On time vs late departures

[route56]

946 from Belco Depot bus station. It was supposed to leave at 10:12 AM on Route 52. The bus was parked idling at the end of the platform. I saw the driver sitting in the bus, and he must be a really well informed gentleman as he was so caught up in the newspaper that he didnt stop reading it until 10:17 AM, when he decided to start his run, and folded his paper, moved forward 10 metres and let me on board. Great work sport. 

[route56]

Yeah i see now that I was at fault, Im that idiot that looks at the timetables and believes that ACTION buses stick to them, i should have remembered that the drivers can pretty much do their own thing when they leave the depot.

[smitho]

The reason for that delay is actually because the driver has some sort of idea. From experience all the 50 series runs have to much time to get to the first timing point after Belconnen (William Slim/Chuculba) so leaving late ensures the bus stays on time once leaving Belconnen, the people who do the timings need to look at tightening the timings up to avoid such occurrences.

Yes, timings for Belconnen to Chuculba is consistently slack across various routes...

[Kramden]

Yes, timings for Belconnen to Chuculba is consistently slack across various routes...

Indeed Smitho.  During schools hols I found that leaving Cohen dead on time on a 51 resulted in a five minute plus stop-over at William Slim/Chuculba.  This was primarilly caused by almost nil loading at Westfield and Belco Comm Station.  Even if you try and slow it up further on, IMHO you can't justify ambling along Baldwin at 40kph.  52 is not quite as bad as long and you get some pick ups and set downs along William Webb.  Depends of course on the time of day.

[CNG]

Yeah i see now that I was at fault, Im that idiot that looks at the timetables and believes that ACTION buses stick to them, i should have remembered that the drivers can pretty much do their own thing when they leave the depot.

also if you are not aware the timings are only approx aswell so the driver was following all the right means, did he get to the location on time in the end? If so what was the drama.

[route56]

52 sched 10:14AM from Belco Westfield actual departure 10:24AM.

[Buzz Killington]

I didn't know Chris worked mornings

[Kramden]

52 sched 10:14AM from Belco Westfield actual departure 10:24AM.

...and your point would be?

[Snorzac]

Exactly, there is seriously no point in leaving in time and having to crawl the entire way...

For me just 346 on a 313 whilst my car was getting fitted with a new stereo as well as 419 on the usual (16/16/17)

Apart from that it has all been my car this week (Metrocar?) and this evening back to the old Elantra for a breif trip to Belconnen. Catching buses to get places is a thing of the past for me!

[The Love Guru]

You can justify it all you like, but when the real time info starts getting analysed - these are the types of things people will criticise ACTION about. If the times arent correct - tell your timetable people.

As a passenger, its frickin frustrating.

They already have all the 'real time' info they need through the Myway system. As yet, they haven't fixed any of the timetables. I can understand your frustration as a passenger, however if there is too much time on a run there is nothing you can do except leave late, as running early can lead to the end of ones days at ACTION. The notion of driving at 30km/h just so you can leave on time is stupid. Buses should be travelling as close to the speed limit as is practical and safe, and unfortunately the current timetables don't reflect this. Fingers crossed that the timetable update next year will address these issues.

As for you Buzz, what are these buses in the morning you talk about? I was under the impression we only operated services after midday.

[Kramden]

You can justify it all you like, but when the real time info starts getting analysed - these are the types of things people will criticise ACTION about. If the times arent correct - tell your timetable people.

As a passenger, its frickin frustrating.

First let me acknowledge this as being a little off-topic (in this thread) for the benefit of the traditional owners of the Forum.

Frustrating indeed, but as Chris points out: some times necessary.  Particularly on the 50s that run along William Slim.  I did a 52 yesterday in the PM leaving Cohen four mins late.  Shock/horror!  By the time I was down at the Community platform I was spot on.  Then, with considerably slow traffic along Aikman, I sailed into William Slim/Chuculba timing point on time...only to be greeted by a field officer doing a spot check.  I actually like working at ACTION and am not keen on being boned for early running.

My point here, as per Chris's post, is that I didn't have to crawl along in this case.  People reached their end destinations on time.  Of course there are other routes on the network which do not have generous amounts of time, e.g. route 2.  Hmmm, and there's these things called traffic lights.  Get on the wrong side of a run of those and your neatly timed world starts crumbling.

Time tabling is not an exact science.  As a commuter (I used to catch a daily bus to work in my previous life) I live in between timing points and have sometimes missed a bus – only by a minute – because the driver left the timing point before my place a tad too early.  I remember being mighty-ly pissed when I'd see the bus dribble pass the end of my street as I walked along.  My watch was spot on too having set it via 'the talking clock'. I'm a bit anal with time.

