Metro Performance Update #4

Luckily for me, my train travel has been sporadic so far in May.  This means that I have been collecting less data than normal and neglecting blog updates a little.  It also means that I feel a lot less stressed than usual.  

Based on a sample size of one, I can confirm that reduced exposure to Metro is good for the mind, body and soul.  But darn it, I still have to travel to work to bring home the bacon, and Metro is the only viable option for me at the moment.

If you have been reading recent entries, you'll know that May 2011 started off horribly for Sandringham line commuters.  The good news is that things have improved.  The bad news is that Metro performance is still painfully rubbish.

Before presenting the full MPU4 (covering all data collected to date), here is some data on what has happened so far in May.

• Of the 10 city-bound rush hour trips that I have recorded, 5 have run more than 5 minutes late.
• This equates to a punctuality performance of just 50%, compared with Metro's target of 88%.
• Over these 10 journeys, the cumulative lateness is 74 minutes - so over 7 minutes late on average.
• The worst trip arrived at Flinders Street an appalling 18 minutes late!
• The evening service from the city has been less awful, with only 30% of trains late by more than 5 minutes.  That's still rubbish in my book.
• Over just 20 journeys so far in May, Metro has "achieved" total lateness of 107 minutes.

Here is an update covering all data that I have collected to date (starting from 09 March 2011):

MPU4

• Of the 36 city-bound rush hour trips that I have recorded, 15 have run more than 5 minutes late.
• This equates to a punctuality performance of just 58.33%, compared with Metro's target of 88%.
• Over these 36 journeys, the cumulative lateness is 188 minutes.  Just think how much productive time is being lost - over 3 hours just for me.  Multiply that by the amount of people affected each day and your brain will start to ache.
• If I include the data for Sandringham bound trips, over the 69 journeys (in both directions), the cumulative lateness is 320 minutes.  That's over 5 hours of lateness in a period which is roughly equal to 5 weeks of normal commuting.
• In other words, on average, every week, Metro wastes about 1 hour of my time (and yours).

I think that I have now conclusively shown that Metro's performance data is rubbish, and that rush hour service is much worse than Metro and the government would like us to believe.

Everybody is frustrated.  I heard a report today of a guy losing it with a Metro customer service representative at Flinders Street this morning.  Whilst I don't encourage or condone passengers being rude and verbally aggressive to Metro staff, I can understand why it happens.

I feel that I am trying to make a small difference with this blog - simply by raising awareness and hopefully inspiring people to complain to Metro and the government.

But I also feel that some sort of direct action would have a bigger impact.  If only I had a few drops of French blood in me - I'd have organised a massive public demonstration by now, and maybe parked a few tractors (laden with steaming manure) in front of the barriers at Flinders Street station.  Or stirred up a commuter strike, where we all refuse to buy or validate our tickets for a month.  

Any volunteers for a strike?  Do we need a Metro Passenger Union?  I think so.

To the usual tune:

"What do we want?"

"Punctual trains!"

"When do we want it?"

"Now!"

"What do we want?"

"Trains that run!"

"When do we want it?"

"Now!"

"What do we want?"

"Clean trains!"

"When do we want it?"

"Now!"

New timetable - is it working?

Unfortunately (?) I've had a few commitments over the last week or so that have prevented me from using Metro and gathering trip data.  After the terrible Metro start to May, this has been good for my sanity.

On the few trips that I have taken, the service has improved.  Trains have been less late, and the slight increase in frequency seems to have reduced over-crowding a touch.

It's still too early for me to draw conclusions.  I'd really like to hear about reader experiences (not just the Sandringham line) - so please submit comments!

I'll be back with a proper performance update later in the week.

I thought that it was only on trains that a few weird people considered it ok to file finger nails (gross) - but I witnessed this public transport sin on the tram last week.  I must email Ted B and ask him to make sure that the new train police take a hard line on anti-social nail filers.

The vague reference to state politics reminds me to comment on my relief that the New Street level crossing will finally be re-opened.  A big loss for the handful of New Street residents who have enjoyed a huge reduction in traffic whilst the gates have been 'temporarily closed', and a win for common sense and the vast majority of local residents who have been annoyed by the closure of a convenient route and the dangerous increase in traffic on Hampton Street.

Metro - 78% of trains late so far in May 2011!

Yesterday I wrote that I couldn't believe that Metro's performance was getting even worse.  But the trend has continued.

My train this morning arrived at Flinders Street 18 minutes late.  This capped off a horrible week of Metro performance (and there has been a lack of bad weather to blame it on).

So far I have made 9 journeys with Metro in May - and 7 of them have been more than 5 minutes late.  In Metro performance terms, that's a punctuality performance of 22%! 

On average, my May journeys have been over 8 minutes late per trip.  The 5 morning trips that I made to the city ran a total of 52 minutes late - that's over 10 minutes per trip on average. 

I'm sure that my boss is secretly factoring my lateness into my next pay review.

In less than 5 working days, Metro has stolen almost 1 hour and 20 minutes from me, and hundreds of other commuters!


I've tried to report performance data dispassionately, but after this week, I'm not sure I can keep a level head much longer.  If this continues, future blog entries will be richer in abuse and ranting, if only to keep me sane.


How are you feeling about this? It would be good to get some feedback from other commuters.

71% of Metro trains late so far in May 2011

I can't believe it, but Metro's performance has got even worse since my last blog.  My last two journeys have been 9 and 7 minutes late.

So far I have made 7 journeys with Metro in May - and 5 of them have been more than 5 minutes late.  In Metro performance terms, that's a punctuality performance of 29%!  And it isn't as though the trains are missing by only just over 5 minutes.  On average, my May journeys have been almost 8 minutes late. 

