statistics on late trains

andrewf75

I read in today’s Metro in the story about rail fare hikes that 1 in 9 trains are late. Anyone who travels by train will know this to be way off the mark and it seems obvious why. The electronic boards say “on time” even when the train is up to about 5 minutes late. How are they allowed to get away with blatantly fiddling statistics like this?

elverson

The plural of anecdote is not data.

andrewf75

yes, but I could collect data on how often my train is late and it would be 1 in 2 or maybe 1 in 3
Just interested to know how they collect the data. Seems logical that the number of late trains would be counted by the ones marked as late on the electronic board, no?
Even if not, who are they trying to kid by not marking trains as late if they are?

martindow

'On time' can be up to 5 minutes late on local service and 10 for long distance. Details here

https://www.networkrail.co.uk/who-we-are/how-we-work/performance/public-performance-measure/