On that last point, we don't live in a 'perfectly timed' world, i.e. not everyone's time piece is running exactly as per the ACTION driver's console which right on the mark.  In this way you can be operating a suburban service in peak running, say, two mins down and you'll still have people running for the stop.  You know in yourself that had you been dead on time they'd be screwed but a fair few of them manage to turn up their nose at you as if to say,  "curse you typical bus driver not running to time".  What can you do?

[route56]

I had walked to the Belconnen Depot bus stop at 9:20 AM, looked at the timetable for 52 and saw 9:12 as the departure time  - it was 9:20, so assuming i had missed the 52, walked to Westfield, bought the Age, had a coffee at max brenners and then walked to the Westfield stop at 10:10 to catch the 10:14 AM 52 service. It arrived over ten minutes late.

Should i have just hung around at 9:20 on the off chance that i really hadnt missed the 9:12 AM route 52 service ?

I should be able to rely upon a published timetable.

[Barry Drive]

You can rely on the timetable at the Bus Station - the 52 will not depart prior to 0912.

[route56]

You can rely on the timetable at the Bus Station - the 52 will not depart prior to 0912.

:rim:

[Kramden]

It arrived over ten minutes late.

Of course there's always a chance that the driver on that run 52 may have been doing his/her first one out and had trouble with the bus at the depot.  In recent days I've had air problems for example in two buses.  Fortunately the delays on the following runs were only a few minutes and were consequently made up during the respective journeys.  We all know that late running can be due to a variety of factors other than the driver not sticking to the timetable or just not giving a rats.  Can't imagine ANY of my esteemed colleagues having such poor regard to providing good/reliable service. (grin)

Hope you enjoyed your Max Brenner's.  Had a waffle there once.  Mmmmm, w-a-f-f-l-e-s....

[Barry Drive]

They already have all the 'real time' info they need through the Myway system.

Take a look at the Busness website for some impressive graphs showing bus timeliness based on extracts from MyWay data. (Only selected routes - no info about when the data was collected or over what period -- but graph is pretty!).

[Maxious]

Take a look at the Busness website for some impressive graphs showing bus timeliness based on extracts from MyWay data. (Only selected routes - no info about when the data was collected or over what period -- but graph is pretty!).

Haha, it's just my MyWay card records, there's an outline of what dates/routes/stops are covered at http://bus.lambdacomplex.org/myway/myway_timeliness_overview.php

I read from the Territory and Municipal Services committee that they're going to do this kind of analysis (matching MyWay to timetables) soon but there's some technical work required:

Mr Peters: Thank you for the question, Mr Coe. If I understand it, it is what new technology we have coming online in January and what that might do for us. One of the key advantages of having the MyWay system is that we  will have better data around how people are actually using the public transport system in terms of where they are travelling from and to, how many people are getting on the bus at any particular one point, how heavily used particular bus stops are, whether people are transferring and how often they are transferring, and where people are coming to. At the moment, we are collecting all that data.
When people get on the bus and tag on and tag off, we are collecting all that data. It goes into a database. At the moment, we can only manually drill into that database.
What we will be getting in about December is an interface system that will allow us to look into that data and interrogate it a lot better. That is probably the key thing that we are looking forward to.
MR COE: The reason I ask is that some time ago—I think it might even have been in estimates—I asked about average journey lengths and that sort of information. The response was, "It is not available at the moment but it will be available in January." Will this interface that you are talking about provide the ability to be able to extract that kind of data from the system?
Mr Lawrence: The system we are introducing is called netBI. The system is the same system that is being used over in Perth with the SmartRider system and interfacing with their system, which is the same as ours. The first stage of that will be to incorporate the tag on and tag off data as of early December; the second stage will be to actually incorporate the bus stop, or on-time running component, of it, where the system will actually link with our HASTUS system, which is a system that does all the scheduling and service details for ACTION.
MR COE: When will that second stage be available?
Mr Lawrence: We hope in the third quarter of next year, so by March next year.

THE CHAIR: Minister, I presume this information that is being gathered through having the MyWay system will identify where there are peaks that we were not aware of before and we will be able to adjust those going forward into the—what did you call the new bus network?
Mr Corbell: Network 13.
THE CHAIR: Network 13, yes. And there may be some other peaks.
Mr Corbell: Yes, absolutely. It is all about ensuring that we have got as good an information base as possible to plan better services for people.
THE CHAIR: So we would imagine that we might identify some peaks that we had not identified before?
Mr Corbell: Absolutely

Mr Byles: My recollection, and I will stand corrected, is that previous accountability indicators on timeliness refer to when the buses actually left the depots.
MS LE COUTEUR: Yes, absolutely.
Mr Byles: It was not a true reflection of whether a bus was on time or not.
MS LE COUTEUR: True.

[Barry Drive]

I did wonder where that data came from.

The fact that ACTION/TAMS are still not yet analysing their MyWay data (or are just starting to do so) is a bit of a concern. That should have been in place when MyWay started, rather than waiting nearly a year before they get around to it.