In less than 4 working days, Metro has stolen almost 1 hour from me!

The train once again ran oddly slow for the first half of it's journey to the city today.  After the media comments last week about drivers doing this deliberately, my suspicions are rising.

Metro performance sinks to new lows!

It's early in the month, but so far I have made 5 journeys with Metro in May - and 3 of them have been more than 5 minutes late.  In Metro performance terms, that's a punctuality performance of 40%!  To make matters worse, two particular services were late by 17 minutes and 9 minutes. 

Across just 5 journeys in May, Metro has run 38 minutes late.  My total lateness across all journeys recorded since 09/03/2011 has blown out to 250 minutes!

This morning was almost a repeat of the shocker on Monday.  The 8:08 Sandringham to city service was running about 10 minutes late.  It was packed, and I knew that the train behind was only a few minutes away, so I waited.  Late and crowded trains are horrible, so I will usually opt to avoid them if I can.  And then, the 8:17 service managed to run 9 minutes late.  Great.

There would have been a lot of commuters again left stranded at stations between Elsternwick and South Yarra.  They wouldn't have made it onto the 8:08 service (without dragging somebody off the train) and then would have caught the delayed 8:17 service - arriving almost 20 minutes late.  I feel really quite sorry for these commuters - they live close to the city, but many days, thanks to crap Metro performance, they have a long commute.

I'll publish a detailed performance update soon.  With over 50 observations now, it is clear that Metro's performance statistics are of little relevance to rush hour commuters.

Good luck with your commuting.  You'll need it.

Awful start to May 2011 - 17 minutes late!

April 2011 was a month that Metro and Melbourne commuters would like to forget.  But May 2011 has started very badly for Sandringham line commuters.

The 8:08 Sandringham to city service ran 17 minutes late this morning.  The following train was also delayed very badly - I didn't catch it, but suspect that it would have been over 10 minutes late.

As frustrating as it was to roll up late at work yet again, the poor passengers at Windsor and Prahran who couldn't even get onto the packed train must have been feeling even worse.  Even as far back as Elsternwick, passengers were opting to not get on the train - and who can blame them - we all know how crowed Metro carriages are when trains run services run late.

I thought that a fight might break out on the train today.  One bloke was shouting at some passengers to move down the carriage.  A reasonable request, but it was delivered in an extremely aggressive and rude way.  We just don't need this on our morning commutes.

When we finally arrived at Flinders Street, we were faced with another wait to get through the ticket barriers.  Some bright spark from Metro (hmm, does Metro employ bright sparks?) has decided to set several barriers to one-way traffic only.  I can see the logic (allowing passengers to enter the station when a wall of passengers is trying to exit it), but Metro has got the balance completely wrong.  There were several ticket barriers standing idle whilst a footy crowd of passengers tried to squeeze through the open gates.  Whatever Metro are trying to do here, it isn't working.

I decided to speak with a Metro staffer to voice my concerns about the new flawed system, hoping that they would take it on board and pass on to management.  In the end I spoke to 3 Metro people.  Here are a noteworthy parts of my discussions.

Metro Worker 1 (MW1) - "they are experimenting".  Me - "but you agree that it isn't working". MW1 - "I can't comment".  Me - "but it's obvious isn't it - you can see the crowd?". MW1 - "I can't let you through, you'll have to queue up over there."  Me - "I don't want you to let me through, I just want you to acknowledge that it's not working."

I joined the queue.  It was barely moving, and I hate crowds, so I went to the Metro desk in the middle of Flinders Street concourse.

Me - "I'd like to give you some feedback".  MW2 - "I can't take feedback, here is a form, you can email them."  Me - "but i think you need to see this, just look at the crowds trying to get out of the station, the new system isn't working". MW2 - "I can't do anything about it, you'll have to email feedback".  Me (frustrated now) - "but you work for Metro, you can see there is a problem, why can't you give feedback internally?". MW2 - "it's not my job, I'm on a contract".

MW3 - "Yes, I see there is a problem".  (Hooray, finally!).  MW3 - "The problem is that they built a wall here, when they should have put more barriers in." 

At this point, exasperated, I realised that I was wasting my breath and making myself even later for work.  MW3 recognised that there was a problem, but couldn't admit that it was the system that Metro were using. Instead he blamed the wall.  That wall has been there for over 10 years (probably much longer).  I agree that more barriers would be better than the wall, but we need something to hold the roof up.  What we don't need is incompetent Metro management, experimenting with passenger flows during morning rush hours.

Metro performance data - in detail

There has been a significant increase in visitors to this blog, and so I thought 'd publish some data that might be of interest.

The two tables of data below show all trips that I have recorded since I started to collect data on 09 March 2011.  In all, there are 26 rush hour trips to the city, and 22 rush hour trip from the city (on the Sandringham line).  For simplicity, I have rounded the 'lateness' to the nearest minute (my actual data is more accurate).

Here's some interesting (or depressing, if you are a commuter) observations:

• Of the 48 trips, only 5 ran to schedule.
• Average minutes late (using unrounded data) is almost identical in both directions at 4.4 minutes.
• In total (using unrounded data), the 48 services ran a staggering 209 minutes late.

Full trip data:

Journey	To the city - minutes late	From the city - minutes late
1	4	1
2	1	12
3	0	1
4	0	5
5	9	8
6	5	1
7	2	3
8	8	6
9	8	2
10	1	0
11	8	1
12	4	7
13	6	4
14	5	2
15	7	3
16	0	14
17	11	4
18	5	8
19	0	1
20	3	5
21	2	5
22	4	4
23	0
24	8
25	4
26	7

I hope that you have a good weekend, and fingers crossed for a punctual trip home this evening!

