Back in June I blogged about the running joke that is the bus reliability and punctuality statistics, as reported in each month’s PT statistics report. Brian Rudman has also commented on these number previously, noting that even a tin pot dictator rigging an election would be embarrassed by how high they are. Because this statistics are “self reported” by the bus operators, they are laughably inaccurate. Here are the results from August - for example: 
As a regular bus catcher, these statistics read like some sort of sick joke. Maybe I’m the only person in Auckland whose bus is late? Or is something a bit fishy going on with the figures?
Auckland Transport seems to understand that something a bit fishy is going on – here’s what was said in the August 2012 statistics report about the numbers:
Service punctuality and reliability are self-reported for contracted services by the bus operators utilising bus drivers logs. Auckland Transport is in the process of developing an automated tracking and monitoring system to report bus reliability and punctuality and provide enhanced data to improve service delivery across all bus services (contracted and commercial). A review of the reliability and punctuality of all bus timetables is underway to ensure timetables continuously reflect operating conditions.
This sounds like a good step forward. But I’m sure I’ve read it before. Let’s check the July report:
Service punctuality and reliability are self-reported for contracted services by the bus operators utilising bus drivers logs. Auckland Transport is in the process of developing an automated tracking and monitoring system to report bus reliability and punctuality and provide enhanced data to improve service delivery across all bus services (contracted and commercial). A review of the reliability and punctuality of all bus timetables is underway to ensure timetables continuously reflect operating conditions.
The June report:
Service punctuality and reliability are self-reported for contracted services by the bus operators utilising bus drivers logs. Auckland Transport is in the process of developing an automated tracking and monitoring system to report bus reliability and punctuality and provide enhanced data to improve service delivery across all bus services (contracted and commercial). A review of the reliability and punctuality of all bus timetables is underway to ensure timetables continuously reflect operating conditions.
The May report:
Service punctuality and reliability are self-reported for contracted services by the bus operators utilising bus drivers logs. Auckland Transport is in the process of developing an automated tracking and monitoring system to report bus reliability and punctuality and provide enhanced data to improve service delivery across all bus services (contracted and commercial). A review of the reliability and punctuality of all bus timetables has also commenced to ensure timetables continuously reflect operating conditions.
April…:
Service punctuality and reliability are self-reported for contracted services by the bus operators utilising bus drivers logs. Auckland Transport is in the process of developing an automated tracking and monitoring system to report bus reliability and punctuality and provide enhanced data to improve service delivery across all bus services (contracted and commercial). A review of the reliability and punctuality of all bus timetables has also commenced to ensure timetables continuously reflect operating conditions.
Service punctuality and reliability are self-reported for contracted services by the bus operators utilising bus drivers logs. Auckland Transport is in the process of developing an automated tracking and monitoring system to report bus reliability and punctuality and provide enhanced data to improve service delivery across all bus services (contracted and commercial). A review of the reliability and punctuality of all bus timetables has also commenced to ensure timetables continuously reflect operating conditions.
The promises might go back further but I’m bored now.
How long is this going to take Auckland Transport? How hard can it be to stop the bus operators from lying to you about their performance levels?
Come on Board of AT. How about actually following up on what you’ve been told from month to month? Why is it the job of a voluntary transport blog to get resolution of these issues?
Cant they use the data from HOP cards to track the time a bus was at a particular stop? (for NZ bus atleast)
Yes they can in theory.
so if they have the means then why dont they? They clearly know the bus companies are lying…and sure its only nz bus at this stage but it atleast gives us a better picture and can only be beneficial in fixing the problem as the bus companies will be forced to actually admit its a problem
I think the upgraded realtime tracking system is supposed to help with those stats.
That seems to have been a slow upgrade, but I’m finally seeing displays that are showing something different, hinting that the upgrade is finally making some progress.
Photo: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/A28APhvCUAA81fb.jpg
That one shows a display with a narrower font and scrolling destination. I would have got a better shot of the scrolling lines for Outer Link buses, but it switched off just after I took that shot, likely due to still undergoing testing.
Like a couple of other upgraded displays that have shown up (Airport, Inner Link Skytower stop anticlockwise), it shows scheduled times vs a realtime countdown. If it doesn’t show a realtime countdown, it’s because the bus is not being tracked (seems to happen a LOT), and unlike the old system and its displays, this one doesn’t just assume they’re on time. It just doesn’t show a countdown, ie it makes it obvious that there’s no data.
