Why does the railway give passengers obvious lies?

[sjm77]

I am currently at Manchester Oxford Road awaiting the 19:09 departure to Cleethorpes. The information boards show a 15 minute delay with expected departure time of 19:24. This is a BLATENT LIE.
This train left Lime Street late for whatever reason and is now trapped behind the CLC stopper via Warrington Central with no possibility to overtake it. The stopper is due to terminate here at 19:33 and the Cleethorpes train will only arrive afterwards. OK, so the stopper (2O92) may arrive a few minutes early as there will be some pathing or recovery time towards the end of the journey but in reality that never happens beaucse it will be delayed by a Freighliner ahead waiting to cross Castlefield Junction! Either way I am telling other passengers that we will be minimum 25 minutes late possibly 30!

 

[MrJeeves]

The system that predicts delay has no knowledge of the stopping pattern of a train that happened to be let in front of it.

Without manual intervention by TOC control, where they override the arrival time themselves, nothing can be done here.

Darwin does a great overall job at predicting future delays, also accounting for "next workings" of a service, accounting for allowances in the timetable and clawing back time where it can, but even so it is rather overoptimistic in most circumstances!

The UK does seem to have the best and most widely accessible live timings information of most European countries I've visited. When in Spain, the best I had was a live departure board that seemed to updated every 5 mins, only visible from 1 platform of a 3 platform station! Online info was available if you knew the exact right website and page to visit, but that was it.

 

[Mcr Warrior]

The train is currently at Irlam and likely to now get into Manchester Oxford Road at 1935, so, as you say, 25-30 mins down. Likely you'll be due some 'Delay Repay'.

 

[Dr Hoo]

Don’t information boards generally update as services pass subsequent reporting points?
I am well used to seeing ‘expected’ delays increasing or decreasing over time. Obviously you can never be really sure until a train has arrived, performed station duties and the wheels start to turn. On today’s busy network long-distance ‘cross country’ services just lose time progressively until they end up being terminated short unless they have very long turnarounds or it’s the last service of the day.

 

[Oxfordblues]

Sometimes you might see a train showing as "9 minutes late", then a minute later "10 minutes late", then a minute later "11 minutes late" and so on. This usually means that the train is stationary, but the system has no means of predicting what the actual delay will be.

 

[irp]

Sometimes you might see a train showing as "9 minutes late", then a minute later "10 minutes late", then a minute later "11 minutes late" and so on. This usually means that the train is stationary, but the system has no means of predicting what the actual delay will be.

Which is where tools like realtimetrains, traksy, and my brain get put into use

 

[sjm77]

Which is where tools like realtimetrains.co.uk and my brain get put into use

Exactly! I resigned myself to a 30 minute delay very quickly and then used my brain to focus on other things. Many other passengers we constantly getting more and more annoyed as every 4 minutes the expected arrival time went back a further 2 minutes followed by an annnoying repeat anouncement.

Darwin does a great overall job at predicting future delays, also accounting for "next workings" of a service, accounting for allowances in the timetable and clawing back time where it can, but even so it is rather overoptimistic in most circumstances!

I suspect the namesake Naturalist after which this 'tool' is presumably named would be appalled if he knew! It cannot be beyond the wit of man to have a system that knows a train cannot overtake another by passing right through the middle of the first train. Anyway, 31 late at Oxford Road in the end.

 

[james_the_xv]

This is where in the future I believe some form of AI could be used to predict delay based on past occurrences of the same data patterns...

The obvious drawback being that it should right side fail and not under-predict and cause passengers to miss trains they believe to be later, but it may be able to provide more realistic approximations when situations like these occur.

I'm aware this bordering on speculative, so feel free to move/start a discussion in the appropriate forum

 

[Sly Old Fox]

It’s not lying, it’s just a limitation of the way the data is collected.

 

[1D54]

Must be a Manchester thing!! A couple of months ago i was awaiting a delayed EMR service on P13 and announcements kept saying 'this train is now on the move and is currently between Liverpool Line Street and Manchester Oxford Rd!! If that was the best they could do then I'd rather they had announced nothing at all as it was telling me nothing.

 

[LUYMun]

I suspect the namesake Naturist after which this 'tool' is presumably named would be appalled if he knew! It cannot be beyond the wit of man to have a system that knows a train cannot overtake another by passing right through the middle of the first train.

I'm afraid to inform you that Darwin was a naturalist.

 

[GRALISTAIR]

It’s not lying, it’s just a limitation of the way the data is collected.

This exactly. "Lying" is way too emotive

 

[sjm77]

I'm afraid to inform you that Darwin was a naturalist.