The Age - reporting on late trains

Great to see that Metro's problems are back in the media again!

Yesterday's Age article about drivers deliberately running trains late stirred up a lot of comments - I think is fantastic that people are so interested.  One comment indicated that there is at least one more person out there who is tracking performance on their train line. 

There's another Age article today - Metro blaming drivers for participating in a deliberate "go slow" and the Rail, Tram and Bus Union denying the claim:

http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/metro-blames-train-drivers-for-unpunctual-april-20110427-1dwtr.html

At risk of stirring that pot up even more - my train this morning was going suspiciously slow.  For the first half of the journey, the train rarely hit its normal full speed between stations.  It was extremely slow in pulling up to and away from platforms.  There were lengthy delays in opening and closing doors.  And then suddenly, things went back to their normal tempo for the second half of the journey.  A cynic might suggest that the driver had already 'banked' 5 minutes of lateness, and that this was enough.  Of course, there are other possible explanations.

Anyway - whatever the cause, the train arrived at Flinders Street just over 5 minutes late.  And this was on a day when there appeared to be no problems on the line, with even the Richmond to Flinders Street going smoothly.

Classic Metro - cancellation, late, incompetence and silence!

After a splendid Easter break, and enjoying a superb Melbourne April morning, I was feeling quite refreshed and not too grumpy about a short week in the office.  Trust Metro to take the shine off.  This morning's trip to work was a classic.  Here's what happened:

• 8:08am Sandringham to city service cancelled.
• Metro sends an SMS cancellation notice for the 8:08am service at 8:37am. How incompetent can Metro be?  Even the cancellation notices arrive late - 29 minutes in this case.
• The following train (8:17am from Sandringham) was pretty packed, but somehow arrived at Richmond almost on time.
• But then it sat at Richmond station for 7 minutes, with no announcement from the driver.
• The train arrived at Flinders Street at 8:55am.  8 minutes late.
• Passengers aiming to catch the 8:08am from Sandringham, therefore arrived at Flinders Street 17 minutes late.

It didn't affect my journey, but I see that there were major disruptions elsewhere on the Metro network this morning.  There must be a lot of frustrated commuters around today.

Metro Performance Update #4

• Of the 24 city-bound rush hour trips that I have recorded, 9 have run more than 5 minutes late.
• This equates to a punctuality performance of just 62.50%, compared with Metro's target of 88%.
• Over these 24 journeys, the cumulative lateness is 103 minutes (ouch, that hurts).
• For the return evening journey, performance is not quite so bad (but still rubbish) - over these 20 journeys, 7 trains have been more than 5 minutes late, giving a punctuality performance of 65%.
• Cumulative lateness on the return evening journey is only (??) 85 minutes.
• Over the 44 journeys (in both directions), the cumulative lateness is 188 minutes.  Metro has now stolen over 3 hours from me (or my employer).
• With today's cancellation, my statistics indicate that 9.7% of morning rush hour trains are being cancelled.

Why can't Metro communicate with passengers?
My train this morning sat at Richmond station for 7 minutes, without a word from the driver.  I know that the intercom was working, as otherwise the train would have been cancelled.  Restless passengers were looking around at each other, at their watches and wondering what on earth was going on.  Other trains were moving.  This sort of thing happens quite often.

It is a mystery why Metro can't inform passengers what is happening in situations like this.  If the driver had said that there was going to be a lengthy delay, I could have dashed for a city loop train and got to work earlier.  Even if I didn't have that option, I would have felt slightly better just knowing what was going on. 

Instead, passengers are just treated with compete disinterest.  Oh well, it's only a few hundred people (some already very late thanks to a cancellation) that Metro is inconveniencing without comment or apology.

Sniffle season
One last thing for today - and I can't blame Metro for this - have you noticed that sniffle season has returned?   It's not even winter and the trains are becoming germ bombs again.  And who else wishes that snifflers would occasionally blow their noses instead of sniffling constantly? (I'm being deliberately provocative - if nobody will make comments on this blog about Metro, maybe I can stir some comments about snifflers.)

Until my next update, good luck with your commuting. You'll need it.

The Train Etiquette Post

I have tried to resist writing a blog entry on train etiquette, but the urge has become too strong.

It is not a simple topic to address, since we all have different opinions as to what is acceptable behaviour on the train. My opinions are just my opinions - but I'm assuming that I'm fairly 'normal' and that the things that bug me on my daily commute also bug most other commuters.

This is a topic that I'm sure I'll come back to from time to time, so I'll just start with a couple of observations, rather than a comprehensive list.

Filing of nails
It is rare, but it happens - some people believe that it is ok to file their nails on the train.  What are these people thinking?  Surely they realise how repulsive this is.  Firstly there is the noise - it is only a few degrees away from the awful nails dragged over a blackboard sound.  And then there is the hygiene issue - I have no desire to inhale fine particles of nails, or have the powdery residue distributed over my clothes.

Filing of nails on the train is just plain gross.  Don't do it! Thankfully I've never witnessed a nail clipper on the train.  Have you?

Passive ipod-ing
Less repulsive than nail filing, but way more common.  In fact, almost every train trip that I make involves passive ipod-ing, thanks to one or two selfish passengers in the carriage who cannot possibly consider listening to their ipods at anything less than maximum volume.  I'll refer to such people as a SBIL (small brained ipod listener).

