR Times]

I guess sometimes the digram could be changed. If spare stock is available and a crew change was expected anyway.
But it seems likely that control would know this more than 2 mins before scheduled departure!
And I would venture that it is not likely for a delay of "only" 10 mins...

In days gone by this was quite common on the Central suburban side at Victoria, where trains were DOO, so there would be a change of driver, and a 455 /456 could quite easily be used to recover. However, with more variety of stock it gets a lot more complicated to step up now, as trying to balance for the evening peak can be quite a nightmare.

 

[455driver]

If they implement the linking up of inbound and outbound services what happens if the step stock up, it will show the outbound train as expected to leave late when it might actually leave on time, just imagine the moaning then!

 

[Tomnick]

Indeed, better (though not ideal, I accept) for it to show as 'on time' when it's inevitable that it'll be delayed than for it to show a late departure when Control have pulled the rabbit out of the hat but haven't updated the necessary system - the latter being more likely when things are going wrong, of course!

 

[mm333]

Yesterday morning I was at Leeds waiting for the 0713 to Manchester Victoria via Dewsbury. It's formed of an incoming Huddersfield stopper which was 34 minutes later leaving Hud and was 24 minutes late arriving at Leeds.

The boards at Leeds and the UK Train Times app were both showing a delay to the 0713, which varied (up and down) every few minutes, but, as far as I can recall, matched the same estimated time of departure. So is there some kind of link to show that the 0713 was formed of the incoming Huddersfield stopper, or was the estimated time of departure just being entered manually?

 

[The Planner]

Wonder what Delta rail would charge.

Knowing Delta Rail, somewhere in the region of the entire third world debt.....

 

[Bushy]

It does seem ridiculous that the systems behind the CIS screens have not been updated to include such functionality. The information was probably better when fingerboards were used with telephone communication between stations.
Fore those with smartphones realtime trains really comes into its own when there are delays. Its just a pity that it can't identify platform changes earlier. I was guessing the platform at Charing Cross on Friday night but knowing the inbound service was at Waterloo East made it easier.

Regards

Bushy

 

[DaveNewcastle]

I was recently in Edinburgh Waverley one lunchtime about to travel north, and planning to return back to Newcastle on an East Coast service that passes through Edinburgh at 21:00. The last southbound train of the day.

I heard that there was disruption in the southern ECML, and confirmed that the 10:30 'Northern Lights' from London to Aberdeen had been terminated earlier in the morning. Now, I and a lot of rail staff would know that that is the service which will later form the 18:16 departure from Aberdeen and which is the train that passes through Edinburgh at 21:00 as the last one of the day.

So, I changed my plans so that I could get home that night - about 6 hours before the non-existent train would appear as not departing Aberdeen and 9 hours before it would not pass through Edinburgh. None of the Customer Services staff had realised the consequences - I wonder how quickly the new systems will extrapolate the consequences of a misplaced set on long-distance runs.

 

[PHILIPE]

Somebody in Control would have to manually input an estimated revised departure time for the return service. This is not always done and after a few minutes the departing train just disappears from the screen.

 

[DJL]

I was recently in Edinburgh Waverley one lunchtime about to travel north, and planning to return back to Newcastle on an East Coast service that passes through Edinburgh at 21:00. The last southbound train of the day.

I heard that there was disruption in the southern ECML, and confirmed that the 10:30 'Northern Lights' from London to Aberdeen had been terminated earlier in the morning. Now, I and a lot of rail staff would know that that is the service which will later form the 18:16 departure from Aberdeen and which is the train that passes through Edinburgh at 21:00 as the last one of the day.

So, I changed my plans so that I could get home that night - about 6 hours before the non-existent train would appear as not departing Aberdeen and 9 hours before it would not pass through Edinburgh. None of the Customer Services staff had realised the consequences - I wonder how quickly the new systems will extrapolate the consequences of a misplaced set on long-distance runs.

With a 9 hour gap is it not far more likely that the problem will be resolved somehow than with the 7 min gap in my OP?

Depending on the reason for the "disruption" it is possible that the same unit might eventually make it through - maybe via a different route. Or possible control might be able to find some spare stock somewhere.

No guarantee of course but 9 hrs is plenty of time to find a solution if one exists.

 

[55018ballymoss]

Crikey, what a difficult and complex subject!
As far as I am aware there is no link between ARS and TRUST. ARS (Automatic Route Setting) is a delight which works in the latest signalling centres, but there will be a different and more responsive system when the first Regional Operating Centres open, which I think will interact with TRUST, which is currently being trialled.
CIS systems take their information from TRUST. However, it is possible to link workings together (a unit diagram for example), which means that TRUST can predict a delay for a service not yet departed based on the previous working. This option falls down when the separate workings are not linked, or there is a unit swap as TRUST is no longer aware of the status of the stock to work the service yet to depart.

