Cost Per Minute Of Delay

[Loadhaul60059]

I’m currently on the 1S20 LNER service from London to Edinburgh.

At York, some people got on the train at the last minute. After leaving York, the guard addressed the train and specifically mentioned how ‘you shouldn’t board the train once the departure process has started’, and that ‘for every minute of delay, it costs between £300 - £400’.

I was wondering where this figure came from, and if there is any way of verifying it?

 

[pokemonsuper9]

I'd imagine the 15th, 30th, 60th, and 120th minute of delay costs quite a bit more than the other minutes thanks to delay repay.

 

[transportphoto]

I was wondering where this figure came from, and if there is any way of verifying it?

The railway has what can be perceived as wooden dollars moving around constantly. Delays are attributed to their root cause with a perceived cost per minute of delay - each associated back to an individual incident, an incident could only result in a small delay to one train or it could have hundreds of separately delayed attributed back to it.

 

[The Planner]

It falls under Schedule 8 compensation. Each TOC will have a value per minute delay, depending on service group. I doubt you will get anyone saying what they are.

 

[AlterEgo]

I’m currently on the 1S20 LNER service from London to Edinburgh.

At York, some people got on the train at the last minute. After leaving York, the guard addressed the train and specifically mentioned how ‘you shouldn’t board the train once the departure process has started’, and that ‘for every minute of delay, it costs between £300 - £400’.

I was wondering where this figure came from, and if there is any way of verifying it?

Network Rail Schedule 8 payment rates, which vary by TOC/service group and time of day.

 

[styles]

Are these Network Rail Schedule 8 payment rates in the public domain?

 

[172007]

I was told years ago that on my routes the cost per minute was circa £200.

 

[MerlinRail 804]

Slightly stupid question - I understand how the more severe delays cost money, but how does even a minute delay cost that much?

 

[SuspectUsual]

Slightly stupid question - I understand how the more severe delays cost money, but how does even a minute delay cost that much?

It doesn’t cost that, but it’s charged at that

 

[NeakPed]

It falls under Schedule 8 compensation. Each TOC will have a value per minute delay, depending on service group. I doubt you will get anyone saying what they are.

Schedule 8 compensation is a very complicated calculation. The nature of the calculation is that there is no set £££ per minute.
Its been a few years since I was involved in it, but from memory it is based on the average lateness at a number of weighted monitoring points & the TOC/Network Rail % delay split for the day.
Network Rail delay minutes include delays caused by other TOCs. Contrary to popular belief, TOCs only pay for delays they cause to themselves. Any TOC on TOC delay is included in Network Rail delay (for Schedule 8 purposes).

 

[GuyGibsonVC]

Delay Attribution is its own industry within an industry.

In a past life, I've sat on numerous calls arguing about the root cause of delay. It gets quite specific, for example:

There is a track circuit failure caused by an Insulated Block Joint. The S&T fault team say rectify the fault and say it was caused by a sliver of metal. Now this sliver of metal could be classed as lipping, a swarf or from somewhere else. If it swarf, then has any work been in that vicinity in the past 24 hours? Was it grinding? Was it Pway mucking about in the area? Staff error? IBJ failure? Track fault? Track circuit fault?

All these questions go into the coding of the fault which, in turn, then goes into specific performance KPI, which, in turn goes into business planning for maintenance volumes, joint meetings with TOCS, budgets, and even management bonuses. Network Rail are usually on the hook for most things. Sheep on the line, balloon on the OLE, train hitting a pheasant etc

Finally, direct delay could be 10 minutes but reactionary delay around the network could be 100 minutes. The figures soon mount up and a five minutes delay at departure could cost tens of thousands of pounds.

 

[HarryF]

What if the late running passengers had arrived on a late running connection and that was the reason for them boarding late? It seems extremely poor to publicly shame them.

 

[MerlinRail 804]

It doesn’t cost that, but it’s charged at that

What’s the reason why if you don’t mind me asking?

 

[JamesT]

What’s the reason why?