Why is it that the SBIL almost always has crappy taste in music? Why does the SBIL think that other passengers want to hear what they are listening too?

The SBIL somehow manages to ignore the glances and stares from other passengers that any normal human being would interpret as a sign that they are doing something anti-social.  They don't care when they sit right next to a person trying to read a book, or perhaps doing some work, knowing full well that they'll be blasting them with impossible to ignore ipod pollution.

Here's a very simple piece of advice to SBILs - FOR GOD'S SAKE, TURN IT BLOODY DOWN!  In all likelihood, you'll eventually live long enough to go somewhat deaf naturally - why on earth would you want to accelerate the process?  You're not completely stupid - you have enough common sense to get your music onto your gadget - but for some reason you can't understand how to operate the volume control - what is this about?  Maybe years of maximum volume causes damage to brain cells as well as hearing?

SBILs are a prime example of the group of commuters who seem to live by the motto of "I'll do what I like, and stuff the rest of you".

My favourite technique for dealing with SBILs is to either start singing, or just miming along if I know the tune, or to start nodding my head to the beat if it's some hardcore dance track.  Obviously I don't do this if the SBIL looks like a psychopathic moron - unfortunately this is normally the case.

And one last observation on SBILs - about 90% of them are male.  Make of this what you will.

I'll come back to some of the other train nuisances (mobile phones, stinky fast food, drunks, seat hoggers etc etc) in later posts.

Until then, I hope that you have enjoyed your long Easter weekend.  If, like me, you've managed to avoid Metro during this period, no doubt your stress levels have reduced substantially!

Almost 9% of morning rush hour services cancelled!

I have previously written that this blog will focus on punctuality of Metro trains during rush hour peaks, rather than cancellations. But dealing with two cancellations of my usual morning service in the last 3 days has inspired me look at the data more closely.

Using my data (which I started to record on 09 March 2011), Metro has cancelled almost 9% of morning rush hour city bound trains on the Sandringham line.  I will explain how I arrived at this number below.  I should also note that I have not included the massive disruption to the Sandringham line last week - if I included this data, the cancellation rate would be even higher.

What is Metro's performance target?  The performance target is to run at least 98% of scheduled trains.  So, Metro incurs penalties if it cancels more than 2% of services.  This sound pretty reasonable doesn't it?  2% is a low number.  But, remember that this includes all scheduled services.  As I have written previously, it doesn't take into account the weight of passenger numbers - and so it doesn't capture how much real passenger inconvenience is caused.  This is why I argue that the Metro performance data is NONSENSE.

Metro publishes its performance data here:
http://www.metrotrains.com.au/About-us/Metro-Performance/Monthly-Performance-Results.html

More detailed data is available from the Victorian Department of Transport here:
http://www.doi.vic.gov.au/doi/internet/transport.nsf/AllDocs/E86D4F30A09DB660CA256F1000218747?OpenDocument

The cancellation data for the Sandringham line is shown below:

Month	Percentage of services cancelled
Feb-10	0.9
Mar-10	1.6
Apr-10	0.4
May-10	0.6
Jun-10	1.2
Jul-10	1.3
Aug-10	0.8
Sep-10	0.8
Oct-10	1
Nov-10	1.3
Dec-10	1.1
Jan-11	0.6
Feb-11	6.2
12 month average	1.4

The February 2011 cancellation rate is higher, but Metro (fairly) notes that this was due to severe rainfall and flooding early in the month. Performance results in the table above are inclusive of these impacts. Excluding the most affected dates (4 - 7 February 2011) the overall percentage of timetable not delivered for February 2011 was 1.1 per cent.

The Metro data therefore suggests that on average only 1% to 2% of services are cancelled.  Therefore, Metro rarely gets penalised for cancellations.

What is your experience?  Do you think that only 1% to 2% of the trains that you catch (or intend to catch) get cancelled each month?  I think that the cancellation rate when I'm travelling (rush hour, Monday to Friday) is much higher - and the data I've collected so far supports this.

Based on the data that I have collected, the "true" cancellation rate for morning city bound Sandringham trains was a whopping 8.7%!  That's almost 1 in 12 rush hour trains cancelled.  We all know what that means for overcrowding and late running trains.

Here's how I came up with this statistic:

• I have monitored cancellations on three daily scheduled services on the Sandringham line (and only on days that I have actually travelled) during the morning rush hour period.
• I have observed cancellations, and also noted when Metro has sent me a SMS notification of a cancellation.
• I have recorded data for 23 days of travel.  Looking at 3 services each day, this gives 69 observations.
• There have been 6 cancellations over this period (possibly more, since I may have missed some).
• The cancellation rate is then: 6/69 = 8.7%

If I'd included the weather related disruption last week, the cancellation rate would have been over 10%.

My data clearly shows that Metro's cancellation data is NONSENSE.  The vast majority of passenger journeys take place during the rush hour peaks.  Cancellations cause huge inconvenience.  Metro and the Victorian government would like us to all believe that Metro hardly ever cancels a train (only 1%) - but this is rubbish - the cancellation rate for most commuters is much, much higher.  I would guess that across the whole network, rush hour cancellations are running at close to 10%.

We all know that its' not good enough, and it's been going on too long.  It's time that we stopped complaining and started to increase pressure on Metro and the government to fix our train system.  Write to your local MP, write to the Minister for Public Transport (Terry Mulder), write to the Metro's CEO (Andrew Lezala), write to Andrew Lezala's boss at MTR Corporation (C.K. Chow, in Hong Kong) and tell him what a crap job the company that MTR owns 60% of is doing.

