LIRR President Orders Individual Branch Performance Goals

[num1hendrickfan]

gotta love guys like commuter x. they are against pretty much everything, but never offer an alternative. im sure if we knew what he did for a living, we could rip it to shreds. i seem to remember medicine?

Here's one ...

We live on a g-d dammed island. Why isn't there ferry service to/from Manhattan?
No traffic, congestion or boats in front of you

The New Haven took all the ferry services over and had a monopoly on cross sound ferries, as they slowly went under so did the ferry service ( which to my knowledge wasn't well utilized in the end anyway ). Can't blame them for that, why use the ferry when you have a one seat ride between New York and Boston. Same applies to Long Island and New York City. The only real ferry services left bear little resemblance to what was, that said the Cross Sound Ferry does pretty damn good business between Port Jefferson and Bridgeport.

As for congestion, ferry's require berths to dock at and discharge passengers and automobiles if they carry them. One slip can only accommodate one ferry, if those are full you're stuck waiting at sea.

[BuddSilverliner269]

Can't blame Amtrak for all the delays in the Nyp to Harold section since half the time the PSCC operators are LIRR and that's contractual. Also you have certain stretches of track out of service within Harold for ESA construction.

[lirr42]

Subscription needed to read, but the title speaks for itself:

http://www.newsday.com/long-island/lirr ... -1.9716219" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

It's an interesting topic. I recently went through several years of the data provided in the monthly operating reports on the website and compiled them all into an Excel spreadsheet to see what statistical information can be calculated from it. One of the things involved how often the LIRR meets it's present 95.1% OTP goal. Since January 2007, the LIRR has been meeting it's system OTP goals just 31.6% of the time, which is pretty abysmal. Some branches certainly meet their goals more than others (Far Rockaway, 87.4%; Hempstead, 86.3% compared to Port Jefferson, 4.2%; Ronkonkoma, 4.2%). It's been five years and four months since the Port Jefferson Branch last met its OTP goal.

For fun, I decided to see what some recalculated OTP goals would look like. Using a couple factors, the goals below reflect what the individual branches should be able to meet roughly 75% of the time:


Far Rockaway, Hempstead, and West Hempstead actually go up slightly, but the rest go down, some significantly. Montauk and Port Jefferson both have goals below 90%.

Of course, this is all just nitpicking on how we're reporting the information. Instead of lowering the goals, they could also increase on-time performance so all of the branches meet their goals, and then this wouldn't be an issue...

The full document with all of the spreadsheets, tables, and graphs, etc., is some 89-pages long, too much to upload here, but if you're interested, you can send me an e-mail and I'll forward it along.

[lirr42]

Finally someone who has a realistic operations based idea of how a railroad actually works. Unlike his predecessor.

Onorclose7 - Anybody would've been better than Helena, including my dog. Let's see how he turns out because he had a very anti-labor past from SEPTA.

Mr. Nowakowski is now in his eighth month as president of the railroad, and if you look at things from the commuter's point of view, not much at all has improved. Try going up to someone on the train tomorrow and ask them if they think that the railroad is being ran by someone different than this time last year...

On-time performance in Mr. Nowakowski's first seven months is only like 0.1% higher than in Ms. Williams's last seven months, fares are the same, service patterns are the same, we still have two Barclays crews that run 19 minutes worth of passenger trains and 7 hours and 41 minutes worth of non-revenue overhead (mostly sitting around), passenger communication is no better than it was this time last year, and there's still the same old litany of things that are not going quite right with the railroad.

It's the overall inertia of the company that needs to be shaken up. Not every little thing crosses the president's desk for approval.

[lirr42]

You have too many variables on a daily basis to expect an on time arrival at all stations. All train schedules across the world have padding, but especially on the LIRR the way equipment is manipulated, having to be at the control of Amtrak in the tightest section of the railroad, and having connections on most trains, something that is not hardly seen on most railroads the way the LIRR does with Jamaica.

While yes, the OTP is likely skewed in many aspects, the only way to guarantee a better OTP is to add time to all the schedules on top of the padding that is already there, so pick your poison.

You are right in saying there are many variables, but you are not right in assuming that all of them prevent the LIRR from operating on-time.

There are variables that the LIRR does not have control over, but there are quite a few that they do have control over. Yes, the LIRR does not have control over delays due to Amtrak, PSCC, weather, power outages, bridge strikes, slow or heavy loading, police activity, disorderly passengers, vandalism, etc. (though they do have control over how messed up their system gets because of delays like that), but they do have control over things like delays due to work on a Capital project, signal problems, switch problems, track conditions, track defects, track circuit failures, broken rails, loss of interlocking supervisory systems, third rail power problems, equipment trouble, door problems, communication problems, overflowing bathrooms, dirty windshields, late connections, trains routed out of sequence, crew errors, missing crews, rules violations, active Maintenance of Way Projects, etc., etc., etc...