 

[carriageline]

ARS is also in some of the "older" signall boxes, too!

The new traffic management will work alongside ARS, and AIUI, is not a replacement. It's merely a "tool" to help the signallers run trains


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[Bald Rick]

Full traffic management will replace ARS. It enables signallers to plan amendments to the train service several hours in advance if required, although in practice it will normally be up to an hour.

The TM system then drives the signalling system. The 'future' plan will also drive the CIS servers rather than going via TRUST. It can also feed into resource planning systems such as train crew and rolling stock live diagramming systems.

There have been some trials recently in an offline environment, and the signallers and controllers who participated absolutely loved it.

 

[carriageline]

Yeah, I know 2 people that took part in the trials, and had a briefing at work about it, showing the three systems and the people that where trialing it, and their reviews.

Didn't know TM was replacing ARS though, well there you go! Suppose it makes sense though, I know about TM telling you about conflicts and the like, and passing area of control during incidents, and that graph looking thing. Looks a fascinating bit of kit.


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[The Planner]

But is the realtime graph anything new though? I thought there was a version of it that Controls have now?

 

[jon0844]

FCC has a new system of hiding services that will creep up as delayed (from on time) for situations like this. It only shows once it's confirmed as running, so should stop the on time, on time, on time, delayed scenarios that can be so common on routes with short turnarounds.

 

[grid56126]

Some CIS systems can and do use "operating associations" between trains. These can either be input at time of upload into the train service database (TRUST) or, more often than not, by CIS staff at each timetable change. It is a long and laborious task if the latter option is used. Each train has to be input manually and on a big TOC that's a lot of trains bearing in mind there are likely to be Monday Only, Tuesday to Friday, Saturday only and Sunday only variants.

When an operator inserts a cancellation to the system they are asked if they want to amend the next train and consequent trains (there could be a string of up to a dozen!). Delays are often input in this scenario automatically which can be a double edged sword. As others have mentioned a train may get "Stepped up" if late, so a fresh train crew can be given an alternative train which will leave on time. Once this leaves the automatic input of the delay will be cleared to on time (or any revised lateness). If an operator becomes aware of a step up move then the delay can be suppressed.

Now when an incident gets a bit out of hand this is when the new feature comes into force that is mentioned above with respect to FCC. This is named "disruption mode". Only trains that are running are shown, this rids the CIS of all trains that would hitherto clog up the boards / screens with "Delayed". The down side is that the system does not show cancellations, but by the point this part of a system is in use it's normally pretty bad and the thing people want to see is what is heading their way.

One thing some may not be aware of is that if TOC A runs trains through a station operated by TOC B - TOC B is rseponsible for the information about TOC A's services (not in every case, but most). This also applies to NR Stations who have to provide the information for mutiple TOCs. There are industry schemes to allow the info input by TOC A to feed the systems of TOC B to help the flow of information. At the moment there would have to be two inputs for an A - B scenario, so imagine what a Thameslink or Cross Country delay, alteration or cancellation means when you think of how many differently owned stations their trains pass through.

Grid

 

[Bald Rick]

But is the realtime graph anything new though? I thought there was a version of it that Controls have now?

The graph isn't new, but it driving the signalling and other systems is. Unless you sit in Ashford IECC, when that's been working in a primitive form on HS1 since it opened.

 

[IKBrunel]

I believe the accuracy of CIS is currently the subject of research by the control systems group at Loughborough Uni, under the direction of Roger Goodall (formerly of RTC Derby). I think part of the work looks at improved train position information using gps.

 

[455driver]

ARS (Automatic Route Setting) is a delight

No it isnt!
Its a right Royal pita, why it needs to stop us at a red when the sections in front are clear is one issue I have with it!
A R S E (Automatic Route Setting Equipment) is a more appropriate acronym for it.

which works in the latest signalling centres, but there will be a different and more responsive system when the first Regional Operating Centres open, which I think will interact with TRUST, which is currently being trialled.

That is a different system and has the potential to be good.

 

[moggie]

I believe the accuracy of CIS is currently the subject of research by the control systems group at Loughborough Uni, under the direction of Roger Goodall (formerly of RTC Derby). I think part of the work looks at improved train position information using gps.

One would hope the output will be lot better than the 'on board' CIS which seem to get cerfuffled as to where they are more often than not?

 

[Bushy]

One would hope the output will be lot better than the 'on board' CIS which seem to get cerfuffled as to where they are more often than not?

The GPS on Southeastern 375s has improved since they were first put into service. Problems with the CIS screens, PA and door controls were common but reliability is much better now. I think a system is needed to backup the GPS when the receivers fail to pick up the signal.

Regards

Bushy