Here are some links to information on The Minister for Public Transport and the leaders of MTR Corporation:

http://www.transport.vic.gov.au/DOI/Internet/Home.nsf/AllDocs/7282FBA99FACA8CACA257846007AA7DC?OpenDocument

http://www.mtr.com.hk/eng/investrelation/governance.html#Senior_Management_Team

Until my next update, good luck with your commuting.  You'll need it.

Metro performance in charts

For various reasons (including line suspensions), I've not been able to collect much data this week.  Rather than publish results that will be almost identical to MPU3, I thought I'd just put together some graphs to illustrate Metro performance.

The first graph shows the number of minutes that the train arrived late at Flinders Street for each Sandringham to City service that I caught.  The second graph shows the cumulative lateness for these trips.

Some people find it much easier to look at data in the form of a graph or a chart, so I hope that this help you to see just how poor Metro's rush-hour service really is.  I find the second chart quite powerful - it shows just how much time Metro's late running is costing me.  Over the 19 trips to the city, Metro has wasted 86 minutes of my time (i.e. if the services had been punctual, I'd have had 86 minutes to do something else).  Not only that - for those 86 'lost' minutes I was either waiting on a platform, or (worse) stuck on an overcrowded train.

Until my next update, good luck with your commuting.  You'll need it.

Line suspended! What about my data?

The only thing worse than a Metro SMS advising that your train has been cancelled is a Metro SMS advising that your line has been "suspended".  This doesn't mean that a mythical giant has lifted the tracks from the ground, creating a new travel experience.  It actually means that your train line is stuffed.  And that a replacement bus will arrive in an hour, or about three seconds before the line re-opens (and becomes unsuspended).

Poor commuters on the Sandringham line had a horrible start to their Tuesday.  Two hour commutes from Sandringham to Flinders Street were commonplace.  I'm no athlete, but I could have jogged to the city in that time.

A consequence of the suspension is that I avoided the trains altogether today.  Not an unpleasant feeling, but it leaves me light on data.  Whilst good for my sanity,avoiding the trains today gives Metro a free kick -imagne how much impact today's lateness data would have had on my statistics! But, I'm only going to record data for trips that I take - without integrity, this blog is not credible.

I have noticed a very bad patch of cancellations over the last few days, as follows:
07 April - 6:24pm to Sandringham
08 April - 6:12pm to Sandringham
11 April - 7:58am to Flinders Street
12 April - 6:12pm to Sandringham

I just don't understand how cancellations can occur so frequently.  What is the cause?  Defective trains? Drivers taking sickies? Vanishing trains?  I have no idea, because Metro doesn't tell us anything these days.

I hope it's not the drivers taking sickies.  But it wouldn't be a big shock.  They are not the most health conscious bunch of workers in Melbourne, if the rabble that I see each day at Flinders Street is anything to go by.

I climb up from the dungeon like Platform 12/13, navigate the crowded ticket gates, hindered by queues thanks to Myki cards scanning at dial-up speeds.  Then, I'm out of the station, but still under cover.  As we know, smoking within the bounds of stations is banned (hurrah), but for some stupid reason, it is ok to light up the second that you are through the barriers, even though you are still under the cover of the station roof.

And so it is that every day I see a bunch of Metro train drivers sitting on milk crates, right next to the barriers on St Kilda Road, puffing away as though there was a prize for the first driver to get lung cancer.  No doubt, the last few drags on the fag take priority over getting a train away on time.  And hey, why not get Metro to give commuters complimentary passive smoking exposure in addition to late running trains.  I know that you can't always judge a book by its cover, but that bunch of drivers don't seem to give a toss about how the public perceives them, which makes me think that they probably don't give too much of a toss about driving their trains on time.

This leads onto another grumble that I have about drivers.  On very many occasions, I have been on a train at Flinders Street, ready to get on my way home, and the train just sits there.  The doors don't close, and it gets more packed by the second.  The scheduled departure time drifts by, and still no movement.  And then, the driver saunters past, as though out for a Sunday morning stroll, with not a care in the world, not the briefest of glances at his watch, not giving a monkey's about the several hundred people just waiting on him being bothered to do what he is generously paid for.  He may well have a coffee in his hand, or be talking on the phone.  But he's sure not rushing.

I've seen bus and train drivers in other countries running to get into the drivers seat, to avoid delaying passengers.  They seem to pride themselves on running their services on time.  What a contrast to our drivers.  I'm sure there are plenty of drivers in Melbourne who do the right thing, but there are plenty who don't seem to give a stuff.  So drivers, here's an idea, when the train is late because it's awaiting a driver: walk bloody faster! You might even get a cheer of appreciation from the hundreds of people waiting for your appearance.

Metro Performance Update #3 (Was that an express train?)

I wasn't going to post this week (as I wanted to collect more data before doing so), but Metro failed abysmally this morning, and I want some payback.  The train that I tried to catch to the city never turned up.  But a train did fly past the station without stopping - IS THIS A NEW METRO TRICK? - read on for comment at the end of today's post.  I eventually managed to catch the next service, which ran 10 minutes late, getting me to Flinders street some 20 minutes later than scheduled.

Here is a quick update (MPU3).  I have continued to record trip data.  Performance on rush hour trips to the city has trended slightly worse, whilst performance on the rush hour evening trip home has improved a tiny bit.  Performance remains very poor in both directions.

Whilst waiting for a phantom train this morning, I overheard some fellow commuters complaining bitterly about Metro.  One of them said that they found the delays in the morning the most annoying.  Obviously I agree - who wants to be constantly late for work?  Metro's slack performance makes us workers look slack.  If your boss doesn't take the train to work, is he/she likely to understand why you are so regularly late in the morning?  I'm not sure that my boss does.

