How common are delays ?

[SuspectUsual]

Coming back to the OP’s original question, I kept notes of my commute into Manchester from a dark corner of Northernland for about six years. All the same route, though at varying times of the day and (luckily) rarely five days a week.

Overall I made 1,507 journeys, so enough to avoid the data being skewed by a small number of odd events. Some numbers (can you tell I have OCD?!?):

- 34% of my journeys were more than 5 minutes late

- In the annus horribilis of 2018 49% were over 5 late and my average journey was 12 minutes late. Not bad for a 30 minute trip!

- in April/May 2018 there were 29 consecutive trips back from Manchester that were >5 late

- there was a week in September 2018 when I was in the office 4 days, and my journeys home were -64, -37, -97 and -31. I’d forgotten just how awful that meltdown period was

Ironically, the trigger for my recording stuff (apart from being OCD about numbers) was a conversation with one of the Northern senior team at Manchester Victoria not long after I’d started this job. I’d had a bit of a moan about persistent low-level lateness and his reply was something along the lines of “it’s going to improve a lot, and soon”. How little he knew……

 

[ComUtoR]

Why should the customer change there times or way they commute due to the railway failing to deliver a punctual service?

Why would you put yourself through that frustration every single time ? That way lies madness. If an alternative existed why wouldn't you take it ? I know if I leave my house at 0800 I will hit traffic. I know if I take a certain road at a certain time on my route to and from work I will hit the school run. I either leave a little later or a little earlier and take the side road to avoid the local school.

Its the same when I commute by train. I know certain trains will be late and certain trains will be crowded. There are some days where I completely avoid my connection and drive to the other station and pay £12 for parking. Should I have to do that because the train service is junk ? No, but I do it for my own sanity.

If I get to work early then I use that time to chill out or grab a cuppa in the cafe. I literally sit there and watch commuters getting more and more frustrated at every minute passing and listen to their mutters each time the train stops. I sit there knowing I have plenty of time and I don't get that anxiety of getting to work on time or making my connection.

 

[The exile]

Why would you put yourself through that frustration every single time ? That way lies madness. If an alternative existed why wouldn't you take it ? I know if I leave my house at 0800 I will hit traffic. I know if I take a certain road at a certain time on my route to and from work I will hit the school run. I either leave a little later or a little earlier and take the side road to avoid the local school.

Its the same when I commute by train. I know certain trains will be late and certain trains will be crowded. There are some days where I completely avoid my connection and drive to the other station and pay £12 for parking. Should I have to do that because the train service is junk ? No, but I do it for my own sanity.

If I get to work early then I use that time to chill out or grab a cuppa in the cafe. I literally sit there and watch commuters getting more and more frustrated at every minute passing and listen to their mutters each time the train stops. I sit there knowing I have plenty of time and I don't get that anxiety of getting to work on time or making my connection.

If the choice you have is a train that gets you to work 20 minutes early, one that gets you there 40 minutes late or one that gets you there 80 minutes early…
Delays can of course sometimes have the opposite effect - I got home 1 bus earlier thanks to yesterdays New Street meltdown.

 

[miklcct]

Why would you put yourself through that frustration every single time ? That way lies madness. If an alternative existed why wouldn't you take it ? I know if I leave my house at 0800 I will hit traffic. I know if I take a certain road at a certain time on my route to and from work I will hit the school run. I either leave a little later or a little earlier and take the side road to avoid the local school.

Its the same when I commute by train. I know certain trains will be late and certain trains will be crowded. There are some days where I completely avoid my connection and drive to the other station and pay £12 for parking. Should I have to do that because the train service is junk ? No, but I do it for my own sanity.

If I get to work early then I use that time to chill out or grab a cuppa in the cafe. I literally sit there and watch commuters getting more and more frustrated at every minute passing and listen to their mutters each time the train stops. I sit there knowing I have plenty of time and I don't get that anxiety of getting to work on time or making my connection.

I'd rather get half an hour more sleep and get the train which allows me to arrive the workplace the closest to the start of the office hour. If the train on my usual route becomes late en-route I will run faster in my connections, do unnecessary changes onto faster trains if my usual route is not the fastest, use alternative routes, or even catch a taxi under extreme circumstances to catch up time.

 

[miklcct]

If the choice you have is a train that gets you to work 20 minutes early, one that gets you there 40 minutes late or one that gets you there 80 minutes early…
Delays can of course sometimes have the opposite effect - I got home 1 bus earlier thanks to yesterdays New Street meltdown.

I'd avoid this route simply because it's frequency is too low. Anything worse than 15-minute headway is out of consideration in a work commute.

