Skip-stopping to catch up

[whole diary]

[grahame]

06:58 Gloucester to Exeter St Davids due 09:34

06:58 Gloucester to Exeter St Davids due 09:34 will no longer call at Cam & Dursley, Yate, Bristol Parkway, Filton Abbey Wood, Bedminster, Parson Street, Nailsea & Backwell, Yatton, Worle, Weston Milton and Weston-Super-Mare.
It is being delayed at Gloucester and is now expected to be 30 minutes late.
This is due to a points failure.

Gloucester - Bristol Temple Meads - Highbridge and Burnham and all (4) stations onwards to Exeter St Davids, 12 stations left out.    With 17 calls scheduled along the way, there were 153 journey opportunities scheduled, but with 6 calls left that's reduces to just just 21 opportunities - however, with it being half an hour late and with services much of the way running event half hour, many of the lost journey opportunities will have been replaced by something that's not too different to what would have been offered by the delayed train.

It will be interesting to see how much time (if any, he says pessimistically) will be made up. JourneyCheck is simplistic and suggest "once delayed, always delayed" and forecasts a 10:04 rather than an 09:34 arrival into Exeter.   Real Time Trains tells us it was 50 minutes rather than 30 late as it left Gloucester, and predicts a 10:03 arrival into Exeter.

[grahame]

It will be interesting to see how much time (if any, he says pessimistically) will be made up. JourneyCheck is simplistic and suggest "once delayed, always delayed" and forecasts a 10:04 rather than an 09:34 arrival into Exeter.   Real Time Trains tells us it was 50 minutes rather than 30 late as it left Gloucester, and predicts a 10:03 arrival into Exeter.

49 minutes late from Gloucester - 1 minute *early* into Exeter St David's

[IndustryInsider]

49 minutes late from Gloucester - 1 minute *early* into Exeter St David's

That's probably a text book example of where removing stops is an excellent idea.  Not having to take the detour via Weston and a scheduled 11 mintue layover at Taunton all contributing the that dramatic delay recovery.

I have seen other examples where it has been completely pointless.  It's taken extra time to get passengers off the train that wanted the missed station(s) at the previous stop and the train has then followed something else, a freight for example, and not made up any time at all.

It's a bit of a guessing game.

[Hafren]

Over the last few months I've had a couple of non-stop CDF^» (Cardiff - next trains)-SWA^» (Swansea - next trains) journeys....

One of them worked well. Other departures held back at CDF. Something looped along the way. Significant time recovered.

The other time there was this stopper in front. I wondered if it would be looped at Tremains, when it was still not causing any hold-up. It wasn't. By Pyle the signal checks were starting. I thought it would be reasonable to loop it at Stormy; it's not unusual, even when the IET^▸ (Intercity Express Train - replacement for HSTs (manufactured by Hitachi in Kobe, Japan)) isn't skip-stopping. It didn't happen. The last opportunity was to overtake at Port Talbot. It didn't happen. The non-stop run became a multi-stop run. I did wonder if the ARS^▸ (Automatic Route Setting) routed things before the signaller could prevent it, but I have no idea which locations on that route are covered by ARS, and I would have thought in that case a signaller would have intervened before the third opportunity was lost!

Then there's the communication issue. Skip-stopping can be a good idea, although passengers aren't too keen on seeing the big picture. But if it has to be done, it needs to be communicated clearly. All it takes is dodgy PA^▸ (Public Address (broadcast loudspeaker announcements) or Passenger Assist (railway staff providing physical assistance to passengers with mobility issues), depending on context) here, or a passenger hard of hearing there, and someone isn't in the picture.

A poor example of skip-stopping was on the Valley Lines. Between the stop at Cardiff Central and departing Queen Street, three different patterns had been announced. It was a 150, and the PA wasn't great. Passengers were a bit confused. It really could have done with the guard walking through to check people had understood, or even the guard taking the rear car and platform staff taking the front car (which stopped right by their office) at CDQ.

Then, on a different but related tack, there's the PAD^» (Paddington (London) - next trains)-CMN journey that terminated short at SWA during a very disrupted day not long ago. The first IET I joined at CDF wasn't going anywhere because it was awaiting (presumably displaced) crew. (There may be a lesson on lack of resources for proper resilience somewhere here.) So anyone who didn't want to wait was advised to join another one which came into Platform 1 or 2. From what I overheard a lot of passengers on there had already had a similar swap of trains at Didcot or Swindon, along with a wait and a diversion. So people felt somewhat messed around and weren't in the best mood! It seemed fairly likely to me, based on experience, that it would terminate at SWA. I imagine it had crossed the mind of crew and control as well, to the point that perhaps expectations could have been set (pros and cons there). But nothing was announced; indeed, it was announced that it was the Carmarthen train more than once.

At some point I checked Journeycheck and saw that it was to terminate short. But no change of plan was announced. Finally, on the approach to SWA, when it seemed like things were running more smoothly and there was no further disruption to the journey, the bombshell was dropped. The reaction of nearby passengers, some of whom had children with them who needed to be fed, was somewhat explosive (which I'm sure helped with keeping things calm for said children!). Oh, and a possible connection wasn't held, with the next one not due for some time. As I was leaving I think gateline staff were picking up on the mood.

[grahame]

That's probably a text book example of where removing stops is an excellent idea. 

[snip]

I have seen other examples where it has been completely pointless. 

[snip]

It's a bit of a guessing game.

Indeed - and I was guessing yesterday as the results unfolded, with both JourneyCheck and RealTimeTrains guessing in their own ways too.   Best you can say sometimes is "at least they tried" and hindsight is always wonderful where it doesn't work out.

Over the last few months I've had a couple of non-stop CDF^» (Cardiff - next trains)-SWA^» (Swansea - next trains) journeys ... One of them worked well. Other departures held back at CDF. Something looped along the way. Significant time recovered.

Skip-stopping can be a good idea, although passengers aren't too keen on seeing the big picture

Totally agreed, and that is the bane of the public transport operator's dilemma.   Not just with issues of sacrifices / changes made - such as running short and skip-stopping when things go wrong, but also with regard to other longer term provisions.  I have often wondered why people who make the choices / decisions actually listen to me from time to time when others say that getting even a reply from some of those decision makers is hard, and one of the reasons I have come upon with is that I see and acknowledge a far bigger picture than most.  There's a whole topic there for "later".

The communication of what's happening can indeed eat into the gains that would be made with skip-stopping (and short running)  and only so much can be done with the tools at hand, some of which leave much to be desired.  It's been the same in Germany and in Poland - not unique to the UK^▸ (United Kingdom).

But skip-stopping, running short, cancelling a round trip on shorter lines on the day are all just sticking plasters covering up when things aren't working as they should - and the real answer lies in having far fewer incidents which necessitate these last-minute changes to the discomfort of the customer.
* Having enough suitable staff available
* Having enough working trains available and not have them fail along the way
* Having infrastructure maintained so that it doesn't fail / lead to emergency restrictions
* Having people not chuck themselves in front of trains
The effects of these are cumulative and they sometimes interact.  I could add "and enough infrastructure to cope" - one of the reasons that we have so many incidents / issues is that we have a far more intense service than in the past so there are many more things to go wrong.  And here on the Coffee Shop and at other online locations, we know about them these days whereas in the past the news/data wasn't available to us ...