My data shows that trains to the city are regularly running late.  Here are some statistics to illustrate this:

• Of the 17 city-bound rush hour trips that I have recorded, 8 have run more than 5 minutes late.
• This equates to a punctuality performance of just 52.94%, compared with Metro's target of 88%.
• Over these 17 journeys, the cumulative lateness is 81 minutes.  Just think how much productive time is being lost.
• Let's assume that Metro's performance continues for a year at this level.  Extrapolating the 17 days to a 260 day working year, will give total lateness over a year of 20 hours.  That's almost 3 working days of lateness on journeys to the city alone.  Multiply that by the number of commuters and it starts to become mind boggling.
• If I include the data for Sandringham bound trips, over the 31 journeys (in both directions), the cumulative lateness is 132 minutes.  In a little over two weeks, Metro has stolen almost 2 hours from me (or my employer).
• The above points ignore the additional disruption caused by cancellations.

By collecting this data, analysing it and publishing it, I hope that I can raise awareness of just how pathetic Melbourne's train system performance really is.  If you are reading this blog, please tell your friends about it, discuss it with colleagues and fellow frustrated commuters.  I welcome comments, feedback and discussion - don't be shy!

And now to return to my journey to work this morning.  What happened to the 8.08am Sandringham service to the city?  I didn't receive a SMS cancellation notice.  It should have been running.  But in never turned up.  And then a few minutes later, a train rushed through my station with stopping.  Has the Sandringham line suddenly started express services?  What is going on here?

I have recently read and heard stories of Metro turning some non-express services into express services on other lines (which do normally have express services) - heartlessly leaving hundreds of passengers stranded at intermediate stations.  Why would Metro do this?  The only reason I can think of, is so that they can speed the train up so that it does not arrive late.  This improves reported performance and reduces that chances that Metro will get fined (yet again) for providing a rubbish service.  If this theory is correct, what does it tell us about the integrity of the people managing our train system?  Perhaps they went to the same school of ethics as Silvio Berlusconi.  I apologise to Mr Berlusconi for any insult caused by comparing him to Metro.

Until my next update, good luck with your commuting.  You'll need it.

Metro Performance Update #2

This is my second blog entry showing actual data on Metro's performance.
 
Metro Performance Update #1 (MPU1) supported my argument that Metro's performance statistics are NONSENSE.  It was based on a small number of observations, so there was obviously a risk that random outcomes were making things look worse than they were.  See the blog entry for details.

Performance has been really quite consistent since MPU1.  That is, consistently poor.  There has been a slight deterioration in perfromance of city bound trips, and a slight improvement in performance on Sandringham bound trips.  All the MPU2 data is shown at the bottom of this entry.

To ensure that this blog has integrity, I have only recorded data for trips that I have taken.  In addition, I have noted disruptions to other services that I become aware of (either through physical observation or receiving SMS updates from Metro).  I don't intend to capture and analyse these disruptions with vigour, but I thought it would be worth making a note of what I've seen to date on trips to the city.  Remember that this is in addition to the poor performance captured by my core data.

Date	Other disruption on trips to city
17/03/2011	7.58 cancelled, 8.17 running around 7 minutes late.
18/03/2011	8.17 cancelled.
22/03/2011	8.08 running about 9 minutes late.
23/03/2011	8.08 cancelled.
30/03/2011	8.17 running about 8 minutes late.

Now, I don't have the data to support this argument properly, but it does look like Metro is failing to meet its reliability performance hurdle during rush hour periods.  Remember that the target is for no more than 2% of services to be cancalled.

But, back to my punctuality data (the real focus of this blog).  MPU2 again shows that rush hour performance is much worse than the statistics that Metro publishes.  Of the 23 train trips that I have taken, 43.48% have been 5 minutes or more late.  On the run into the city in the morning, 46.15% have been 5 minutes or more late.

This level of service just isn't good enough.  Melbourne deserves better.  Metro's performance statistics are NONSENSE.  Please tell you friends and family about this blog.  The more people that become aware of this issue, the better.  And I'd love to have some regular readers!


Performance Update #2

All journeys in observation period
Number of trips in observation period 23 Trips 5 minutes or more late 10 Proportion of trips late 43.48% Cumulative minutes late 96 Average minutes late 4.17
Trips to the city
Number of trips in observation period 13 Trips 5 minutes or more late 6 Proportion of trips late 46.15% Cumulative minutes late 58.32 Average minutes late 4.49

Detailed trip data:

Date	From Sandringham	Minutes late at Flinders Street

09/03/2011 8:17 3.73 10/03/2011 8:27 0.83 11/03/2011 8:17 0.47 16/03/2011 8:17 0.25 17/03/2011 8:27 8.83 18/03/2011 8:08 5.10 21/03/2011 9:20 2.00 22/03/2011 8:17 8.17 23/03/2011 8:27 8.47 24/03/2011 8:17 1.33 28/03/2011 8:17 8.30 29/03/2011 8:27 4.33 30/03/2011 8:27 6.50
Trips from the city Number of trips in observation period 10 Trips 5 minutes or more late 4 Proportion of trips late 40.00% Cumulative minutes late 37.48 Average minutes late 3.75 Until my next update, good luck with your commuting.  You'll need it.

Metro Performanace Update #1

This is my first blog entry showing actual data on Metro's performance.  I'm tremendously excited as this marks the real beginning of the adventure.  Well, as excited as it is possible to get about such things. 

