Why does the railway give passengers obvious lies?

[Krokodil]

That’s the decision taken by anyone who ever publishes a timetable of any sort, surely?

If a paper timetable was placed there, and a bus was late for whatever reason, presumably you would consider the paper timetable to be lying to you?

When you look at a printed timetable, you are well aware that it won't account for any late-running. You would expect a digital display to be live though.

 

[Merle Haggard]

That’s the decision taken by anyone who ever publishes a timetable of any sort, surely?

If a paper timetable was placed there, and a bus was late for whatever reason, presumably you would consider the paper timetable to be lying to you?

I can see your point but;
The paper timetable represents a catalogue of what the operator intends to provide in the future. That they have that intention is not a lie.
An electronic screen display is for one specific journey which is already taking place (or not...) so it's a statement of fact..
Is there not a difference between an honestly made intention and an untrue statement of fact?

I declined philosophy at school preferred fact-based subjects - it'a not my strong point.

 

[The exile]

In my experience (perhaps things vary around the country) the CIS doesn‘t recognise when a route is called, it's looking out for the TD berth stepping forward, which won't happen until the train passes the signal. Any platform changes before then are manually inputted.

In other words a system has been set up that is known to give false information to the public. Perhaps the original premise wasn’t so far from the truth after all.

I can see your point but;
The paper timetable represents a catalogue of what the operator intends to provide in the future. That they have that intention is not a lie.
An electronic screen display is for one specific journey which is already taking place (or not...) so it's a statement of fact..
Is there not a difference between an honestly made intention and an untrue statement of fact?

I declined philosophy at school preferred fact-based subjects - it'a not my strong point.

Exactly - a paper timetable indicates a plan or intention. Electronic screens purport to give real time information (or that is what the self-congratulatory press releases always say) - so providing information that another information system already “knows” to be wrong is either negligently or deliberately misleading the public. In all the examples I gave earlier, “staff information” was correct a considerable time before the public information was.

 

[Lewisham2221]

Lots of people on this thread with very unrealistic expectations. Probably best if we scrap all the CIS systems and go back to waiting and hoping for buses, or trying to listen to muffled announcements over the din of a DMU engine at the station

 

[Falcon1200]

If a paper timetable was placed there, and a bus was late for whatever reason, presumably you would consider the paper timetable to be lying to you?

No, because of course the paper timetable cannot be updated in real time. However, given experience with the railway's electronic displays, which do attempt to show what is actually happening (albeit sometimes imperfectly as discussed here), it is understandable to expect bus stop displays to work in a similar way; Until realising through bitter experience that they do not!

(However, in the other place where I regularly use buses, Oxford, the screens at the likes of the St Aldates bus stops do update)

Seriously though, there just isn't the same 'control' of a bus service that there is on the railway.

An interesting point; I have complained about buses on my local, half-hourly, route missing, while other services with far greater frequency (eg every 7 minutes) continue unabated; This explains why that might be!

 

[arb]

However, this goes a bit wrong if the service has a long station stop anyway, eg. to split a train. Often if you're waiting at Cambridge North for a slightly delayed northbound service that splits at Cambridge, the displayed expected arrival time will usually end up changing to 'delayed' due to the 5-6 minute stop at Cambridge to detach, even though the estimated arrival time hasn't actually changed. It would be rather better if long booked stops were taken into account before something moves to 'delayed' status, but that doesn't seem to be the case (at least not around here).

I once arrived at Cambridge (main station, not North), admittedly cutting it fine for the scheduled departure time of my train, but noticed it just said "delayed" on the main departure board. So I hung around in the concourse waiting for more information. After several minutes the train disappeared from the departure board and I saw it sail past the platform entrance. At no point was an actual departure time for the train shown. I haven't made that mistake again!

 

[Merle Haggard]

Quite! They are an expensive (and in the past, clumsy) way of presenting timetable information, but are still that nonetheless. But with modern displays which can be used instead of posting paper timetables, with the advantage of instant update, even if accurate actual bus running information is still some way off yet.

Interesting points (not included above) , many of which I accept.

However, what's curious is that at stops with the electronic display there were also a printed timetable. The fact that they show different times might reasonably lead to the conclusion that the electronic display has some element of real-time.

