Driver exams- a question for forum members who are professional drivers

[bikkuri bahn]

Today I saw three instances of drivers being examined on off-peak trains on the JR West Hanwa Line and Kansai Main Line.  The one I observed the longest (and had two examiners in the cab along with the driver and another staff member (deadheading?) was a JR Nanba-Oji all stops service (Kansai ML). The examiners had clipboards with entry forms attached.  I couldn't read the specifics, but it certainly had the word "exam" in it.  Basically, they used a stopwatch to time the intervals between stations, and when the driver began braking for a stop, the examiner took down the speed as well as brake pressure (kPA), this was done again midway through the station, and finally just before full stop. My question is, what possibly could these data points measure in terms of driver performance?

[bill937ca]

Micro management! It probably has something to do with getting as many trains through the line as possible. I suspect Japanese culture views micro management like this as acceptable. The means suits the end which is more line capacity if all trains are at their absolute tightest headway.

[Jace]

I think it's most likely schedule adherence checks. Schedules are based on the acceleration and braking curves of the train - the closer the actual schedule is to the train's theoretical performance curve, the shorter the run time (and higher the throughput). The drawback is that you have less margin for error. Since the drivers most likely don't see either the actual or the scheduled point to point performance curves on their cab display (some Shinkansen trains had this displayed), they have to instead rely on lineside indicators to know when and how hard to accelerate or brake. With little fat in the schedules, timing becomes key. These tests make sure the drivers are doing their part.

 

As an aside, consistently running right on the schedule is not so much an issue on an isolated or low density line but it becomes a much greater concern when you're dealing with a busy system that has timed connections and capacity constrained interlockings and terminals. Outside of Japan, I would bet that, among others, the SBB does similar checks in Switzerland as the operation of their whole network is based on closely timed connections. 

[westfalen]

We are not as strict in our training here as I've seen in Japan but I suspect the drivers were undergoing their final assesment before going out on the road or their periodical re-accreditation such as we undergo every 18 months when we have a written exam and we do a run under supervison similar to what you saw in Japan.

 

They could also be monitoring the efficiency of train operations. From time to time on Queensland Rail management get obsessed with on time running, their bonuses depend on it, and train running is monitored in a similar fashion. At the moment supervisors are standing on Bowen Hills platform in peak hours to make sure we are there to relieve incoming trains at the correct time (I'd say 99.999% of the time we are and when we're not it's because of last second platform changes or the train we're coming in on is late and our rostering has no leeway built in) and employees with clip boards are at key stations noting how long the trains stands there and chastising the guards for being slow giving right away (in one case a few days ago one of these persons instructed a guard to get his train moving and had to embarassingly back down when it was pointed out they had a red signal). Most strategies unfortunately seem based on the assumption that train crew come to work to deliberately run late when it's mostly running on restricted signals because of poorly designed signalling and an oversaturated network designed when a half hourly service was considered busy as well as cut backs and 'restructuring' in preventative maintainence resulting in more equipment failures. Instructing train crew to do better makes it look like they are doing something without actually having to do anything, which would cost money.