And, it just so happens that at least roughly 35% of all of the LIRR's delayed trains are delayed due to one of those things that they do have control over.

If you were to take those preventable delays and completely get rid of them, the LIRR's mean OTP would shoot up 2.2%. And, since we're on the topic of goals, if none of these preventable delays would happen, the number of months where the LIRR's system OTP would meet the 95.1% goal would increase 169%... There are quite a number of months where the LIRR comes close to meeting their goal, but these preventable delays drag them down below the 95.1% threshold.

And this of course only considers the numbers they actually reported, and it doesn't reflect category fudging (i.e. a train is delayed 12 minutes for equipment problems and 1 minute due to slow loading and the final delay category is assigned to the Public category...)

If the LIRR wants to improve their OTP, or improve how often they meet their goals, getting rid of these silly preventable delays would be an excellent place for them to start.

[lirr42]

How would one determine how much additional padding each train needs?
My guess is the current system is one giant gordian knot

You could start by looking at past performance of trains. This table shows the top fifteen worst performing peak trains through the first 11 months of 2014. These trains are routinely among the least reliable on the system, and they have been like this for years.



Notice any common themes? Lots of South Shore PM Peak trains. The lone Brooklyn Flyer? You don't need to massively pad the schedules to make things run on-time, just adjust them to make the trains run together efficiently. Train 148 isn't always late because it only has 44 minutes to go from New York to Seaford, it's always late because it's scheduled to run only two minutes behind a Brooklyn local, train 146... The rest of the trains fall behind due to bunching and congestion.

Taking the chronically late trains and fixing their schedules (which does not mean just adding fat to the running times) so they are not chronically late anymore could not only improve OTP for those trains, but the OTP for all of the trains that fall behind due to congestion behind those trains, and then the whole reversibility of the system increases as a result.

Why they don't do this is beyond me. The train schedules at peak hours have remained largely unchanged for decades. The trains that are always chronically late have been like that for years...

[lirr42]

hey X, what is your ontime performance in your car? you never hit traffic, get stuck behind a broken car, get slowed up by emergency vehicles? between the people fouling the tracks with cars and garbage, people having medical issues on the trains, and all sorts of other nonsense when you move 300,000 people a day, they do well . if the trains are so bad, get in your car every day in any weather and do it yourself. yeah, i thought so .

This is another thing I have never really understood. Just because there is a worse alternative doesn't mean that the LIRR only has to be marginally better. Traffic congestion on the roads has nothing to do with the LIRR running a reliable service. If you get stabbed by someone on the street and then walk into the police station, they don't tell you "well, you could've gotten murdered" and then tell you to take a hike.

Like I said above, while there are some trains delayed due to "the people fouling the tracks with cars and garbage, people having medical issues on the trains, and all sorts of other nonsense when you move 300,000 people a day", there are quite a few...about 475 a month...that are not.

[lirr42]

It's a pretty big cluster---- out there thanks to him. I can't believe that guy gets credit for anything he's did around here. Where else in the country are you going to have our lovely NY drivers trying to do 80 around all of those 25mph curves on the SSP? Or having to get down from 65-10 to make an exit while dodging people who can't merge on? And the worst part is the way it was designed left no room for straightening or expansion (minus a few small projects over the years). He crippled Long Island about as much as he did good.

Mr. X makes a valid point. At least Robert Moses actually completed something. That is something that the MTA, DoT, Port Authority, etc., seem to have difficulty doing. If we got rid of Moses and left these agencies in charge to build the region's infrastructure, I could only imagine the disaster that we'd be in.

[lirr42]

Here's one ...

We live on a g-d dammed island. Why isn't there ferry service to/from Manhattan?
No traffic, congestion or boats in front of you

I don't agree. Ferries are slower, usually more expensive to operate, carry fewer people, and consider few people live near the shore or work near the rivers in Manhattan, they don't really go to places where people want to go. Granted, I would like to see them but more focus on the existing East River Ferry Service, increasing service to LIC and coordinating with NYW to have ferries meet the trains. It could definitely save time for someone going across to East 34th Street or down to the Pier 11/Wall Street area. But for widescale use, ferries aren't a good alternative.

[lirr42]

Can't blame Amtrak for all the delays in the Nyp to Harold section since half the time the PSCC operators are LIRR and that's contractual. Also you have certain stretches of track out of service within Harold for ESA construction.

And considering there's a very small number of trains that actually arrive HAROLD on-time and then New York Penn late, the whole "Amtrak interference" seems to be way overstated. When big things go wrong, the impacts radiate across the entire system, but for the normal day to day operations, the majority of trains that arrive at NYK late were late before they got to HAROLD.

[Morisot]

Okay, I give up. How is an overflowing bathroom preventable?

[lirr42]

By servicing them before they become overflowing??