In the days of Northampton's Grosvenor Centre bus station the electronic display for the half-hourly service 46/7 showed departures at .15 and .45 in contrast to the printed timetable (also displayed at the stop) which showed .00 and .30, With time to kill after just missing a bus (at none of those times) I asked at the controllers' office which should be relied on. The answer (in a tone of contempt) was 'that display is done by the Council's, ignore it!'.

 

[RT4038]

When you look at a printed timetable, you are well aware that it won't account for any late-running. You would expect a digital display to be live though.

It might be your expectation, but it would be an erroneous assumption.

I can see your point but;
The paper timetable represents a catalogue of what the operator intends to provide in the future. That they have that intention is not a lie.
An electronic screen display is for one specific journey which is already taking place (or not...) so it's a statement of fact..

But the electronic screen display may not be that - it may be (and often is) an electronic display of one journey in the catalogue, rather than a printed display of that one journey. The paper timetable is also not 'in the future' when that time comes to pass.

Exactly - a paper timetable indicates a plan or intention. Electronic screens purport to give real time information (or that is what the self-congratulatory press releases always say) - so providing information that another information system already “knows” to be wrong is either negligently or deliberately misleading the public. In all the examples I gave earlier, “staff information” was correct a considerable time before the public information was.

As for bus information screens, you are making that assumption that they are real time, when in fact often they are not. They are just an electronic edition of the timetable for the next bus ( in real time, rather than presenting the whole day/week service).

No, because of course the paper timetable cannot be updated in real time. However, given experience with the railway's electronic displays, which do attempt to show what is actually happening (albeit sometimes imperfectly as discussed here), it is understandable to expect bus stop displays to work in a similar way; Until realising through bitter experience that they do not!

It may be understandable, but it is not their fault if you make such an erroneous assumption.

In the days of Northampton's Grosvenor Centre bus station the electronic display for the half-hourly service 46/7 showed departures at .15 and .45 in contrast to the printed timetable which showed .00 and .30, With time to kill after just missing a bus (at none of those times) I asked at the controllers' office which should be relied on. The answer (in a tone of contempt) was 'that display is done by the Council's, ignore it!'.

So there you have a real life example. (probably before the roll out of BODS (Bus Open Data Service), not that things are infallible yet by a long way)

 

[Falcon1200]

It may be understandable, but it is not their fault if you make such an erroneous assumption.

I disagree; If electronic displays merely show what is planned, not what is actually happening, that should be made clear to intending passengers, but it most certainly is not at the stops I use.

 

[MrJeeves]

Typically bus departure screens I've seen will show HH:mm for timetabled services and a relative "X min" for real time information.

 

[43066]

I can see your point but;
The paper timetable represents a catalogue of what the operator intends to provide in the future. That they have that intention is not a lie.
An electronic screen display is for one specific journey which is already taking place (or not...) so it's a statement of fact..
Is there not a difference between an honestly made intention and an untrue statement of fact?

I declined philosophy at school preferred fact-based subjects - it'a not my strong point.

“Lie” generally implies an intent to mislead. An electronic display isn’t intended to be wrong, however it is susceptible to displaying incorrect information on occasion, often because it’s driven by the various sources of data that generally make it far more useful, and much more likely to be accurate, than a paper timetable.

In the case of a specific train journey displays might show a forthcoming departure as “on time”, but some issue then occurs preventing the train continuing. You’d hope that the information could be updated (and railway station displays eventually revert to “delayed” at this point), but that doesn’t mean they were lying when they previously said “on time”.

It just seems a strangely emotive and conspiratorial way of looking at the world to suggest that these imperfect systems are set up to intentionally mislead, which is what is generally implied by a lie.

No, because of course the paper timetable cannot be updated in real time. However, given experience with the railway's electronic displays, which do attempt to show what is actually happening (albeit sometimes imperfectly as discussed here), it is understandable to expect bus stop displays to work in a similar way; Until realising through bitter experience that they do not!