 

[Hadders]

I'd avoid this route simply because it's frequency is too low. Anything worse than 15-minute headway is out of consideration in a work commute.

For the umpteenth time services generally don't run at 15 minute intervals outside London.

 

[trainophile]

For the umpteenth time services generally don't run at 15 minute intervals outside London.

And Merseyside.

 

[miklcct]

For the umpteenth time services generally don't run at 15 minute intervals outside London.

If this is a regular 5-day commute I'll buy a car instead even if I have to pay thousands of £ each year for insurance and maintenance.

Peak time train fares can't be described as cheap anyway, and such poor service doesn't represent value of money.

However, I'll be more likely find another job instead to avoid this poor commute.

 

[Horizon22]

Exactly, but that was what was needed in the past to provide sufficient capacity to avoid being called in by the DfT for breaching your numbers of standing passengers. Covid has at least helped reduce that, which along with the greater seating capacity now available, means fewer peak trains are required, which does allow some recovery.

Ironically a lot of the new stock out and around London & SE should really be proving it’s worth around about now too (and some is) if Covid hadn’t happened. It’s just in the interim some services have also been cut so it sort of evens out.

 

[zwk500]

If this is a regular 5-day commute I'll buy a car instead even if I have to pay thousands of £ each year for insurance and maintenance.

Peak time train fares can't be described as cheap anyway, and such poor service doesn't represent value of money.

However, I'll be more likely find another job instead to avoid this poor commute.

If you won't wait 15 minutes for a train how long are you prepared to sit in traffic when you drive?

I hope you aren't fussy about what jobs you do, if a commute like that would be a deal breaker.

 

[Horizon22]

For the umpteenth time services generally don't run at 15 minute intervals outside London.

I think many major cities will have 4tph at peak perhaps not on all routes but certainly not unheard of.

As for the original question of “how common are delays” I think Network Rail produce an all TOCs figure as a performance measure on their website. As I alluded to earlier, it is highly variant on TOC, region/area within that TOC, time of day, and the specific journey and whether it involves changes.

 

[Jamiescott1]

Okay let's break this down. You've said peak, so I've aimed to get you into London before 9am and leaving after 5pm.

AM

• Marlow - Bourne End. No issues here
• Bourne End - Maidenhead. No issues either
• Maidenhead - Paddington. Now if you change onto the GWR 0802, then yes there are some issues: It hasn't run on-time (within 1 minute) ONCE in the last 12 weeks, but 87% of journeys have arrived within 15 minutes which would be the threshold for delay. This would correspond to once every 2 weeks you could claim Delay Repay. This train isn't a good runner. Why? Well its an extra peak train, so is probably a little bit "shoved" into the timetable. This may change in Dec '22 or May '23 and might be improved.

In the AM there's not a fantastic alternative, otherwise you'd get into London 30 mins later. I will say Maidenhead has probably got the worst deal out of TfL taking over the majority of services on the line, so you're a bit unlucky here unfortunately.

PM

• Presumed you're taking the 1720 off Paddington - Maidenhead and changing. Performance here is actually very good and whilst "on-time" is only 43% within 5 minutes is much higher at 91%
• No issues with the shuttle.

Overall, I think the reason you can claim delay is probably because of the 5 minute connection at Maidenhead - even if the Paddington-Maidenhead service is only a few minutes late, you won't make the connection which means a 30 min wait for the Marlow shuttle = Delay Repay. So an interesing case. Be interesting to know in which direction you tend to claim more, AM or PM?

7 journeys into this week. 2 delays

1650 Paddington to marlow, 30 minute delay as the 1714 from maidenhead to bourne end did not run

0606 marlow to Paddington. 15 minute delay as the connecting 0633 from maidenhead was delayed at Reading for 15 minutes

 

[Magdalen Road]

For sure and trains should always run on time.

This one isn't. If it can't run on time for some reason or another because its path doesn't work should it be re-timed ? or should it be removed altogether ?

My TOC is about to have a huge timetable change with some routes being rationalised. Without understanding why passengers behave the way they do, how do we best serve them ? If a passengers is willing to take the same delayed train and simply claim delay repay and absorb the frustration then the TOC isn't incentivised to make changes. If there are services that are too infrequent then maybe there should be an increase in the service level or a different journey. I'm lucky because my local station has many different routes to London and I can use various interchanges when things go wrong or I'm looking for flexibility. So if a service can't run on time for any reason should more flexibility be built into the timetable ?