Here's some data to grab your attention.  Read on to get a proper understanding of what I'm doing, and why Metro's performance statistics are NONSENSE.

All journeys in observation period
Number of trips in observation period	15
Trips 5 minutes or more late	7
Proportion of trips late	46.67%
Cumulative minutes late	65
Average minutes late	4.34

 
If you've read my previous posts, you'll know that my mission is to record and analyse the perfomance of Metro on the trips that I take to and from work in the CBD, travelling on the Sandringham line.  Please read my very first post to learn why I'm bothering to do this (it isn't because I have nothing better to do - honestly!).

I normally catch trains to work that are scheduled to leave Sandringham between 7:30am and 8:30am on weekdays.  For each journey that I make, I record the actual departure time (for the station at which I get on), and the actual arrival time at Flinders Street station.  I have synchronised my watch with Metro's clock to ensure accuracy (assuming that Metro's clocks actually operate properly - surely this is a safe assumption?).  I will publish lots of detail on this trip. 

The timing of my return trip is less regular, but usually I aim for trains that are scheduled to leave Flinders Street between 5:30pm and 7:00pm.  As the timing of my return trips is a bit unpredictable, I will only publish summary data for this leg.

Once I've collected a meaningful amount of data, I plan to contact Metro and the VIC government to ask for feedback.  I know that you won't be holding your breath for Metro or the government to respond with anything beyond the usual standard blurb, heavy on weasel words, references to stakeholders and general corporate speak waffle, but I feel compelled to try.  I might even see if I can get The Age to publish something, hopefully attracting more readers to this blog (at the moment I feel as though I'm shouting into a dark, empty silence).

Drum roll please.......

Performance Update #1

Trips to the city

Number of trips in observation period	9
Trips 5 minutes or more late	4
Proportion of trips late	44.44%
Cumulative minutes late	37.85
Average minutes late	4.21

Detailed trip data:

Date	From Sandringham	Minutes late at Flinders Street
09/03/2011	8:17	3.73
10/03/2011	8:27	0.83
11/03/2011	8:17	0.47
16/03/2011	8:17	0.25
17/03/2011	8:27	8.83
18/03/2011	8:08	5.10
21/03/2011	9:20	2.00
22/03/2011	8:17	8.17
23/03/2011	8:27	8.47

Trips from the city

Number of trips in observation period	6
Trips 5 minutes or more late	3
Proportion of trips late	50.00%
Cumulative minutes late	27.27
Average minutes late	4.54

Let's put the data above into context.  Metro's performance target is to run at least 88% of trains within 5 minutes of the timetable schedule.  This means that at least 12% of trains must run late for Metro to be penalised.  To me, 12% sounds quite high (it gives Metro plenty of leeway before there is a penalty), but that is the benchmark.

For the trips that I made to work, only 55.56% of services were within 5 minutes of the timetable.  44.44% (so virtually half) of trips were 5 minutes or more late.  Based on my experience, Metro failed its performance hurdle by a country mile.

I'm actually not surprised by the statistics.  I had intuitively registered that the performance was rubbish, I just hadn't recorded it accurately before. This first update was during an uneventful period for Metro.  There were no major service disruptions (storms, power outages etc).  It was a relatively 'normal' period of crappy, unreliable service.

Do you see where I am going with this blog now?  My initial data supports my argument that the Metro performance statistics are NONSENSE.  Even the most incompetent management team can run almost empty trains during non-rush hour periods on time.  Measuring performance during non-rush hour periods is just not meaningful.  My statistics (which I accept are imperfect) show how Metro is performing (or failing to perform) during the periods in which most commuter journeys are made.


I encourage others to start to record data.  Let's see how bad things are on other lines.  Remember that we actually pay to use the trains.  How many other companies can get away with such poor performance and still have increasing customers?  Are we trapped?  It appears so.

Until my next update, good luck with your commuting.  You'll need it.

The platform 12/13 escalators - what the?

The area serving platforms 12 and 13 lies deep in the bowels of Flinders Street station.  It is like an oven in summer (thanks to an underground location with no natural air movement), and baltic in winter (thanks to no sunlight).  It is surely the most miserable platform at Flinders Street.

It is a place that you want to leave as fast as possible.  Nobody of sound mind wants to linger there.  One way to leave P12/13 is to get on a train.  When catching a train, minimising exposure to P12/13 can be difficult.  Your train is late, or just doesn't turn up.  Very quickly, you start to feel claustrophobic as the platform gets overcrowded.  Is there enough oxygen down there to keep two rush hour train loads of people alive?

But let's get to the point of this post.  The other time that you are likely to feel a strong desire to leave P12/13 is when your train has just arrived there (probably late).

You muscle your way out of the carriage with a hoard of other frustrated commuters.  Already running a bit late, you want to quickly get out of the station and on your way to work.  And then you are blocked by a wall of people struggling up the stairs that lead to daylight and fresh air.  A few wretched soles are attempting to come down the stairs as the wave of people pushes upward at a snails pace.

Why is the stairway so narrow you ask yourself as you queue up, trying to not bump into the person in front, as those behind push you forward.  And why is that bloody escalator not working?

That stairway that we trudge up each day used to be a lot wider.  And it used to work pretty well.  There was enough room for people to go up and down at the same time,without resorting to the use of martial arts.  And then a genius within the public transport system had the brilliant idea of removing part of the stairway and installing an escalator.

The installation took an age.  Not as long as the roll out of Myki, but much longer than it should have.  Whilst the works were ongoing, the genius designer expected the same volume of commuters to squeeze into a space that was significantly smaller than it had previously been.  But, big deal, the genius said to him/her self, those guys won't be inconvenienced for long, and they'll love the new gadget.  They'll no longer need to exert themselves by climbing those pesky stairs.

