Underground service cancellations

[Daniel740]

Why is LU so poor at organising around cancellations? For example allowing large gaps between services then having them ‘bunch’? This completely defeats the point of social distancing and in my opinion, is something that needs to be sorted sooner rather than later.

 

[bluegoblin7]

Have you got any specific examples of where this is the case? This would allow your question to be answered more specifically, rather than in generics.

'Cancellations' can happen for any number of different reasons, likewise blocking back. Where possible this will be evened out, but sometimes it is not possible (crew reliefs, branch intervals and the like).

Speaking as someone who is paid to regulate service intervals where necessary, I can assure you that myself, and my colleagues, are definitely not 'poor' at this, and regularly go above and beyond to solve these problems, often before they are noticeable. This predates Covid-19 too.

Service control is very much a dark art and it isn't possible to truly appreciate the various parameters if you're anywhere other than in the chair. There are multiple different metrics that have to be kept to, and service control will very much be looking at the bigger picture.

 

[Daniel740]

Have you got any specific examples of where this is the case? This would allow your question to be answered more specifically, rather than in generics.

'Cancellations' can happen for any number of different reasons, likewise blocking back. Where possible this will be evened out, but sometimes it is not possible (crew reliefs, branch intervals and the like).

Speaking as someone who is paid to regulate service intervals where necessary, I can assure you that myself, and my colleagues, are definitely not 'poor' at this, and regularly go above and beyond to solve these problems, often before they are noticeable. This predates Covid-19 too.

Service control is very much a dark art and it isn't possible to truly appreciate the various parameters if you're anywhere other than in the chair. There are multiple different metrics that have to be kept to, and service control will very much be looking at the bigger picture.

Not to be rude, but the timing does seem poor, for instance tonight there is a 10 minute gap on the Jubilee line, that’s three trains cancelled one after another, how hard is it to spread those cancellations around more evenly?

 

[bramling]

Have you got any specific examples of where this is the case? This would allow your question to be answered more specifically, rather than in generics.

'Cancellations' can happen for any number of different reasons, likewise blocking back. Where possible this will be evened out, but sometimes it is not possible (crew reliefs, branch intervals and the like).

Speaking as someone who is paid to regulate service intervals where necessary, I can assure you that myself, and my colleagues, are definitely not 'poor' at this, and regularly go above and beyond to solve these problems, often before they are noticeable. This predates Covid-19 too.

Service control is very much a dark art and it isn't possible to truly appreciate the various parameters if you're anywhere other than in the chair. There are multiple different metrics that have to be kept to, and service control will very much be looking at the bigger picture.

Whilst I agree with the gist of the above, there are variations in how different control staff work, which can have quite a big effect on outcomes. I’d say it’s often the case that those with a railway background, particularly a signalling one, do better than those without.

It’s very much the case that some attention to detail at quiet times can pay dividends, even something simple like making the effort to sort a pair of out-of-turn trains which a couple of hours down the line can be someone else’s junction headache. Some people “get” this, whilst others don’t. There used to be a lot more of this attention to detail in times past, for various reasons it has slipped away in places, yet with today’s more intense services it is more important than ever.

During the lockdown when it was special services all round it was quite disappointing to see some pretty nasty bunching at times. Whilst this was partly down to variations in driver performance (or less diplomatically slow drivers!) some control staff were more adept (or, again, to put it another way made more effort) at smoothing this out. Nothing more to it than that, unfortunately, especially when one sees a perfectly balanced 6 minute service handed over, and a glance at T-net a couple of hours later shows it completely lumpy.

 

[philthetube]

Not to be rude, but the timing does seem poor, for instance tonight there is a 10 minute gap on the Jubilee line, that’s three trains cancelled one after another, how hard is it to spread those cancellations around more evenly?

a gap like that will always almost be caused by some delay on the line and not by staff shortage, an ill person on a train for 10 minutes causes a 10 min gap and can take a long time to sort.

 

[Mojo]

This evening for instance there were at least three incidents on the Jubilee line that would have caused a delay to the service.

Do you have details such as time and location? It may not have actually been three trains cancelled.

 

[Daniel740]

This evening for instance there were at least three incidents on the Jubilee line that would have caused a delay to the service.

Do you have details such as time and location? It may not have actually been three trains cancelled.

About 9.30 P.M Canary Wharf, there was a long gap followed by three trains in three minutes

 

[goldenarrow]

It's important to remember that one of the consequences of operating close headways is that it only takes a very small hold up for blocking back to seriously hamper service frequency. That is why one of the first things that happens on the Victoria line for example when there is a stoppage of more than a few mins is thinning the service as a 90 second headway leaves the line with more trains than platforms to accomodate them. The same applies to Thameslink too with metro style frequencies in the core but crewing arrangements that are of a complexity that wouldn't look out of place on longer distance TOC's

The Jubilee is not so different in some ways with stepping back of train operators and limited reversing capacity for short tripping at other locations. Disruption would obviously interrupt stepping back schedules so it is in the interest of Service Controllers to thin the service to a degree to aid service recovery should services need reshuffling for crewing purposes.

Every line has some degree of operational challenges that warrants thinning of the service after a certain amount of time of stoppage has occurred. It's a simple trade off between having a train stuck in a tunnel for an incident fpr which there is often no definitive timescale when things will be moving again or having trains held in platforms. Even when bearing Covid guidelines in mind, the latter is usually the preferred option.