My morning commute is horrible. However, I choose to change my behaviour to stop myself getting caught in traffic. I leave a little earlier and get to work early without getting frustrated. I hear many commuters complaining that their train is always late or they always miss their connection. I think to myself; "why not get a different train"

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 1 Nov 2022 ==



Unless we understand passenger behaviour, we can't help them. The easiest way to understand something is to ask questions.

Seems to presume the person has a choice.
Would I choose to get the frequency delayed train that I do if there was a viable alternative. No. There is no viable alternative. It's the first train of the day. Subsequent trains are often delayed more, are half hourly at best and incredibly crowded.
- Too far to drive (Cambridgeshire to London)
- Driving to bigger station would require getting up earlier, drive would take longer than the shorter train journey. Cost of parking (walk to station now) and drive back in peak time = even longer commute.
Can't work from home.
Just run the trains on time please.

 

[ar10642]

All of this is fair enough, although with the BIB - is this then delay repay failing? Surely the point of being liable for compensation is to incentivise the TOC to improve performance?

Surely with the current situation with the DfT running everything and taking all risk there isn't much incentive for the TOC to improve performance at all?

 

[Runningaround]

Again, asking for professional reasons. Why not get a different train ? or a different way to work ?

Perhaps it's there only way home and have to put up with it, I've done exactly what you suggest and now come home by bus if it ran at a convenient time before work, I'd use the bus both ways, it's 20 minutes longer but has been late once in a month and has got me home earlier than the 4 in 5 times a week delayed return train one of those was cancelled so there wasn't a return service between 4pm and 7pm. The out was delayed 3 out of the 5 days.

 

[Runningaround]

Check here to set up your journey time, from & to and you can see all performance for a set period - https://www.ontimetrains.co.uk/journeys

Just checked my regular journey 33% on time on the out and 25% on the return in the last 12 weeks. Surely there must be more than 25% of half the fare delay repay compensation, when it impacts life this much.

 

[al78]

I commute to Farringdon every Tuesday and after what seemed like frequent delays back in the summer I started logging my journeys in August after several delays through June and July. Starting from 17th August to 1st November, 12 commutes in total, nine of those I have experienced delays of at least 10 minutes and two more with delays of 5 minutes or less. This refers to either the outbound or return journey and it is typically the return journey that has been delayed. Since Easter I have successfully claimed delay repay six times. Reasons for delays so far have been signalling problems, power failures, track defect, safety inspection of track, person hit by train, train cancelled because crew delayed, train before mine broke down when switching from overhead to third rail at Farringdon blocking the platform and slow running near Earlswood resulting in missed connection at Three Bridges.

The days when I worked from home because there were no trains due to industrial action are additional and happened before I started logging.

I'll be commuting to Farringdon twice a week next year so I'll soon see whether or not I have just been unlucky and delays are biased to Tuesday or whether this is the modern day normal for rail services in the SE and many journeys are going to be a grind.

 

[AndrewE]

I found that flexitime was a life-saver in terms of removing the stress around my commute. If the morning train (or car-journey) was late I could do extra time in an evening to make it up - and on a day which suited me (or go in early one day.)

I know that lots of jobs have fixed shift times, but in reality most (apart from driving-type turns where early arrival can't be made use of and a late arrival is disastrous) could quite happily accommodate 10 minutes either way. Half an hour might be pushing it though.

However with the need to decarbonise our economy (which will mean a lot more use of public transport and active travel) I suspect a lot of employers will have to be forced to accept this...

 

[plugwash]

Again, asking for professional reasons. Why not get a different train ?

I suspect they are tied down by work times set by their employer.

or a different way to work ?

If you don't already drive, it's expensive, both in time and money to start. Congestion and parking issues can also be an issue if commuting by car into a big city.

Busses are essentially the last resort option for getting around. They move much slower than trains even at quieter times of day, in rush hour they suffer the same congestion cars do.

Ticketing arrangements can also mean one is essentially "locked in" to a particular mode of transport. I'm lucky that here in Greater Manchester I can buy an annual ticket that lets me use both the busses and the trains, but in many parts of this country that doesn't exist.

 

[al78]

Busses are essentially the last resort option for getting around. They move much slower than trains even at quieter times of day, in rush hour they suffer the same congestion cars do.

A regular cyclist could outrun at least some buses especially if you get unlucky with the timetable. As there were no trains between Horsham and Crawley yesterday I used the bus there and back, and the roughly eight mile journey took around 40 minutes each way with low traffic congestion (despite the two towns being connected by a fast dual carriageway), and I had to hang around Crawley for an extra 25 minutes before coming home because I has missed the bus by five minutes.