It’s just another source of imperfect information, albeit somewhat more likely to be accurate than a paper timetable. The app based bus trackers used in London (and I suspect elsewhere) are more accurate again. Even here they can only show the bus’s current progress by the last stop it has reached. Until it comes into view it could still break down, be involved in an accident etc.

so providing information that another information system already “knows” to be wrong is either negligently or deliberately misleading the public.

It isn’t necessarily negligently or deliberately misleading the public at all. It’s just a limitation of how various systems interact with each other, and how information available to one source might be updated more quickly than that available to another.

Lots of people on this thread with very unrealistic expectations. Probably best if we scrap all the CIS systems and go back to waiting and hoping for buses, or trying to listen to muffled announcements over the din of a DMU engine at the station

There’s a strong element of making perfect the enemy of good on this thread!

 

[Lewisham2221]

It might be your expectation, but it would be an erroneous assumption.


But the electronic screen display may not be that - it may be (and often is) an electronic display of one journey in the catalogue, rather than a printed display of that one journey. The paper timetable is also not 'in the future' when that time comes to pass.


As for bus information screens, you are making that assumption that they are real time, when in fact often they are not. They are just an electronic edition of the timetable for the next bus ( in real time, rather than presenting the whole day/week service).


It may be understandable, but it is not their fault if you make such an erroneous assumption.


So there you have a real life example. (probably before the roll out of BODS (Bus Open Data Service), not that things are infallible yet by a long way)

To be fair here, it doesn't help that some bus displays are just a digital version of the timetable and some are realtime displays. Further complicated by the fact that - where I am at least - if the system can't find any "live" data for a particular journey, it will default to displaying the scheduled time for that service; usually the differentiation between the two is made by showing schedules times as a time, whereas "live" times are usually shown as a countdown eg:

1. 27 Town Centre - 3 mins
2. 28 Town Centre - 0945
3. 26 Town Centre - 12 mins

There's far too many variables in bus operation for realtime data to be reliable anyway. A bus displaying as 3 mins away can be a fair distance up the road, well out of view. The previous dozen or so buses might have all managed to cover that section in 3 minutes, so the system expects the next bus to do the same and displays the information as such. However anything could happen to delay the bus on that stretch of road, but the system doesn't know what to do with that - there's too many variables. So at best it will just display what it thinks should be happening from the previous data - the bus has moved down the road and is now at a distance that previous buses covered in 1 minute, so it displays that. But the bus is stuck behind a delivery van blocking the road and can't get round. This delays the bus by 3 minutes, but for that entire time the display will still show the bus as being due in 1 min.

 

[Lurcheroo]

Which is a good thing, because it avoids the risk of a passenger deciding that they've got time for one last pint but being caught out by the train making up some time.

As you’ll be aware yourself, even as a guard, not giving passengers ‘hope’ reduces frustration dramatically when that ‘hope’ doesn’t come to fruition so I agree that the system should be somewhat reserved to ensure people make appropriate plans.

Any such system would also need to know if there were loops or multi-track sections where one train could be overtaken by another, whether such loops or facilities were or were not already occupied by another train, or blocked for some other reason, and whether Signallers and/or Control decided to use that facility, depending on likely delay to the first train. Not quite as simple as it first appears!

Yes it’s much less simple than some may believe.
Getting this information from Absolute block signalling areas may be impossible and difficult from PSB’s.

If someone truly wanted to make this system, then perhaps using the Cambrian would make a lot of sense. One digital signalling system centre at Machynlleth controls the whole of the Cambrian and as it uses ERTMS the train sends regular position reports to the RBC (Radio Block Centre) when it passes over balises.
Further to that, when the signaller sets a route the ‘movement authority’ is sent to the train directly.
The Cambrian is single track so if one train picks up a delay, it will directly delay the train going the other direction, and so on and so on.

On the mainline for example there are 5 passing loops 3 of which are used to pass trains in service for the hourly service. So there are 2 places where on time trains can be kept moving on time whilst let’s say for example the ‘down’ service is on time whilst the ‘up’ service is 15 mins late. They’re booked to cross at Welshpool which has an almost 3 mile long passing loop.
It’s about 12 minutes from the end of the Welshpool loop to Newtown.
The decision has to be made wether or not to delay the down train almost 15 minutes at the Welshpool loop or to send it to Newtown and delay the already delayed train about another 10-15 minutes, the system could then pick up on whether or not the on time train is given a movement authority onto the single line or not. If not then could show it as delayed by the same amount it’s booked cross is delayed. If it is given an MA onto the single line then it would continue to show on time and the. The system could do a simple calculation of working out how long the delayed train will end up waiting at Newtown which is just, the sectional running time of 12 minutes minutes how many minutes it gets to Newtown after the on time train enters the single line.

