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!