Isn't "running to the doors at last minute" what it says when it concerns Japanese passengers ? Also, what about the whole "cramming" thing ?JamieLei wrote:Indeed, Japanese trains are very punctual. I generally put it down to:
- obsession with getting it down to the second;
- very punitive punishments when staff get the small things wrong;
- very high levels of maintenance and staffing (to the level that seems utterly costly for a western company); and
- very co-operative passengers that don't run into doors at last minute, or cause delays.
I also wonder what more staffing really does, or how much staffing is considered costly. Here we have lots of staff, mostly as "guards" (we have "guards" at ticket area, ticket barrier, track crossing, platform, not to mention within the train carriages. Sometimes there's an actual what you'd call "guard", and sometimes there's two people at the cab). Does having more guards/staff really helps ?
Ameecher wrote:... Difficult to do on a network which has too many services to actually function properly in some areas.
Pilot wrote:The Schedule might not be the issue, certainly in the UK, trains are scheduled in such a way that they should be able to work on paper - whether this works in practice is a different story. It could be your signallers are too slow clearing a train through, it could be that there is a temporary speed restriction somewhere, forcing the train to run at a speed slower that it's timetable, it could be the platform staff take too long the dispatch the train, or the crowds take too long to board the train. There are so many variables, especially with Passenger trains.
In the film I posted it mentions about "recovery time", how they were common in steam eras. Would it help reintroducing them ?Chris wrote:... Platform staff taking too long to dispatch & crowds taking too long to board are timetabling issues. If these are causing trains to run late then obviously the timetable is not realistic - more time needs to be added in for station calls ...