As some of the other posts in this thread have explained it can be quite complex to attribute delays and their costs. It might well cost more to decide the exact cost for a short delay than the actual cost. So the charging mechanism is based off a simpler average where you can just put in the length of the delay and get a value. Overall, the numbers must be about right or you’d hear complaints from one side or the other that they’re being treated unfairly.

 

[MerlinRail 804]

As some of the other posts in this thread have explained it can be quite complex to attribute delays and their costs. It might well cost more to decide the exact cost for a short delay than the actual cost. So the charging mechanism is based off a simpler average where you can just put in the length of the delay and get a value. Overall, the numbers must be about right or you’d hear complaints from one side or the other that they’re being treated unfairly.

Ah I see. Thanks

 

[Geeves]

What's the situation now where TOCs are government ran? Are the government now not attributing delay costs on themselves or is there some slight of hand where it still actually matters? "Silos" or what ever they calling it. I can see the value of it when things were private but not so much now.

300 pounds per minute is what we were told at our TOC.

 

[Horizon22]

What's the situation now where TOCs are government ran? Are the government now not attributing delay costs on themselves or is there some slight of hand where it still actually matters? "Silos" or what ever they calling it. I can see the value of it when things were private but not so much now.

300 pounds per minute is what we were told at our TOC.

It doesn’t really matter. Delay attribution is about root cause and performance analysis ultimately. Even in a fully GBR world, delay attribution will still be very important. The “pots” of money all move around dependent on that.

 

[Harpo]

There is a track circuit failure caused by an Insulated Block Joint. The S&T fault team say rectify the fault and say it was caused by a sliver of metal. Now this sliver of metal could be classed as lipping, a swarf or from somewhere else. If it swarf, then has any work been in that vicinity in the past 24 hours? Was it grinding? Was it Pway mucking about in the area? Staff error? IBJ failure? Track fault? Track circuit fault?

Been there. Very senior people who really ought to be doing far more important and strategic stuff, spending hours re-writing history to massage delay minutes away from their area of responsibility, not because it benefits the end user or the industry but to save themselves, because that’s how everything is measured. It was the same before privatisation with impact minutes.

 

[Dr Hoo]

There hasn’t been much explanation of the basic reason that ‘time is money’. More specifically, lateness at a passenger’s destination has a Marginal Revenue Effect. BR established this in early Passenger Demand Forecasting Handbooks. Very simply, poor performance damages future revenue prospects as people reduce train usage.

The performance regimes are hung on the end of just some of the Delay Attribution information. They are designed to recognise that some services are busier than others and have mixes of usage that make elasticity of demand larger or smaller, etc..

During the long post-Hatfield performance collapse literally billions of pounds of revenue were lost. (Billions of pounds also changed hands through the performance regimes although nobody would claim that this was a precise figure.)

 

[AlterEgo]

Are these Network Rail Schedule 8 payment rates in the public domain?

I don’t believe so, I’ve searched for them before. But my understanding from my time in the industry is that for a busy peak train like the one in the OP, a few hundred pounds per minute would not be an unreasonable ballpark figure - particularly if that train begins impacting other services.

 

[styles]

I don’t believe so, I’ve searched for them before. But my understanding from my time in the industry is that for a busy peak train like the one in the OP, a few hundred pounds per minute would not be an unreasonable ballpark figure - particularly if that train begins impacting other services.

Yeah I am assuming there's some sort of factoring in of delaying other operators.

In Scotland it's not unusual for trains, ferries, planes, buses, to be held back if a connecting service is delayed. It would seem odd to heavily penalise ScotRail for doing this if it's only delaying other ScotRail services, not other freight/passenger rail operators.

A Transport for Wales service causing delays to Avanti on the other hand - I'd expect penalties to be much greater.

