FOI request detail

Trains leaving Edgware Road for Wimbledon.

Request ID: FOI-2236-1718
Date published: 15 December 2017

You asked

Trains leaving Edgware Road for Wimbledon. Over the past months there have frequently been trains missing from the service. Questions are: 1. How many trains since 1 June 2017 have not met their scheduled departure from Edgware Road? In each case provide their departure time, train number and a detailed explanation of the reason. Table form would be acceptable. 2. On Platform 1, Westbound, why do those on the Platform get only one minutes notice of trains (Circle or District) arriving, yet at High Street Kensington one can normally expect 2 trains and their arrival times to be shown on the board? The lack of information on this platform makes journey choices very difficult particularly when announcements are not frequent, accurate and poorly delivered by uninterested staff members – as occurred on Wednesday evening at about 8pm. Passengers had unintelligible announcements very occasionally where as we were obliged to listen to endless clear announcements about trains terminating at Edgware Road broadcast to empty platforms. What are you going to do to improve customer information and satisfaction on Platform 1, Westbound at Paddington particularly when there are issues with the service?

We answered

TfL Ref: 2236-1718

Thank you for your request received by Transport for London (TfL) on 9 November 2017 asking for information about Trains leaving Edgware Road for Wimbledon.

Your request has been considered in accordance with the requirements of the Freedom of Information Act and our information access policy. I can confirm that we hold some of the information you require.  You asked:

Trains leaving Edgware Road for Wimbledon.

1.  How many trains since 1 June 2017 have not met their scheduled departure from Edgware Road?   In each case provide their departure time, train number and a detailed explanation of the reason.  Table form would be acceptable.

2.  On Platform 1, Westbound, why do those on the Platform get only one minutes notice of trains (Circle or District) arriving, yet at High Street Kensington one can normally expect 2 trains and their arrival times to be shown on the board?  The lack of information on this platform makes journey choices very difficult particularly when announcements are not frequent, accurate and poorly delivered by uninterested staff members – as occurred on Wednesday evening at about 8pm.  Passengers had unintelligible announcements very occasionally where as we were obliged to listen to endless clear announcements about trains terminating at Edgware Road broadcast to empty platforms.  What are you going to do to improve customer information and satisfaction on Platform 1, Westbound at Paddington particularly when there are issues with the service?

Please find attached data showing details of each train which has not met their scheduled departure time but from High Street Kensington going Westbound in the time period 01/06/2017 to 30/11//2017.   The number of scheduled trains timetabled to depart High Street Kensington in this period totals 2944, there the 126 trains that have not met their scheduled departure time delayed by over 10 minutes equates to just 4% of the service. The six reasons for the longest delays were due to signal failures on other parts of the Network.

Please note the following caveats to be regarded when interpreting the information we are providing:

  • We are unfortunately unable to extract all Edgware Road District line trains Westbound (towards Wimbledon) as there is an issue with legacy signalling equipment at Edgware Road.   Whilst the equipment works effectively for safety and operational control purposes, it predates the time when it was common to collect digital information and therefore the data we have available from it has significant holes and accuracy issues.  This is compounded by Edgware Road being a terminating station for the line. These data issues are being addressed through the new 4LM signalling upgrade which is in delivery, and we expect to start generating high quality data next summer. The first site with more robust data is High Street Kensington.  Therefore we have used times shown for High Street Kensington which provides a reliable indicator.

  • Where the data has also returned train numbers or the Scheduled Departure Time as blank we have excluded these results (179 trains) as this could make the data less reliable.

     

     

  • We are unable to provide any information on reasons for delay. Our performance regime (measured through Lost Customer Hours) is best on determining the root causes of incidents which cause delays and disrupt the train service, and then determining a likely consequential impact of those incidents on customers through modelling.  As a result, we have information available on root causes of initial delays (wherever they may happen on the network), but we are not able to assign causes to individual consequential train delays.  For example, a train delayed for ten minutes at Earl’s Court due to a signal failure will cause delays to many trains on the branches of the District and C&H lines, we know the aggregate impact of that on customers (.e.g 221 Lost Customer Hours), but we cannot ascertain exactly which trains were delayed as a consequence.

     

     

  • We have filtered out all delays under 1 minute to take into account reaction time, safety requirements and scheduled dwell time.

2.  The amount of train notice time given to passengers is governed by the signalling system which, at the moment, only has the ability to show a train’s destination as Circle or District (westbound, platform 1) when that train has passed the junction to the west of Edgware Road station.  Until the train passes this junction, the describer can’t ‘see’ the train.  When Automatic Train Operation is introduced to that part of the C&H line in 2018/19, the platform describer will be able to give around 12 minute countdowns, as they do at Bayswater and High St Kensington.

Your complaint about poor announcements has been referred to our customer experience team to investigate and respond to further as this does not fall within the remit of the Freedom Of Information (FOI) Act.

With regard to customer information improvements, rosters were reviewed earlier this year and from January 2018, Paddington area will see an increase in staff dedicated to providing information via PA messages on the platform.  With the increase in staff, and the new signalling system, customer information will greatly improve over the coming months and years.

If this is not the information you are looking for, or if you are unable to access it for any reason, please do not hesitate to contact me.

Please see the attached information sheet for details of your right to appeal as well as information on copyright and what to do if you would like to re-use any of the information we have disclosed.

Yours sincerely

Sara Thomas

FOI Case Management Team

General Counsel

Transport for London

Attachments

Back to top

Want to make a request?

We'll email you the response within 20 working days.


We'll publish the response online without disclosing any personal information.