On Thu, 14 Aug 2003 13:03:44 +0100, "Clive D. W. Feather"
wrote:

In article , nmtop40
writes

snip

Is there nobody there with intelligence who can re-direct one train
when that happens so you would have 2 to Edgware 1 to Barnet, 2 to
Edgware instead of 5 to Edgware.

It's not that simple. You end up with trains in the wrong place for the
rest of the day's service, drivers unable to get to the right train, and
so on.

How are the destinations decided

There is a complete timetable for the line which shows exactly where
each train should be and when. All the destinations for a train for the
whole day are preplanned.

But presumably not with strings of four or five trains going to one
terminus and no service to the other for twenty minutes or more! That
and the dot-matrix displays -- currently about as good at predicting
the future as goat entrails -- are two of the more entertaining
aspects of the service at the mo'...

Would it not be possible to dynamically redo the timetable during the
day, to take account of changes occuring after the start of play? I
appreciate that this is non-trivial, and I expect there are a lot of
implications for rostering, but it's the sort of thing that might be
feasible with today's IT that wasn't just a few years back.

Perhaps some modern-day Mr Beck could thrash it out on his home PC
before demonstrating it to management?

R

In message , Rupert Goodwins
writes

Would it not be possible to dynamically redo the timetable during the
day, to take account of changes occuring after the start of play? I
appreciate that this is non-trivial, and I expect there are a lot of
implications for rostering, but it's the sort of thing that might be
feasible with today's IT that wasn't just a few years back.
So you as a driver having just done 3 to five hour's in the cab is
approached at say Golders Green, and told that because of reprogramming
for the public good you can't have relief but have to carry on for a
further four hours for the public good. Right I understand putting the
public first, but isn't a driver also a member of the human race and
entitled to some time off?
--
Clive

"Clive" wrote in message
...
In message , Rupert Goodwins
writes

Would it not be possible to dynamically redo the timetable during the
day, to take account of changes occuring after the start of play? I
appreciate that this is non-trivial, and I expect there are a lot of
implications for rostering, but it's the sort of thing that might be
feasible with today's IT that wasn't just a few years back.
So you as a driver having just done 3 to five hour's in the cab is
approached at say Golders Green, and told that because of reprogramming
for the public good you can't have relief but have to carry on for a
further four hours for the public good. Right I understand putting the
public first, but isn't a driver also a member of the human race and
entitled to some time off?

Another four hours? One end of the Northern line to the other takes roughly
70 minutes ...

On Tue, 19 Aug 2003 16:41:00 +0100, Clive
wrote:

In message , Rupert Goodwins
writes

Would it not be possible to dynamically redo the timetable during the
day, to take account of changes occuring after the start of play? I
appreciate that this is non-trivial, and I expect there are a lot of
implications for rostering, but it's the sort of thing that might be
feasible with today's IT that wasn't just a few years back.
So you as a driver having just done 3 to five hour's in the cab is
approached at say Golders Green, and told that because of reprogramming
for the public good you can't have relief but have to carry on for a
further four hours for the public good. Right I understand putting the
public first, but isn't a driver also a member of the human race and
entitled to some time off?


Errr... didn't I say there might be implications for rostering?
(checks) Yes, I did! Look! Up there!

Perhaps I should spell it out more clearly: the needs of the drivers
would also be taken into account. True flexibility involves taking
account of all parties involved to find the best compromise.

I can't see why the ability to change the destination of trains after
the start of service should have to be bought at the cost of four
hours' extra work. After all, the Northern Line has to reconfigure
itself frequently because of signalling, stock or other problems: why
not accept that and add the ability to reconfigure it because it'll
make the service better for the rest of the day? It's doubtless harder
to do this while taking accounts of the needs and wishes of the
drivers, but I think that would nonetheless be an essential part of
the plan.

Why shouldn't it be better for everyone? We have the technology. Is
there a history of management messing with the system and to hell with
the staff? (hmmm.. wonder what the 'best before' date is on this can
of worms?)

R

In message , Rupert Goodwins
writes

I can't see why the ability to change the destination of trains after
the start of service should have to be bought at the cost of four
hours' extra work. After all, the Northern Line has to reconfigure
itself frequently because of signalling, stock or other problems:

That will be service recovery though - slightly different as they are
trying to get the service back 'on book'.

The main problem I can foresee with your suggestion is that the trains
will end up far away from where they are scheduled to be, thus away from
the relieving driver. You would find more instances of a train having
no driver and having to be put away in a depot or sidings. This would
cause the service to deteriorate even more.
--
Steve Fitzgerald has now left the building.
You will find him in London's Docklands, E16, UK
(please use the reply to address for email)

On Wed, 20 Aug 2003 08:37:30 +0100, Steve Fitzgerald
] wrote:

In message , Rupert Goodwins
writes

I can't see why the ability to change the destination of trains after
the start of service should have to be bought at the cost of four
hours' extra work. After all, the Northern Line has to reconfigure
itself frequently because of signalling, stock or other problems:

That will be service recovery though - slightly different as they are
trying to get the service back 'on book'.


Absolutely, but it must involve many of the same problems. As the
original poster noted, service recovery isn't particularly efficient
at the moment, so work here may have immediate benefits.

The main problem I can foresee with your suggestion is that the trains
will end up far away from where they are scheduled to be, thus away from
the relieving driver. You would find more instances of a train having
no driver and having to be put away in a depot or sidings. This would
cause the service to deteriorate even more.

So you don't let that happen.