I remember very well how annoying the "temporary" narrowing of the stairway was.  This was at least partly due to almost being assaulted by another passenger.  Trying to catch a train one day, I was forced to battle down the stairs as a wall of new arrivals came up, gasping for air.  It was a very hot Melbourne summer day, 40C plus, and there were cranky people everywhere.  Even people who didn't have to catch a Metro service were cranky.  Most of the people coming up the stairs made a good effort to leave a little room for me to squeeze past them on my journey down into the oven.  But one chap decided that he wasn't going to budge an inch.  We met head on, and bumped chests with a thud.  He opened with an f-word, followed swiftly by the c-word, and suggested in a forthright manner that I should wait at the top of the stairs until everybody had gone by.  I replied, in a polite but equally forthright manner that my train was about to leave and I wanted to catch it.  Further colourful language ensued, and I'm sure that if there had been room to throw a punch, he'd have done so.  Fortunately, I somehow found a gap, and escaped the maniac.  The last he heard of me was a muffled shout of "tosser" as the doors of a late Sandringham bound train almost crushed me.  If the genius hadn't ever had the escalator idea, this ugly scene would have been avoided.

Finally, the escalator was complete, and Sandringham commuters could enjoy the tremendous convenience that it provided.  By taking the escalator, it was possible to reach the platform 0.25 seconds faster than by taking the stairs, and with a saving of energy equivalent to 0.0000057 of a Mars bar.  We were so blessed.

And then, within what felt like just a few days (I don't know the exact timing, as I was less anal about these things back then), the bloody escalator stopped working.  And we were back to using a stairway that was too narrow for the volume of people.

The escalator has been out of service more than it has been in service.  Sometimes it has has been closed for several weeks at a time.

Why does this bother me so much?  Simply because, having successfully reached Flinders Street on my morning commute, almost always behind schedule, I then have to navigate the stairway from hell.  It takes a ridiculous amount of time to walk the short distance from the train doorway to the station exit, and almost always involves being bumped and jostled.

If only that genius hadn't had such a great idea.

Why I started this blog

I have been commuting by train to the Melbourne CBD for over a decade.  I have a distant, hazy memory of a punctual, clean, comfortable, enjoyable service (for at least a year).  Sadly, almost inevitably, things went to poop.

I survived the Connex years and welcomed Metro with open, hopeful arms.  Things did get a little better, but let’s be honest, the service still sucks like a top of the range Dyson vacuum cleaner.

It was tempting to use this blog as a personal venting vehicle for my commuting frustrations.  There are plenty of blogs of this type out there, some of which are very popular and amusing.  And public venting is much cheaper than private therapy, so this is an understandable trend.

But I want this blog to be more noble.  I want it to drive real change.  I want to document problems with Melbourne’s train service, with the aim of making the commuting experience better for all of us (including me of course).  Who knows, maybe I can attract enough reader support that the people with the capacity to actually make a difference (are you reading Ted?) will take notice.

Where to begin?  I have so many frustrations with the train service that it is difficult to know where to start.  And there must be plenty of other things that frustrate other people massively that I’ve just not noticed.  The breadth of potential blog material is overwhelming.

So let’s start with something that annoys all commuters.  Punctuality, or more specifically, non-punctuality.

Metro publishes monthly punctuality statistics.  I have long held the view that these statistics are NONSENSE.  I should explain my use of CAPITALS.  Metro’s statistics take no account of the weight of passenger numbers.  Rush hour train services can be completely stuffed up (causing inconvenience to huge numbers of passengers), but Metro can run non rush hour services (carrying very few passengers) on time and still manage to hit punctuality targets.  This is a complete joke.  I have raised this issue with VIC government in the past, but they just don’t seem to get it.  Maybe they are confused by the simplicity of the logic?

Anyway, recently I decided to start monitoring and recording Metro’s performance on my daily rush hour commute (why wasn’t I anal enough to start doing this years ago?).   I have recorded my journey times (when the train wasn’t cancelled and actually ran), and will continue to do so.

I travel on the Sandringham line, and I appreciate that experience might be different on other parts of the network, but anecdotal feedback suggests to me that most lines are just as bad as one another.  Perhaps through this blog I can start to collect data from other lines.

It is very early days and the number of observations is too low for me to publish detailed results.  But I have to give you a teaser to keep you interested.

Metro defines a late train as one that arrives five minutes or more after the scheduled time.  I have adopted this definition so that my statistics can be directly compared to the NONSENSE published by Metro.

Metro’s performance threshold is 88% (so no more than12% of trains can be late if the target is to be met).  Now, in February 2011, a month that suffered serious storm disruption, Metro achieved punctuality of 85.2%.  They only just missed the punctuality target!  I certainly felt that my trips were less than 85.2% punctual.

With just 6 observations so far of travel to the city during rush hour, I can report that punctuality was only 66.67%.  And this wasn’t a particularly unusual week,

So, my early conclusion (admittedly based on a statistically insignificant number of observations), is that Metro’s punctuality statistics are indeed NONSENSE.

Once I have collected a more meaningful amount of data, I will start to publish regular detailed performance results on this blog.  I hope that you will come back to this site to see how things progress.

Punctuality is just one area of commuter frustration that I intend to tackle with this blog.  Stay tuned for further discussion about the myriad of things that make your commute more stressful than it needs to be and suggestions as to how we can make matters better.

 

Until then, good luck with your commuting.  You’ll need it.