I appreciate that I say ‘oh it’s simple’ but even that would be a lot of work. But by using the ERTMS system and an area where the track lay out it is simple and the number of variables are reduced it could allow a working base system to be made which can then be built upon as ERTMS is rolled out to other more complex areas such as the ECML.

 

[RT4038]

To be fair here, it doesn't help that some bus displays are just a digital version of the timetable and some are realtime displays. Further complicated by the fact that - where I am at least - if the system can't find any "live" data for a particular journey, it will default to displaying the scheduled time for that service; usually the differentiation between the two is made by showing schedules times as a time, whereas "live" times are usually shown as a countdown eg:

1. 27 Town Centre - 3 mins
2. 28 Town Centre - 0945
3. 26 Town Centre - 12 mins

There's far too many variables in bus operation for realtime data to be reliable anyway. A bus displaying as 3 mins away can be a fair distance up the road, well out of view. The previous dozen or so buses might have all managed to cover that section in 3 minutes, so the system expects the next bus to do the same and displays the information as such. However anything could happen to delay the bus on that stretch of road, but the system doesn't know what to do with that - there's too many variables. So at best it will just display what it thinks should be happening from the previous data - the bus has moved down the road and is now at a distance that previous buses covered in 1 minute, so it displays that. But the bus is stuck behind a delivery van blocking the road and can't get round. This delays the bus by 3 minutes, but for that entire time the display will still show the bus as being due in 1 min.

Yes. It may not be a delivery van, it could be a large amount of passengers at an intermediate stop / passenger taking more than usual time to board/ alight (asking question/infirm/ wheelchair etc), plus issues with drivers forgetting to set up trips in ticket machines / ticket machine gps not working or not working correctly / driver changes at point / bus swaps / data issuers / gps-software interface misinterpretation of spur workings, frying pan routes etc. All contribute to the system only being a guide rather than cold fact.

 

[Par]

Information screens being inaccurate is one thing and I don’t consider that to be lying, however I do have experience of what I consider to be out and out lying.

January 2020, waiting at Preston for an Avanti to Edinburgh (originating from Euston). It was a very poor day weather wise, very heavy rain all day.

This service was delayed and the ETA (as well as the platform) changed several times. I can’t remember exactly, but it did eventually arrive about 45-60 late and we proceeded to Carlisle, incurring further delay en-route, where we were informed by an onboard announcement that the line between Carlisle and Carstairs was flooded and that proceeding was not posssible.

We were de-trained and advised to await further instruction, which incredibly turned out to be to join another Avanti to Glasgow a few minutes later (less than 30 for sure) and then make our way to Queen St for onward connection.

Quite why 390 #2 could traverse the “flooded” section whilst 390 #1 couldn’t wasn’t explained. To me this was obviously just an exercise in terminating the Edinburgh train short to get it back on time for its southbound run.

The explanation given, a blatant lie in my book.

 

[Lewisham2221]

Information screens being inaccurate is one thing and I don’t consider that to be lying, however I do have experience of what I consider to be out and out lying.

January 2020, waiting at Preston for an Avanti to Edinburgh (originating from Euston). It was a very poor day weather wise, very heavy rain all day.

This service was delayed and the ETA (as well as the platform) changed several times. I can’t remember exactly, but it did eventually arrive about 45-60 late and we proceeded to Carlisle, incurring further delay en-route, where we were informed by an onboard announcement that the line between Carlisle and Carstairs was flooded and that proceeding was not posssible.

We were de-trained and advised to await further instruction, which incredibly turned out to be to join another Avanti to Glasgow a few minutes later (less than 30 for sure) and then make our way to Queen St for onward connection.