Working out the correct combination of destination and driver changes
so that everyone is happy, is a very difficult -- classicly so --
mathematical problem (probably related to the travelling salesman, but
I haven't thought that through). You may well have to do a brute-force
search through the solution space, which is the sort of chess-game
approach that even five years ago would seem hopelessly time
consuming. But as we now have PCs that can do close on ten billion
calculations a second, I'd imagine that it's the sort of project one
motivated chap could sensibly attack. Even if it wasn't possible to
produce a working system in the first case, a partial simulation to
prove the concept would be tempting.

The Northern Line has a great advantage over mainline services in that
the passengers don't need to know the timetable. They need to know
first and last trains, and that at any particular time there will be a
train within x minutes going to their destination. Internally, of
course, there has to be a detailed timetable, but because that doesn't
need to be public the line managers have the huge potential advantage
of being able to make as many changes as they like during the day to
maintain that level of service, without involving the public.

They are constrained by the need to have all the trains back at the
right place at the end of play (although this also can be flexible, to
an extent), and of ensuring the drivers also end up where they need to
be when they need to be there.

Very hard. But the benefits to the efficiency of the service would be
considerable -- and it's not unreasonable to see that this level of
flexibility could be of great benefit to staff, as it would allow much
better handling of problems during the day and also allow a much more
flexible scheme of driver rostering in the first place.

At this point, I run out of steam as I don't know how driver rostering
works, or many of the other requirements of running the NL! It would
be very interesting if this information was available somewhere, to
see whether such a flight of fantasy had legs. Or wheels, or whatever.

R

On 20 Aug 2003, you wrote in uk.transport.london:

On Wed, 20 Aug 2003 08:37:30 +0100, Steve Fitzgerald
] wrote:

In message , Rupert Goodwins
writes

I can't see why the ability to change the destination of trains after
the start of service should have to be bought at the cost of four
hours' extra work. After all, the Northern Line has to reconfigure
itself frequently because of signalling, stock or other problems:

That will be service recovery though - slightly different as they are
trying to get the service back 'on book'.


Absolutely, but it must involve many of the same problems. As the
original poster noted, service recovery isn't particularly efficient
at the moment, so work here may have immediate benefits.

The main problem I can foresee with your suggestion is that the trains
will end up far away from where they are scheduled to be, thus away from
the relieving driver. You would find more instances of a train having
no driver and having to be put away in a depot or sidings. This would
cause the service to deteriorate even more.

So you don't let that happen.

Working out the correct combination of destination and driver changes
so that everyone is happy, is a very difficult -- classicly so --
mathematical problem (probably related to the travelling salesman, but
I haven't thought that through). You may well have to do a brute-force
search through the solution space, which is the sort of chess-game
approach that even five years ago would seem hopelessly time
consuming. But as we now have PCs that can do close on ten billion
calculations a second, I'd imagine that it's the sort of project one
motivated chap could sensibly attack. Even if it wasn't possible to
produce a working system in the first case, a partial simulation to
prove the concept would be tempting.

The Northern Line has a great advantage over mainline services in that
the passengers don't need to know the timetable. They need to know
first and last trains, and that at any particular time there will be a
train within x minutes going to their destination. Internally, of
course, there has to be a detailed timetable, but because that doesn't
need to be public the line managers have the huge potential advantage
of being able to make as many changes as they like during the day to
maintain that level of service, without involving the public.

They are constrained by the need to have all the trains back at the
right place at the end of play (although this also can be flexible, to
an extent), and of ensuring the drivers also end up where they need to
be when they need to be there.

Very hard. But the benefits to the efficiency of the service would be
considerable -- and it's not unreasonable to see that this level of
flexibility could be of great benefit to staff, as it would allow much
better handling of problems during the day and also allow a much more
flexible scheme of driver rostering in the first place.

You are assuming they give a ****. Say a NL driver is due to finish at 10am
and clocks off at Easy Finchley, if they are on a train at 9:30, they will
stop driving before they are within 30mins of EF, they will not go that
extra despite that fact nobody is asking them to 'drive' beyond 10:00. This
is why disruption lasts so long, they will not do the extra. The culture is
a rotten "nothing to do with me guv, I am not helping out". ATO can not
come any sooner.

Never mind human race 'n all that -

Drivers in all industries need refreshment breaks in order to sustain the
concentration required of them. It's mandatory for heavy goods vehicle
drivers (tachograph) in most places (oddly enough, not for intrastate
non-permit loads in my home State Western Australia), air crew and will be
covered by legislation and industrial agreements for rail and bus drivers
and other crew.

DW

"Clive" wrote in message
...
: In message , Rupert Goodwins
: writes
:
: Would it not be possible to dynamically redo the timetable during the
: day, to take account of changes occuring after the start of play? I
: appreciate that this is non-trivial, and I expect there are a lot of
: implications for rostering, but it's the sort of thing that might be
: feasible with today's IT that wasn't just a few years back.
: So you as a driver having just done 3 to five hour's in the cab is
: approached at say Golders Green, and told that because of reprogramming
: for the public good you can't have relief but have to carry on for a
: further four hours for the public good. Right I understand putting the
: public first, but isn't a driver also a member of the human race and
: entitled to some time off?
: --
: Clive

In article , nmtop40
writes

There is a complete timetable for the line which shows exactly where
each train should be and when. All the destinations for a train for the
whole day are preplanned.



Strange how they regularly change the destination from that displayed on
the dot matrix indicator at Morden each morning. No courtesy
announcement to passengers of the change of course. To do so could be
considered helpful and we can't have that can we?

Clive

In message , Clive Carmock
writes

Strange how they regularly change the destination from that displayed
on the dot matrix indicator at Morden each morning. No courtesy
announcement to passengers of the change of course. To do so could be
considered helpful and we can't have that can we?

Clive
O.K. So you've now demonstrated that you've never worked on the system.
--
Clive