Thursday, January 15, 2009

Switch and Statistical Optimization (Post Delayed Just Like GO)

This post is actually from yesterday but given the Go delay I did not have time to post it until now.

This morning is a good example of swich and statistical optimization.The train that was supposed to leave Burlington at 7:25 am was already 4 minutes late when itarrived at Union. We arrived at Oakville at 7:45 am and it was noted that trains were cancelledso our train was additionally crowded. After leaving Oakville we sat literally 100 m from the stationwaiting for a broken switch, however as we sat for the hour, other trains were allowed to pass us in both direction including other Go Trains.
Here is the two statistical optimizations:
1) Cancelled trains to NOT appear on the results on the Go Transit website By cancelling a train that is most likely to run late, it does not affect the stats.2) Since our train was already late and would appear on the stats as a negative, it was better to let all the ontime trains pass us than to back us up to Oakville and let us use another switch.
The other thing to note is that this particular switch seems to be the one that fails most of the time and is highly used. Given this knowledge should this switch not be up for replacement and possiblythe air blowers. There were three CN trucks on scene watching the conductor manually flip the switch.
This brings up a vital concern that Metrolynx and possibly Transport Canada needs to address.Passengers complained about the poor service from Go Transit but rather than actually improvingthe service for all passengers, they are just playing the statistics game.
If anyone has any better explanation on why a train leaving oakville at 7:45 am was still 100 metres from Oakville an hour later when other trains that left Oakville after it arrived at Union Stationon time. I will also note that this is not a one time issue. Over the past month, I personally have been on 2 such trains, one had switch problems like this one, the other had issues with the doors openingand shutting at stations on route. Other trains were allowed to pass us by.

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