Re: [NSW] - hilarious SMH article

["Dave Proctor" <daproc@spambait.ozemail.com.au>]

"David Burns" <dpburns@veal.optushome.com.au> wrote in message
39D9C091.364B56D5@veal.optushome.com.au">news:39D9C091.364B56D5@veal.optushome.com.au...
> Comments below.
>
> Dave Proctor wrote:
>
> > 10 trains an hour during the peak is not going to be too different to 8
> > trains an hour timetable wise.
>
> Depends on which station you are talking about. Of course some stations
> have nothing like this level of service and hence people behave as per
> Darwin's theory of evolution etc.

Talking about peak hour services here, mainly to the outer west (Doonside to
Penrith) which has lots of 6-car trains. Why run lots of 6-car trains when
you can run slightly less 8-car trains  more reliably?

> > And more reliable services will see more passengers travelling than
frequent
> > unreliable ones will. Reliability is the most important thing when
> > attracting people to the railways, and slightly greater headways, with
> > slightly longer dwell times, are what is needed to achieve this.
>
> I'll worry about trains running late when they turn up 100% of the time.
> When I'm trying to get to work and turn up at the station to find
> that a service has been cancelled do you think I (or any of the other
> people affected) give a toss about ontime running?

Which is my whole point. They run lots of trains, with short running times
and short station stops, so when something happens they cannot recover
without skipping stations(so they get no trains at those stations) to get
the train on time again.

Running less (but bigger) trains at slightly longer headways, with slightly
longer station stops, will get around this. People are more concerned that a
train will show up at or near to the timetabled time (and your scenario of
cancelled trains falls into this as well - a train 20 mins late is as good
as a cancelled train to some people).

Dave