Network Rail regulation and performance

J, Leicester   18/07/2017 at 13:15

About time. The current system of trains being considered "on time" if they are within 5 minutes of the timetable is too lax for a railway where connections are often far tighter. If my train is 4 minutes late and I need to connect with a train that leaves 3 minutes after my connection gets in, that delay is still classed as "on time" despite heavily inconveniencing my journey. Ok, granted, you're never going to get from one end of, say, Clapham Junction to the other in 3 minutes, but in my local patch it's a normal occurrence to miss trains that I would otherwise have caught if I had genuinely arrived "on-time".

Gabriel Oaks   18/07/2017 at 13:38

Long overdue although will train operators start to extend their journey times to build-in more slack?

Mark Hare   18/07/2017 at 15:39

J - I appreciate your point but I very much doubt that 3 minutes from one train to another would be an advertised connection, especially at a larger junction station. Advertised connection times, where they exist, have to take into account the young, old and infirm as well as someone who is happy to sprint from one platform to another to make a connection. And of course, the easiest way to give a train more chance of arriving properly 'on time', not just within 5 or 10 minutes of timetabled arrival time is to build more recovery time into the timetable. So great - passengers will arrive on time but at the cost of longer journey times.

J, Leicester   18/07/2017 at 16:06

OK, I'll rephrase what I mean, since my gripe lies more with rubbish timetable planning than with PPM issues. TOCs should be required to give ample time in timetables for regional to mainline connections. It's a really simple concept that seems alien to a lot of franchise holders. I shouldn't have to wait an extra hour because the operator didn't have the foresight to get the intercity service to leave my connecting station AFTER the local service I rely on to make that connection gets in. It's alright in London, where there's a train every 5 minutes, but not so much out in the provinces where grubby serfs like myself have to make do with lower frequencies, usually hourly to each destination and half-hourly if we're lucky. It's infuriating if, say, I'm riding from the Ivanhoe line to Sheffield and miss the train at Loughborough by a matter of 1 or 2 minutes - what's worse, I usually have to watch it pass me somewhere around Barrow on Soar or Sileby, as if to rub in my face that I'm going to have to hover around a station with relatively few amenities for an extra length of time. Ironically, the only time I actually make the connection in this scenario since the most recent timetable change is if the intercity service is late - the local train used to get in 2 minutes before it, which was doable with a dash across the footbridge if it ran to time! I accept that that's going off on a pretty big tangent though - to return to the topic, I still maintain that the 5-minute PPM leeway is flat-out lying to passengers at present. If you change trains 3 times in a longer journey and they're all 4 minutes late, you're still arriving 12 minutes behind schedule despite all services being considered "on time" in the records.

John Grant   18/07/2017 at 18:23

@Mark: The Fen Line timetable advertises a connection from the 0710 Greater Anglia arrival from King's Lynn at Cambridge with the 0715 departure to King's Cross. This morning the GA train came into platform 8 and the KGX departure was from platform 1 and actually left at 0714 1/2, which is ambitious even for someone able-bodied enough to run up the steps on the footbridge.

John Grant   18/07/2017 at 19:12

Actually, that raises another issue. In the old days when passengers opened and shut doors themselves, it made sense for departure time to be when the train started to move. Now, the cut-off time is when the doors close, and that's what should be advertised as the departure time. Going back to the effects of the new rule, will they be allowed to show an arrival time that's later than the departure time at intermediate stops? That'd be better than increasing the dwell time at every one, which might otherwise be the only way to meet the new requirement.

Andrew Gwilt   19/07/2017 at 00:22

Trenitalia c2c has been the most punctual and best train operator with better services and lesser disruption. And with extra trains used for passengers to get a seat during rush hour (more extra seats) and it's cheaper than Greater Anglia. I still think c2c is the best train operator in Essex as it has been the best train operator and the most punctual operator as it operates to & from London Fenchurch Street/Liverpool Street-Southend Central, Shoeburyness, Basildon, Tilbury Town, Pitsea, Leigh-on-Sea and Grays. Plus I use c2c a lot because it's cheaper and reliable and I don't live too far from any c2c station (Benfleet & Pitsea).

Noam Bleicher   19/07/2017 at 10:42

All the press stories so far have missed an important point. As well as moving to 'right time' punctuality reporting, all station calls will now be reported, not just the final important for TOCs like Cross Country, where most passengers don't travel all the way to the destination and where there is a bit of padding before it. That said XC are much more punctual than they used to be, mainly thanks to Andy Cooper impressing upon NR the need for right time arrivals at New Street.

Mark Hare   20/07/2017 at 12:17

@John Grant - I quite agree that advertised connections should give sufficient time for everybody to comfortably change trains. Of course in these days of privatisation and fragmentised railways, there is little chance of TOC 'A' advertising a connection with a train run by TOC 'B' and who can blame them? As far as I know, most TOCs still measure departure time as the time the train actually starts moving however in these days of central door locking / power-operated doors most TOCs advise passengers that doors will close around 30sec prior to departure in order to achieve interlock and get wheels turning precisely on time.