Thankyou!

It’s not lying, it’s just a limitation of the way the data is collected

When they say "this train is currently 15 minutes late" then that would be correct if that was the status at the time. So not a lie I agree on that point. When the platform departure screen says 'Expected 19:24' this was a false claim. It was never going to happen, I and other people using this forum would have known after checking traksy and realtime trains. We would very quickly have worked out that we were being fed nonsense, some may understand the reasons for this, but nonsense is still nonsense I'm afraid.

 

[Topological]

Last week my train was delayed because the train was "late from the depot"

However, it was not. The booked unit had left the depot on time, and indeed left the first station (Cardiff Central) on time. However, something went wrong and that unit came out of service at Newport. A replacement unit was found and duly left Newport 30 minutes late.

This was a similar case of adding time until they eventually gave up and displayed "delayed".

I guess saying "late from depot" covered for the fact that the train failed. It turns out the train had actually been suffering the day before but no one told the depot staff and it was duly sent out as booked in a half working state. Again, probably better to say "late from depot" than tell the public the truth.

To be honest though, I don't actually think it matters. Given that any calculation based on RTT, Traksy, or whatever is just a guess then I think the way the railway does it now is actually better.

 

[Stephen42]

This is where in the future I believe some form of AI could be used to predict delay based on past occurrences of the same data patterns...

The obvious drawback being that it should right side fail and not under-predict and cause passengers to miss trains they believe to be later, but it may be able to provide more realistic approximations when situations like these occur.

I'm aware this bordering on speculative, so feel free to move/start a discussion in the appropriate forum

You cannot have realistic approximations without at least some of the time the estimate being wrong. Even with a low chance of making people miss their trains those estimates are likely to frustrate people for how optimistic they are. Unless it's improved recently the current system can underestimate by some margin and notice platform changes at the last moment.

It doesn't really need AI, a person in their basement could write algorithms to improve on some of the more obvious failure cases. It's been reported there is a project called Darwin Evolution to upgrade a lot of the tech it's built on:

When Darwin moved to AWS, it was essentially a ‘lift and shift’ of the application. The Darwin Evolution upgrade will make best use of the AWS architecture enabling a future proof, more flexible solution that adopts the latest cloud-based technological advances.
Darwin is quite a complex system and is not easy to work on. It requires any new software engineer to learn the whole system and certain changes to the system may require the complete Darwin system to be taken down. However, the scalability of Darwin using software ‘containers’ and eliminating the hard-to-support legacy technology will make future changes to Darwin sustainable.

Using software ‘containers’ and the native cloud solution, together with the reduction/elimination of the legacy software, will make it easier to make changes and provide a larger group of engineers to support Darwin. Using containers will also better facilitate DevOps. DevOps is a set of IT practices and tools which integrates and automates the work of software development (Dev) and operations (Ops) to improve and shorten any development life cycle. Using Linux Containers where possible will also significantly reduce the current Windows license costs. Other Darwin Evolution changes include modernising and improving the storage of the internal timetable, replacing custom made codes with the cloud native solution, and retiring some of the legacy services.

The Darwin Evolution project will allow future changes to the system to be undertaken more quickly and will avoid the need to take the whole system down for software enhancements. Making the system easier to understand will also help to maintain the competencies required to work on Darwin.

In short it's the classical legacy system; few people know how it works, changes are difficult and risk breaking things, releasing the changes is complex with recovering from issues even more so. There's likely a high bar to get any changes approved and RDG can't easily raise cash for nice-to-have software development. I wouldn't put your hopes on better time predictions being a priority any time soon.

 

[dk1]

Although not good railway information is still light years ahead of that in the bus world that seems the work of pure fiction much of the time with buses just disappearing off screens and nobody to tweet or if they do that reply within an hour or even next day.

 

[Mcr Warrior]

Good news and not so good news. Good news is that the 1819 train ex Liverpool Lime Street wasn't terminated short of Cleethorpes and so completed its journey. The not so good news is that it arrived into Cleethorpes about 19-20 mins down. (Which, however, does meet the criteria for successfully claiming Delay Repay from TPE).

 

[Krokodil]

but even so it is rather overoptimistic in most circumstances!

Which is a good thing, because it avoids the risk of a passenger deciding that they've got time for one last pint but being caught out by the train making up some time.

 

[Horizon22]

I suspect the namesake Naturalist after which this 'tool' is presumably named would be appalled if he knew! It cannot be beyond the wit of man to have a system that knows a train cannot overtake another by passing right through the middle of the first train. Anyway, 31 late at Oxford Road in the end.

