Case Study JR Kyushu- why Japanese railways are punctual

[bikkuri bahn]

Interesting report.  Of interest is page 48, which gives some reasons for punctuality:

http://ec.europa.eu/transport/rail/research/doc/bob.pdf

Edited October 29, 2014 by bikkuri bahn

[Densha]

Finally the original document for the study! I previously found some documents by the Dutch railways but not this one yet.

 

About the reasons for punctuality and why it fails in the Netherlands even though they try to use it here:

- Stock reliability: As the study already says it fails because of the excessive amount of computer chips that don't work together because they are all produced by different manufacturers and have other software versions.

- Infrastructure: Crappy maintenance and not the infrastructural company ProRail (like DB Netz in Germany or Network Rail in Britain) nor the ministry is willing to take responsibility for anything. Strangely enough ProRail does often remove tracks that are removed the following year, there goes our tax money to nowhere! Not to forget that the ERTMS safety system should have improved compatibility, but now every country and line has a different subversion in the end so it's not compatible after all.

- Staff: It's a rare occurrence to have helpful and friendly staff. They often don't give a **** about their customers.

- Optimal use infrastructure: nope, because of all infrastructure or train breakdowns it's impossible to make a perfect timetable. I could even save at least 15 minutes on 2.5 hours of commuting from home to university if the scheduling was done better.

- Through running is being worked on now, with separated lines and flyovers and stuff in many places. The only problem is that they are removing tons of switches so with the crappy maintenance that means that with every breakdown you can't divert trains. Combined with the exaggerated safety regulations here a breakdown of a train, a signal or a railway crossing means that not even a single train can run for hours even though it could be easily possible if they thought rationally.

[miyakoji]

Thanks Bikkuri, I'm looking forward to reading this.