London Banter - View Single Post - reliability of NNL and district line richmond branch

MIG · July 26th 06, 08:49 PM posted to uk.transport.london

wrote:
wrote:
Incidentally, on the matter of the GCSE train arrival information
system: I was wondering how National Rail compile punctuality stats? Do
they use the same data that we see on the screens in the stations or do
they capture it separately? I ask as it is very common (as in
more-often-than-not common) that a train delayed by more than 5 mins
will simply be reported as being "On Time" at my station on the screen.

Not sure of the direct answer to your question, but I've noticed on
South Eastern trains that when the train is later than the magical four
minutes, the automated announcements always reflect this. So, for
example, if the 11.25 arrives at 11.28, the announcement will be "The
train at Platform 4 is the 11.25 to...", if it arrives at 11.30 the
announcement will be "The train at Platform 4 is the delayed 11.25
to...".

And who decided that +/- 4 minutes means "on time", anyway? Can't see
the Swiss accepting that...

On South Eastern, they do do some adjustments, but they can't handle
which train is going first on the "first train to" board. Eg, if you
stand at somewhere like Hither Green or Lewisham, where trains come
from different directions, if, say, the 1130 is now expected at 1145,
it will say that the first train to Charing Cross is expected at
platform x at 1145. It won't mention that the (on time) 1135 to
Charing Cross from platform y is actually going to be the first.

On Silverlink, which runs the NLL, as far as I am aware, the displays
never show anything except the scheduled times, with no adjustments or
variations due to actual events.

I have mentioned before that when there was major disruption for a few
days due to flooding, all the displays at Queens Park were left
switched on and displayed all the normal train times, none of which
were running.

You also tend to see that the next train is expected in 18 minutes,
just as the previous one turns up 2 minutes late.