It would be much harder than you think, considering all the variables in play. It simply estimates based on where that train is along its route at each berth point. Trains are associated to one and another (e.g. Train A arrives at Station Q to form Train B, or Train C stops at Station X,Y,Z en route) but not others around them. So yes it is frustrating when trains tick over and get later and later (such as in your scenario) but the only way around this is manual intervention by a controller which is a educated estimate and this presumes they have the time to do it. And even then, Darwin can still knock out the manual delay once moving.

Although not good railway information is still light years ahead of that in the bus world that seems the work of pure fiction much of the time with buses just disappearing off screens and nobody to tweet or if they do that reply within an hour or even next day.

Agreed, bus info (if it's even there) is truly a work of fiction which appears to simply be the base timetable!

Last week my train was delayed because the train was "late from the depot"

However, it was not. The booked unit had left the depot on time, and indeed left the first station (Cardiff Central) on time. However, something went wrong and that unit came out of service at Newport. A replacement unit was found and duly left Newport 30 minutes late.

This was a similar case of adding time until they eventually gave up and displayed "delayed".

I guess saying "late from depot" covered for the fact that the train failed. It turns out the train had actually been suffering the day before but no one told the depot staff and it was duly sent out as booked in a half working state. Again, probably better to say "late from depot" than tell the public the truth.

To be honest though, I don't actually think it matters. Given that any calculation based on RTT, Traksy, or whatever is just a guess then I think the way the railway does it now is actually better.

No movement of the booked ID/headcode or the associated (e.g. a 5xxx service forming 2xxx) one within 3-4 minutes (again without manual intervention/override from a controller) will default to "Delayed".

Thankyou!

When they say "this train is currently 15 minutes late" then that would be correct if that was the status at the time. So not a lie I agree on that point. When the platform departure screen says 'Expected 19:24' this was a false claim. It was never going to happen

"Expected" is clearly an estimate and why it is named as such - it can change. It could be smarter sure, and things like AI will no doubt help in future but there is the risk that it could also throw up more problems by delaying services where there will not be one. There are a lot of variables, not all of which can be predicted.

For instance where Train A is meant to form Train B but control have manually intervened to step up units or bring a spare unit out to ensure Train B leaves on time. Adding a delay could lead to passengers missing an on-time departure (as I have known to happen).

 

[boiledbeans2]

Sometimes you might see a train showing as "9 minutes late", then a minute later "10 minutes late", then a minute later "11 minutes late" and so on. This usually means that the train is stationary, but the system has no means of predicting what the actual delay will be.

I see this as well, then suddenly, the display just shows "Delayed" with no ETA, as if the system gave up.

 

[Horizon22]

I see this as well, then suddenly, the display just shows "Delayed" with no ETA, as if the system gave up.

As stated above, it does with no movement after 4 minutes.

 

[Starmill]

Thankyou!

When they say "this train is currently 15 minutes late" then that would be correct if that was the status at the time. So not a lie I agree on that point. When the platform departure screen says 'Expected 19:24' this was a false claim. It was never going to happen, I and other people using this forum would have known after checking traksy and realtime trains. We would very quickly have worked out that we were being fed nonsense, some may understand the reasons for this, but nonsense is still nonsense I'm afraid.

I would be interested to know how you'd design a service which applies accurate logic to every loop, platform etc. in the country to run predictions. Clearly it could be done, but at what cost? The current service is very "dumb" and if nothing has been changed in Darwin, it just assumes a train will take however long it's booked to take except for the dwell time and allowances which can all be made up. Obviously this is fictional, but it's better than nothing at all.

If you just said "two trains on the same line follow one another" all you'd do is swap these errors for far worse ones elsewhere.

 

[plugwash]

I suspect if you took say a years worth of historic data and crunched it, you could work out a fairly accurate list of places where delayed trains can plausibly overtake trains they are "stuck behind".

 

[Egg Centric]

It cannot be beyond the wit of man to have a system that knows a train cannot overtake another by passing right through the middle of the first train. Anyway, 31 late at Oxford Road in the end.

As others have said this isn't practicably possible, but to give a concrete example as to why - imagine that it's the Aberdeen - Penzance service being 20 minutes late as it leaves Aberdeen. And it's carrying some GBRF driver (who delivered the sleeper yesterday) who was supposed to travel passenger on the Penzance service to Haymarket, then passenger to Birmingham, at which point he would drive a freigh service an hour ahead of the Penzance service. And then imagine it calculating where all the other services in the whole network are going to be just because of this one piece of disruption.