Quite why 390 #2 could traverse the “flooded” section whilst 390 #1 couldn’t wasn’t explained. To me this was obviously just an exercise in terminating the Edinburgh train short to get it back on time for its southbound run.

The explanation given, a blatant lie in my book.

Not necessarily. If the driver of another service had reported flooding to the signaller, the line could be blocked until someone (MOM?) has been out and inspected the line to determine whether it is passable or not. Could just be that such a decision hadn't been made when the first train was terminated short, but the line was subsequently deemed to be okay for the second (and subsequent) trains to continue.

 

[RT4038]

Information screens being inaccurate is one thing and I don’t consider that to be lying, however I do have experience of what I consider to be out and out lying.

January 2020, waiting at Preston for an Avanti to Edinburgh (originating from Euston). It was a very poor day weather wise, very heavy rain all day.

This service was delayed and the ETA (as well as the platform) changed several times. I can’t remember exactly, but it did eventually arrive about 45-60 late and we proceeded to Carlisle, incurring further delay en-route, where we were informed by an onboard announcement that the line between Carlisle and Carstairs was flooded and that proceeding was not posssible.

We were de-trained and advised to await further instruction, which incredibly turned out to be to join another Avanti to Glasgow a few minutes later (less than 30 for sure) and then make our way to Queen St for onward connection.

Quite why 390 #2 could traverse the “flooded” section whilst 390 #1 couldn’t wasn’t explained. To me this was obviously just an exercise in terminating the Edinburgh train short to get it back on time for its southbound run.

The explanation given, a blatant lie in my book.

I think you are possibly reading too much into this.

A few years back I was taking a 390 to Glasgow. Alongside Kingmoor the train stopped for a while. The conductor then announced that due to flooding the train was being taken back to Carlisle and terminated. The driver walked through the train and started back towards Carlisle Station. At the next signal we stopped again and the Conductor announced the train would indeed be going to Glasgow. The driver walked back through and we were on our way. The no-go/go was about 10 min apart. My first thought was certainly not that the railway was lying.

Perhaps your train was emptied and then the flooding closure was lifted, and in view of your train's lateness the decision was taken not to reload but to put the passengers on a following train that could run through?

 

[43066]

Information screens being inaccurate is one thing and I don’t consider that to be lying, however I do have experience of what I consider to be out and out lying.

January 2020, waiting at Preston for an Avanti to Edinburgh (originating from Euston). It was a very poor day weather wise, very heavy rain all day.

This service was delayed and the ETA (as well as the platform) changed several times. I can’t remember exactly, but it did eventually arrive about 45-60 late and we proceeded to Carlisle, incurring further delay en-route, where we were informed by an onboard announcement that the line between Carlisle and Carstairs was flooded and that proceeding was not posssible.

We were de-trained and advised to await further instruction, which incredibly turned out to be to join another Avanti to Glasgow a few minutes later (less than 30 for sure) and then make our way to Queen St for onward connection.

Quite why 390 #2 could traverse the “flooded” section whilst 390 #1 couldn’t wasn’t explained. To me this was obviously just an exercise in terminating the Edinburgh train short to get it back on time for its southbound run.

The explanation given, a blatant lie in my book.

Even here, it’s possible that the line was being inspected and deemed safe to run over again in the intervening period. And there would inevitably be a lag between NR declaring the route safe, control amending their plans, and the information being disseminated to train crews.

The criticism on here is often that not enough information is given. Part of the reason staff tend not to want to give too much detailed information is because if some element of what they’ve said turns out to be wrong, through no fault of their own, they then run the risk of being accused of lying.

 

[The exile]

It isn’t necessarily negligently or deliberately misleading the public at all. It’s just a limitation of how various systems interact with each other, and how information available to one source might be updated more quickly than that available to another.

If I , as someone whose job it is to provide the public with information, am party to correct information that they are entitled to know and continue to provide incorrect information, I don’t know what that is other than negligence or a deliberate act.

 

[43066]

If I , as someone whose job it is to provide the public with information, am party to correct information that they are entitled to know and continue to provide incorrect information, I don’t know what that is other than negligence or a deliberate act.

You aren’t an automated information system, presumably.

They are not sentient beings.

 

[The exile]

You aren’t an automated information system, presumably.