 

[SuspectUsual]

Out of interest, is there any sort of allowance in these rules for what you might call a "good" delay? So thinking of an English example, the last train of the day down to Whitby being held a few minutes to enable a connection to be made onto it

 

[norbitonflyer]

Should all be one railway. If a connection has to be held for a significant number of people not to be seriiusly delayed, that shiuld trump the much smaller delay to the people already on the train.
Different operatirs shouldnt make a difference - if youve bought a ticket from one operator, (or even Trainline) the other operators involved in your journey are effectively their subcontractors, and are jointly respnsible for getting you from A to B to C.
A train which arrives at its destination with 10% of the passengers booked on it missing because a connection wasnt held is no better than Ocado, Amazon, or a Pizza delivery turning up on time but with 10% of the order missing

 

[JamesT]

Should all be one railway. If a connection has to be held for a significant number of people not to be seriiusly delayed, that shiuld trump the much smaller delay to the people already on the train.
Different operatirs shouldnt make a difference - if youve bought a ticket from one operator, (or even Trainline) the other operators involved in your journey are effectively their subcontractors, and are jointly respnsible for getting you from A to B to C.
A train which arrives at its destination with 10% of the passengers booked on it missing because a connection wasnt held is no better than Ocado, Amazon, or a Pizza delivery turning up on time but with 10% of the order missing

Define significant. Also, how do you know it would be a much smaller delay to the people onboard? Who in turn may be at risk of missing their own connections if the train is held, some of which may not be within the control of the railway.

 

[150219]

There is no allowance for a good delay or bad delay. A delay is a delay and has to be allocated to root cause. Bigger or smaller delays are neither here nor there and can't be compared to ticket purchases. The DAPR (Delay attribution principles and rules) is publicly available online via the Network Rail website. The replies by @AlterEgo and @The Planner are accurate as it stands from the professional response. Ultimately the allocation of delay and payments deriving from delay attribution is helpful to fund project work and improvements to eliminate trending causes of delay. The delay attribution side from NR to the operator can be broken down even further by the operator to identify what is causing the most delay and try and prevent it from happening again. That is why attribution is quite helpful.

 

[The exile]

Define significant. Also, how do you know it would be a much smaller delay to the people onboard? Who in turn may be at risk of missing their own connections if the train is held, some of which may not be within the control of the railway.

Clearly there is no “one size fits all” but in the case of a rural branch line with a) little or no dependent public transport (ie no bus connections en route) and b) adequate buffer time at the far end - ie no likelihood of a delayed arrival delaying the next departure, not waiting a short while for connecting passengers when the next train might be in 2 hours is not good public service. Of course there is then a debate about the duration of “a short while”

 

[Dr Hoo]

Out of interest, is there any sort of allowance in these rules for what you might call a "good" delay? So thinking of an English example, the last train of the day down to Whitby being held a few minutes to enable a connection to be made onto it

The onwards delay to a connecting service would be part of the reactionary delay to the incident that delayed the incoming service. This is subject to the obvious caveat that there should be an agreed Connectional Policy at the interchange station. This might typically specify that the branch train to X will be held for up to Y minutes for a connection from London by a different operator or service group.

Not all possible connections will be subject to such policies. For example, as I know too well, Hope Valley local trains are not held at Sheffield for late arrivals from St Pancras. Given the huge potential for spiralling disruption onto fast services, freight and other trains approaching Manchester this is obviously a rational decision. There are sometimes exceptions for this sort of thing such as last services at night.

 

[AverageJoe]

Also snowball effects of delays mean train staff can be displaced or in need of breaks which in turn can cause further delays or cancellations.

 

[Oxfordblues]

I believe more operators should follow the lead of Caledonian Sleepers and put in a "performance allowance" to account for late running. For example 1S25 is due to arrive Inverness at 08:35 but is advertised at 08:45. Similarly 1M16 is due Euston 07:47 but the public time is 08:00. If it arrives 13 minutes late everybody's happy (well, the punters at least). It might be dismissed as "padding" by some, but it's good for the public perception of performance.

 

[Harpo]

I believe more operators should follow the lead of Caledonian Sleepers and put in a "performance allowance" to account for late running. For example 1S25 is due to arrive Inverness at 08:35 but is advertised at 08:45. Similarly 1M16 is due Euston 07:47 but the public time is 08:00. If it arrives 13 minutes late everybody's happy (well, the punters at least). It might be dismissed as "padding" by some, but it's good for the public perception of performance.

Most operators have had WTT/GBTT differences for decades.