One man's perspective of the daily grind on board the Connex Melbourne metropolitan train system.
posted by Connex Whinger at 10:30 am
An extract from my first post best sums up what this is all about.
"Perception is reality" was one of the many glib phrases my ex-boss used to regularly use. Well my reality is that I have never had a full week of the train that I want to catch running on time. Let me rephrase that somewhat inelegant sentence - I don't believe that of the ten scheduled trains that I would wish to catch in any given week, all ten have ever run as scheduled. Ever. In over four years of commuting on the Sandringham line, my perception is that at least one train per week is either delayed or cancelled.
That's probably a pretty bold call, so to turn my perception into reality, I plan to keep a diary for a while and we'll see how often Connex can deliver me a full week of reliable services. Yes, I know that's a little self-centred, but isn't that the whole point of blogging?
19 Comments:
Can't be right. With you level of services 'on time,' which you state yourself, these figures can't exactly be right. Past three weeks...
Otherwise, you could now probably set a watch to all the delays.
Connex whinger, good on you. Keep it coming buddy. I'm still reading.
I agree with the previous post. The only disturbing thing here is some little kid with a need for attention.
I don't know how you guys put up with him! I never seem someone so blinded by his self proclaimed "expertise", unable to argue with substance rather than technical insight.
Chris, go to the stats page, copy/paste them into a spreadhseet and calculate the percentages for yourself.
Maybe you could rule a line under the first year's stats, produce an "annual report", and start fresh for 2006/07? This would produce a more accurate trend in your stats.
Just a thought
Moorecat
bah, i kinda did that with a calculator...
well some of it anyway. It's amazing how i waste my time on unnecassary things.
kinda
Ah yes. I hope you paid more attention to statistics. Kinda does not work in mathematics unless you refer to fuzzy logic. However that is something you seem to be familiar with.
kinda
I did one column, then realised I had other things to do.
If you only did one column that would give you no basis for querying his figures whatsoever. He gives an average across about a year or so and one column will only give you one-fifth of a year so that tells you nothing.
I think you owe CW an apology for questioning his accuracy without any justification for doing so.
Well he kinda did it with a calculator.
Einstein can calculate a normal distribution over a full set of data with his good old calculator.
Maybe so, but if you're going to say that a person is getting his numbers wrong then you need to analyze all his numbers otherwise you are not seeing the full picture. Besides I did a fairly simple copy and paste into Excel and the numbers are right. He accused CW of getting the percentages wrong and they are right so he is wrong. End of story.
I don't want be insensible but you didn't spot my sarcasm?
Ill say the exact same thing as Karl Friedrich Gauss...
Chris, we all know your genius and I am amazed that you did not get the message. I doubt your ability to perform any statistical analysis with your calculator alone on a data set such as this.
Well taking the figures of the Connex Whinger and splitting them into 4 week travel periods shows that Connex is on the improve this year.
28/11/05-23/12/05: 48%green, 31%yellow, 21%red
26/12/05-10/2/06: 58% 12% 30%
13/2/06-10/3/06: 62% 27% 11%
13/3/06-7/4/06: 79% 17% 4%
the figures are currently in the middle of another period, but the figures above show improvement.
I don't know how we compare to the actual figures that are provided by Connex and the DOI because they show trains that arrive within the industry standard of 5min59sec and cancellations.
Therefore, we could add the green and yellow to get on time trains, but cancellations are not provided seperately by the Connex Whinger.
Funnily enough, I have been playing with the spreadsheet to try to get some simple and meaningful way of displaying the trend. I agree that they have improved significantly since I started this and have said so in the past. In truth, I try to keep the time spent on this to a minimum so I also need a way that's not too much more work than current!
With an outing to the Dome to see the Swans pulverise the Tiges this arvo and Mothers Day tomorrow, it may not be until next weekend, but I'll have a go.
With respect to the "industry standard" of 5:59 being on time, call it however you like, but to me that's late and I simply can't accept that a train that has its normal load can be classified in exactly the same way as a train that is carrying its normal load plus 60% of the following train's load. And after that there is no real distinction, from a practical perspective, between that much late and a cancellation. (Specifically referring to the Sandy line with trains ten minutes apart here.)
Karl Friedrich Gauss - I see the sarcasm is still going strong.
Keep it up.
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The DOI takes in a full set of numbers. Complete range of services. The broad spectrum.
From first service to last, whether it be late, early, or have never run.
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Ill state the most obvious thing:
Mr Whinger takes in a sample of values of services. These equateto less than 2% of total entire services in each day.
Chris, this debate with Karl and me started with your questioning MY STATS, not the Connex/Government ones. Don't try to change the subject. Furthermore, have a look at the trend and you'll see it is indeed heading south. (Based on MY STATS, of course!)
The sarcasm is unclear, we weren't all born geniuses you know.
But anyway, it's just another random point of trivia.
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