They are not sentient beings.

No, but they were designed, commissioned and permitted to continue to spread false information by sentient beings who are responsible for their output.

 

[Adrian1980uk]

It's the nature of data expectations compared to the data maturity in the railways, as a human looking at the train in front and knowing the stopping pattern and the fact it cannot be looped gives you the knowledge it cannot be at destination before the train in front, coding that in is more challenging provided you have that data in one place to account for it.
This 1 instance seems simple but them multiply that across the network that may or may not loop the stopper depending on the signaller decision at the time becomes even more complex. I'm sure it will be done as automation improves and the models improve the consequences of looping late running trains but currently there's a lot of work to be done to get to that point.

 

[156444]

Yes. It may not be a delivery van, it could be a large amount of passengers at an intermediate stop / passenger taking more than usual time to board/ alight (asking question/infirm/ wheelchair etc), plus issues with drivers forgetting to set up trips in ticket machines / ticket machine gps not working or not working correctly / driver changes at point / bus swaps / data issuers / gps-software interface misinterpretation of spur workings, frying pan routes etc. All contribute to the system only being a guide rather than cold fact.

Perhaps I'm the only one who isn't familiar with this terminology, but what is a frying pan route?

 

[Par]

Even here, it’s possible that the line was being inspected and deemed safe to run over again in the intervening period. And there would inevitably be a lag between NR declaring the route safe, control amending their plans, and the information being disseminated to train crews.

Perhaps, but the rain hadn’t abated, it didn’t all day, so it‘s hard to imagine that conditions had improved sufficiently in the short time spent on the platform at Carlisle, if anything they had likely worsened.

Also, it seems quite a coincidence that terminating at Carlisle got this unit back on its schedule for the southbound run.

I’m not sure if running time historical data goes that far back, but if it does, it should be possible to see what went forward from Carlisle that afternoon. Saturday January 11th 2020

 

[RT4038]

Perhaps I'm the only one who isn't familiar with this terminology, but what is a frying pan route?

Ah sorry - a circular terminal working (involving several stops on the 'frying pan' shaped section), or a similar type circular piece inserted mid-route.

 

[156444]

Ah sorry - a circular terminal working (involving several stops on the 'frying pan' shaped section), or a similar type circular piece inserted mid-route.

Thank you!

 

[RT4038]

Perhaps, but the rain hadn’t abated, it didn’t all day, so it‘s hard to imagine that conditions had improved sufficiently in the short time spent on the platform at Carlisle, if anything they had likely worsened.

It was the same on the day of my journey, but I presume that the trains had been stopped as a precaution pending an inspection taking place. Once the inspection had taken place, and the section deemed safe, trains could resume. After all, don't want any more Polmont type incidents.....

Don't forget that 'flooding' could be drainage or an adjacent burn in spate, rather than 3 feet of water across the tracks.

 

[Bikeman78]

Many other passengers we constantly getting more and more annoyed as every 4 minutes the expected arrival time went back a further 2 minutes followed by an annnoying repeat anouncement.

This is the most annoying aspect. Relentless announcements every time the delay increases or decreases by a minute or two. What are the passengers supposed to do with this information? It's not as if the extra delay means they have time to nip off for a quick pint. In my opinion, such announcements should only be triggered when the delay increases by 10 minutes. Otherwise you end up with constant noise, especially when multiple trains are involved.

 

[RailwayRookie]

My two pence to add about digital displays updates:

As people have said, digital displays are generally updated by previous reporting points and how far they are away in minutes to establish an expected time.

A complication to this is single track sections between stations, the boards for each line will only focus on that directions timings and not what is to pass the opposite way occupying the line.

If you have a 10 mile/10 minute stretch of single and a train is 8 mins late in the Down direction, the displays will show "due at (8mins after scheduled time)", until that time passes and then it will show "delayed"

They cannot process that another train may be on the single line in the opposite direction due to regulating or other reasons, so in actual fact your 8 mins late is definitely going to be more but the system cannot establish this until the Down train leaves it reporting point.

 

[1D54]

11:17 Leicester - Nottingham was announced as full and standing. Certainly no accusations of lying about this one!!