I’m pretty sure the behaviour of assuming the bus is on time of the old system if it can’t be tracked is being exploited by drivers/companies (although I personally have nothing to back up that allegation). I’d say the RAPID upgrade will address that, and that’s where I believe AT will get their data from, once it’s live and commissioned across the city.
I do wish they’d hurry up! Hopefully the new contracts will define RAPID as the authoritative source of on-time running data in the new bus contracts.
Like like like!!!!!
Do the “real time” display boards not have tracking which would allow AT to monitor the actual arrival time for a lot of the bus routes? Surely this would not be too expensive to put in place if not. Even if not for all buses could use as a “please explain” for the stats provided!
Hopefully the upgraded system will achieve that. The old system would assume any bus not tracked was on time. Meaning if the bus was late, or early or, as I suspect happens most often, the bus driver just can’t be bothered with it, s/he would just not turn the GPS system on on their bus.
Based on the totally unscientific measure of the number of grumpy texts I get from my other half about late/non-existant buses, I can assure you that you are certainly not the only customer affected. I mentioned the reliability statistics to him the other day (after yet another unfortunate public transport experience). How he laughed.
I suspect the bus companies already have GPS systems in place to track exactly where buses are and whether they’re on time or not. What they probably don’t have is an incentive to share that data with Auckland Transport since it might show a realistic profile of their reliability and punctuality, instead of the fantasy reported now where the entire bus system operates with the precision of a Swiss watch. The current figures seem so divorced from reality you want wonder why AT even bothers. I lodge complaints via the Maxx contact line when buses are gratuitisly late (ie doesn’t turn up before the next scheduled bus on the route does). I wonder if others do the same. Is there any analysis of complaints received?
On the odd occasion I have caught a bus I don’t recall it being on time when it leaves and certainly not when it gets to my place. I have tried to get the bus from my house to the train, but have given up as there is only one every 30 minutes, and it will turn up anytime +-10 minutes of the scheduled time.
Once again I suspect NZ Bus are just making it up to suit their own means
What I would like to see when the new contracts are tendered out, or perhaps even before that, is some sort of penalty incurred by the bus companies when drivers cannot be bothered turning on their GPS tracking so that information can be sent to the PIDS. If something is untracked on the PIDS system, then it should be counted as “late”/”absent” on the punctuality statistics regardless of whether the service actually ran or not. Perhaps this would provide an incentive to give the travelling public proper information as opposed to the current misinformation we’re getting.
Not really a response or anything … just found this on the web …
http://www.treehugger.com/public-transportation/sexiest-and-best-tv-ad-public-transportation-ever-made.html
Page 17 of the report:
“Service punctuality for August 2012 was 99.04%, measured by the percentage of services which commence the journey within 5 minutes of the timetabled start time and reach their destination.”
Note no performance on reliability to the customer or destination timing requirements.
There is nothing “laughably inaccurate” about the reporting of the services.
Reading the comments to Brian Rudman’s article, there are so many comments that show a lot of misinformation about the CRL e.g. the usual: how will a city “loop” improve PT in Auckland”.
I think it would be great if people on this blog could try and respond to this misinformation. Even if the information is already there from somepone else, a lot of people only read a few comments, so the more pro-CRL comments we can get on there the better. I am sure many of you do already.
This blog is fantastic but it does tend to preach to the converted. The NZ Herald site articles in particular are a great opportunity to correct some of the inaccurate stereotypes (Auckland is not dense enough) and misinformation put on there by people who get all their info from sound bites from Gerry Brownlee on the 6 o’clock (bad) news.
My favourite bus moment was last year, when a Howick and Eastern driver refused to stop at a designated express stop. After complaining I was advised that the driver was still in training (though seemingly driving a bus by himself at peak times) – even better was the line from Howick and Eastern “we have disappointed one of our customers again…”
And I gave up counting the number of times phantom scheduled express buses disappeared from the bus stop electronic boards….
I hoep that “again” was underlined and in bold text.