Essentially it would have to run a simulation of the entire transport system if it were more than a few minutes ahead.

I do agree with you though that for delays of under, oooh, 20 minutes this is probably actually possible and practicable. And an hour or so heuristically. If the industry puts its mind to it. Which it won't...

 

[Ken H]

Although not good railway information is still light years ahead of that in the bus world that seems the work of pure fiction much of the time with buses just disappearing off screens and nobody to tweet or if they do that reply within an hour or even next day.

Bus stops seem to run off the timetable mostly. Unlike the railway they are not updated with lateness or cancellations.
Provision at bus stops seems pretty random. At the busy stops on the main road outside Airedale Hospital why does the eastbound shelter have an electronic display but the westbound one doesnt?
Steeton & Silsden Station has electronic displays on both platforms showing real time information.

 

[The exile]

It’s not lying, it’s just a limitation of the way the data is collected.

And an apparent complete lack of thought about the effect on passengers. Clearly facts will change over time (trains pick up or recover from delay, platforms are changed) but telling the passenger something that another part of the system knows is not true is inexcusable. Recent examples from GWR land:
Bristol Parkway: staff info (correctly) shows train routed into platform 1 instead of 2. After this, there are three automated announcements telling everyone the train is arriving at platform 2 - including one as it is halfway along platform 1 - then hurried manual intervention. OK, so it’s cross platform, but stopping places are different, so cue quite a few distressed elderly ladies with luggage who would have plenty of time not to hurry.
2. Bath Spa. Abbey Wood train showing on platform screen as leaving from 2. Staff screen on 2 shows route set into 1. I have time to go downstairs, through subway, up stairs onto 1 before, as train is pulling, platform alteration is announced 1 minute before advertised departure time.
3. Bristol TM:Trains advertised as leaving “on time” when their inbound workings are clearly showing as being late enough to be arriving after that departure time.
If computer systems consistently turn out such drivel, then they are not fit for purpose.

 

[Spartacus]

Maybe call it an error, but it's not a lie....

 

[Falcon1200]

It cannot be beyond the wit of man to have a system that knows a train cannot overtake another by passing right through the middle of the first train.

Any such system would also need to know if there were loops or multi-track sections where one train could be overtaken by another, whether such loops or facilities were or were not already occupied by another train, or blocked for some other reason, and whether Signallers and/or Control decided to use that facility, depending on likely delay to the first train. Not quite as simple as it first appears!

 

[norbitonflyer]

Although not good railway information is still light years ahead of that in the bus world that seems the work of pure fiction much of the time with buses just disappearing off screens and nobody to tweet or if they do that reply within an hour or even next day.

Scottish City Link must be an exception then. Just last Monday, the ETA of a coach I was expecting to catch at 1130 was important because (a) I had a connection to make with a train that, in the reduced timetable, was one of only three schduled that day (and the third would, in the event, be cancelled) and (b) it was pouring with rain and there was no shelter at the bus stop.
Seeing it had been on time at 0830 but had apparently not yet reached the next timing point five minutes further on, I phoned SCL who assured me the bus was running to time and two minutes later the online tracker data had been updated - albeit to "data not available", but that was better than "not moved for an hour".
And it did arrive, not more than five minutes late which, given it had been going for five hours already, was not bad.

As stated above, it does with no movement after 4 minutes.

Problem with "delayed" is that, at least on SWR, it then appears in the "1st" "2nd" "3rd" sequence at the time it should have arrived, ahead of any trains that are running. Thus, at somewhere like Wimbledon, you will see nonsense such as

1st train - xx03 Chessington - approaching
2nd train - xx06 Woking - delayed
3rd train - xx09 Shepperton - 2 minutes

In practice "Delayed" means it hasn't left Waterloo yet, and so there is no way it can arrive before a train that is only two minutes away. It also crowds out trains that are actually close at hand.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

Exactly! I resigned myself to a 30 minute delay very quickly and then used my brain to focus on other things. Many other passengers we constantly getting more and more annoyed as every 4 minutes the expected arrival time went back a further 2 minutes followed by an annnoying repeat anouncement.

The Cleethorpes predictably ended up in the path of the following Nottingham train, so both trains chased each other down the Hope valley to Sheffield.

There's lies and lies.
I was in Athens once waiting for a return charter flight to the UK.
The official information was that the aircraft "has just left Gatwick".
What they didn't say that this departure was for a prior round trip to somewhere else in the Med, with another 7 hours to elapse before it left Gatwick for Athens.
It was a long night, and no delay-repay.
The airline deceased later that year.