[Morisot]

If you really believe that, then I think that undermines all your other assertions too, because an overflowing toilet is like a flat tire -- no amount of upkeep will prevent them. (And you apparently have no idea what some people put down public toilets!)

[Commuter X]

How would one determine how much additional padding each train needs?
My guess is the current system is one giant gordian knot

You could start by looking at past performance of trains. This table shows the top fifteen worst performing peak trains through the first 11 months of 2014. These trains are routinely among the least reliable on the system, and they have been like this for years.



Notice any common themes? Lots of South Shore PM Peak trains. The lone Brooklyn Flyer? You don't need to massively pad the schedules to make things run on-time, just adjust them to make the trains run together efficiently. Train 148 isn't always late because it only has 44 minutes to go from New York to Seaford, it's always late because it's scheduled to run only two minutes behind a Brooklyn local, train 146... The rest of the trains fall behind due to bunching and congestion.

Taking the chronically late trains and fixing their schedules (which does not mean just adding fat to the running times) so they are not chronically late anymore could not only improve OTP for those trains, but the OTP for all of the trains that fall behind due to congestion behind those trains, and then the whole reversibility of the system increases as a result.

Why they don't do this is beyond me. The train schedules at peak hours have remained largely unchanged for decades. The trains that are always chronically late have been like that for years...

Thank You for computing and posting this LIRR42

This emphasizes my point that the quoted 92% on-time performance is fiction if you ride one of the above trains that are constantly late (Disclaimer -- One of these trains is my regular trains)

First the LIRR needs to break out the figures for each branch. like LIRR42 did. Only then can you try to figure out what branches or trains are constantly late

[lirr42]

If you really believe that, then I think that undermines all your other assertions too, because an overflowing toilet is like a flat tire -- no amount of upkeep will prevent them. (And you apparently have no idea what some people put down public toilets!)

Or design the toilets to withstand most of what the passengers put into them... Likewise with tires, it is possible to reduce the number of flat tires you get...designing the tires so that they can withstand sharp objects (like this), keeping the tires properly inflated, properly rotated, replacing them when they become worn, etc., etc... And for the chances where flat tires are unavoidable, being able to quickly remedy the problem (being familiar with how to change tires, having the spare tire available and properly inflated, having all of the tools accounted for and easily accessible, etc.) can minimize the delay and inconvenience to yourself and others.

If you really want to get into this argument, almost every type of delay is somewhat preventable. While the remaining categories of delays, NRPC (Amtrak), PSCC, Miscellaneous, Public, and Vandalism are less within the LIRR’s control, the railroad is not completely powerless to reduce these types of delays. And even for the delays which are completely out of their hands, how the LIRR responds to and recovers from these incidents significantly influences how many trains actually get there late because of the problem. Things like more, stronger, or more secure fencing around the railroad’s right of way and substations can help reduce Public delays from that are caused by things like trespasser strikes or vehicles on the tracks and Vandalism delays due to copper theft and malicious debris strikes. Having ushers on platforms at busy stations during the heaviest travel times to help spread people out along the platform can help reduce delays due to slow loading and unloading (smarter service patterns, consist build-ups, and even additional trains can also help reduce heavy loading during busy travel times). Once upon a time, it would snow on Long Island and the LIRR would not ground to a screeching halt when the snow began to accumulate.

However, there will always be those disruptions that nobody sees coming. This is where the how the LIRR responds to service disruptions and how they shape their operation recovery comes into play. A train being disabled due to equipment trouble can result in 2 delayed trains, or 20, depending on how the trains are steered around the delay. The vast majority of late LIRR trains become late due to congestion resulting from an incident, not directly from an incident itself. The LIRR has deployed a contingency plan for peak service disruptions in recent years which contains a standard list of trains that can be readily combined to reduce the number of trains out on the road in an effort to ease the effects of the resulting congestion. However, the plan is often applied in a “one-size-fits-all” manner, and considering there’s rarely two disruptions exactly alike, following a specified plan can often put unnecessary stress on other parts of the system (i.e. police activity in Farmingdale results in a train to Great Neck being cancelled—it does allow extra equipment to be freed up in New York, but it contributes to brining the whole railroad down and only makes loading and subsequent delays and congestion worse). While the standard cancellations are the least painful of the possible peak cancellations, a number of them actually put a load on the combined trains that is significantly above service standards, so the minute something goes wrong, the railroad should not be so quick to combine the standard combinable trains, suspend westbound service between Jamaica and New York, and tell everyone to anticipate delays or even more cancellations. Granted, trying to estimate the extent of service disruptions as they are ongoing is always difficult, but any improvement would be taken over the mass of confusion, little information, and disarray that passengers currently have to deal with during disruptions today. Working to guide operation recovery more by intuition rather than by checklist can help minimize the effects of disruptions and confined them a smaller area, resulting in a lesser impact on passengers, and a higher on-time performance.