There has been a major change with the new contracts which is probably a factor in worse results and that is that there are now seven time points along each route. The company is in trouble if a tram is more than 59 seconds early and more than ‘so many minutes’ late. On quite a few routes there is just nowhere you can park a tram running early and you piss everybody else off running along at 15 or 20 km/h to maintain the timetable...
Nobody else seems to agree with me but this system of fines and bonuses is quite ludicrous when applied to a street tramway. A bus running early can somewhere or another pull over to the kerb and wait and that is not possible for trams.
I have my own ideas about how timetables should be set out but I doubt anybody would agree with me, based on more or less even spacing but not tied to the clock.
Incidentally it seems that some drivers apply the 59 seconds early rule to leaving a terminus. More than once a tram was arriving at Luna Park city bound just seconds after it should have left the terminus hundreds of metres away.
Regards,
> On 13 Jan 2018, at 7:03 pm, Mal Rowemal.rowe@... [TramsDownUnder] TramsDownUnder@...> wrote:
>
>> On 13/01/2018 7:05 PM,prescottt@... [TramsDownUnder] wrote:
>>
>> Well, this is the system apparently - it appears to be across the board:
>>
>>
>> https://www.ptv.vic.gov.au/about-ptv/victorias-public-transport-network/performance-monitoring/
>>
>> According to the 2017 PTV annual report, train and tram had about 98% service delivery, buses nearly 100%.
>
> Read the linked document carefully. It says:
>
> "Buses
>
> Bus operators in Melbourne are required to keep records of the punctuality and reliability of at least five per cent of their timetabled services. These records are then forwarded to Public Transport Victoria each month.
>
> In addition to this a bus tracking system has been deployed across the metropolitan bus network to provide real time information to passengers and monitor the punctuality of services."
>
>
> Mal Rowe - who would never accuse a paid service delivery company of being less than scrupulously honest
>
>