It’s heartening to see that the performance statistics of Auckland’s rail system are slowly but surely improving. As shown in the diagram below, on the Western Line in particular we’ve got from three months of sub-50% punctuality statistics for January, February and March, to a much better result of 72.7%. 
These statistics still aren’t exactly anything to be proud of, as overseas contracts are cancelled for sub 90% punctuality statistics, but we are certainly heading in the right direction. With double-tracking of the Western Line due to be completed within the next month I am guessing that the statistics will significantly improve yet again on that line.
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Still, 1.5% of trains not arriving at all..? Doesn’t that mean that out 900,000 passengers last month 13,500 very pissed off customers didn’t reach where they were going at all (not including the mining protestors left on the platforms)..?
It will be interesting to see the patronage stats from April when they come out. April is always significantly lower than March, due to holidays, but the higher on-time performance might mean that patronage growth from April 2009 to April 2010 might be higher than it was between March 2009 and March 2010.
Jeremy, hopefully that also includes people who didn’t get on the train in the first place (rather than those actually left stranded) and who made their own way with some advance warning (especially if multiple services failed at the same time) – as well as the odd ones using substitute buses (hopefully, again, at least some of them with warning, rather than as a belated response to a fault).
I think 1.5% not arriving at destination means 1.5% never left in the first place. Trains actually breaking down en route are pretty rare aren’t they?
Could be, I guess I just figured a train would at least start every service at the scheduled time…
How reliable are these figures? Who collects them and what opportunities to they have to fiddle them?
Considering that some highly embarrassing stats have been published in recent months I think they’re genuine.
Anything less than 95% is bad I think
@ Nick: No. Trains breaking down en route in Auckland are not all that rare. From casual observation, I would say this happens at least 3 times a week.
1.5% means that of the all the 6066 services that were scheduled for April, 91 trains didn’t make it to their destination, irespective of whether they started the service or not.
Ok, the embarassing stats of a couple of months ago are genuine… but when they got some attention… and then the performance improved significantly… how can we be sure they’re reliable? Also, are the definitions of punctual etc. consistent between train operators in different cities/countries?
“Ok, the embarassing stats of a couple of months ago are genuine… but when they got some attention… and then the performance improved significantly… how can we be sure they’re reliable?”
Look, there’s a lot of difference between hiding something and doctoring it, and I don’t really see why you are so concerned without any basis except suspicion. I see no reason to be suspicious of the statistics, and there’s a lot of reasons why they would have improved recently.
Now if they stopped publishing them… oh, wait – that will be the default status with Auckland Transport from October on UNLESS they decide to let us peasants know otherwise.
I’m not saying that the stats are dodgy. I’m just saying that they could be dodgy and there are opportunities to influence them. For example, if I were a train company manager and I wanted to improve the punctuality statistic given above (as it is defined – arrival within 5 minutes of schedule at final destination) I might consider changing the timetable so that the scheduled arrival time at the final destination is 10 minutes later so as to catch trains that would have otherwise been late. I’m pretty sure this is what airlines do to improve their stats. Why wouldn’t train companies do it too?
What a pointless argument. The stats are getting better but are still pretty poor, let’s just assume ARTA isn’t a bunch of crooks.