I think the statistics are a joke as well — I would estimate in my personal experience that only ~60% (and I am being optimistic here) of the buses I catch have arrived to schedule (or within the next 5mins). I second the suggestion that if the GPS unit is not turned on correctly the bus should not be counted as being on time. And to reply to Grum’s point that the statistics are based on the start of the trip — the measurement should be changed so it is on par with the trains. It makes no sense to measure the start of the trip when the end of the trip better reflects the overall timing of the trip. This is one area where I have respect for Veolia — they make the effort to ensure accuracy of their data to the point the data they provide is generally unfavourable to Veolia. I only wish the bus companies would do the same but I suspect they are not keen to provide data that proves their service is even worse than Veolia’s!
Those dastardly NZ Bus fellows – are they not ashamed, ASHAMED, I say, at having the worst reliability? Can they not at least bring it up to 99%? Is that so much to ask?
Only 99%. What kind of tin pot dictator result is that? Birkenhead Transport are setting the way with their 99.98%. And 100% reliability!!!!
I can imagine their management giving each other a pat on the back for that effort and wandering around their depot with a Mussolini-type swagger.
just a side comment. according to an article I read it is possible to stick chips or sensors or something (I’m translating from another language here) under highways to track the movement of your bus fleet. interestingly in the company I was reading about, which was mainly managing inter city buses, they used this info to see what speed drivers were moving at and if they felt drivers were driving inefficiently they gave them additional training. this had, apparently, saved them heaps of fuel as well as allowing them to track punctuality etc. so could have environmental advantages as well…
They will be able to do that with HOP, as it will log when people get on and off at every stop which can be translated into very good timing, speed and punctuality data.
Sounds like AT have got a large amount of data to trawl through shortly. Hopefully they will resource up properly to analyze it. Does anyone know if AT have a team doing this already from any current sources of real time data? That or at least the blog can OIA it and get the juicy data themselves!
At the very least if your bus doesn’t turn up on time lay a complaint here:
http://www.maxx.co.nz/feedback/complaint/vehicle-complaint.aspx
I imagine it’s actually quite time consuming for the bus companies to investigate and respond to complaints- maybe if enough people did it they’d start to look at actually having the services run and to time.
Hang on, something doesn’t make sense here. For all operators except NZ Bus the reliability figures are higher than the punctuality figures. For NZ Bus it is the other way around. From my understanding it should not be possible for the punctuality figures to be higher than the reliability figures (unless someone can enlighten me to why it is possible). If NZ Bus is indeed making up the figures I think they may have shot themselves in the foot with this one!
From the report:
“For August 2012, 99.19% of contracted service trips were operated and reached their destination (reliability measure). Service punctuality for August 2012 was 99.04%, measured by the percentage of services which commence the journey within 5 minutes of the timetabled start time and reach their destination.”
So buses that don’t reach their destination (i.e. unreliable buses) don’t factor into the punctual service percentage. Interpreting for NZ Bus they had 98.74% buses that reached their destination. Of those buses that reached their destination only 98.94% of them commenced their journey withiin 5 minutes of the timetabled start time, e.g. of all NZ Bus services 98.74% * 98.94% = 97.69% started within 5 minutes AND completed (if my interpretation is not wrong!).
8:10 020 was a no show this morning. Reliability only 0.99999191% for NZ Bus this month then. There needs to be a weighting for the number of people left stranded at a bus stop in the rain. Oh, and a $5 credit on my AT Hop card thanks, payable by the operator.
Classic quote from the driver of the subsequent full standing load 8:20 020 : “I’m looking like I’m going to break down, but I’ll go as far as I can”
It’s a new bus! Seems to be rolling along ok so far.
Am I the only one who can see the blatent lie by NZ Bus that they ran more trips on time than actually ran at all??
I mean Come On, if we are going to rig numbers, at least rig them properly!
It may be that the punctuality figures only apply to buses that did indeed start, making it possible.
Isn’t that double dipping? Say 95% of trips for the month were cancelled, yet 98% of whats left ran on time? So they only get penalised the once? Doesn’t seem very fair to the customer does it? If it isn’t already, Punctuality should be inclusive of Cancellations, as the latter does indeed affect the former!
This is a great game:
Birkenhead bus 99.98%
Saddam Hussein (1995) 99.96%
NZ Bus 99.94%
Bashar al Assad (2007) 97.60%
Urban Express 95.96%
If I was an Auckland bus service I’d be worried about a spring uprising or an American invasion
Brilliant! Have tweeted