On trains and planes, my main critieria is that I arrive by the stated arrival time and therefore am pretty unfussed by stories about padding time etc - that's more of a long term structural concern than something that will bother me on the day. I think operators have figured this is all most people really care about over time (perhaps excepting highly competitive routes.)
You lose this ability to check timings with a non-fixed timings, and have to rely on 'oh, it's probably about half an hour from here to here' or google's guess at the real timetabled journey you'll do (which the operator hasn't really promised you at any stage.) People don't seem to mind this too much.
I wonder if part of this is that waiting for a bus is usually less pleasant than being on one in countries where there is often cold/windy/rainy weather. That's something you don't really get with long-distance trains or planes. I'm going to be grumpy if I have to wait in the pouring rain for 15 minutes, even if I still make it to my appointment on time.
Right - the arrival time is a no-later-than and that’s all I need. People complain about leaving a gate in an aeroplane and then sitting on the apron for a bit - who cares if you’re on the ground or in the air or even going backwards - I just care about my arrival time and don’t mind what you do as long as you hit that.
I use a flight that’s regularly delayed by half an hour but still gets there half an hour early. Whatever - I make my connection every time.
I also care about departure time. If I arrive with one minute to spare (counting security and check in) but the plane leaves 2 minutes early I don't get their on time through no fault of my own. If I'm even a second late I accept it is my fault.
Airlines I've flown publish and abide the door-closing time. (For Delta domestic flights, it's 15 minutes before scheduled departure, 30 for int'l. I think they put 20 minutes on domestic boarding passes as a buffer against watch skew arguments.)
I've seen the gate agents paying scrupulous attention to that, to ensure they don't close the gate early if any pax who have checked in haven't boarded.
It depends a bit on where I'm sitting. If I'm in first class (most of the time I am these days) I don't really mind, but if I'm in steerage with my knees pressed up against the seat in front of me I want to spend the absolute minimum amount of time possible physically onboard the plane.
Likewise I don't mind wasting time in an airport when I have a company per diem to pay for my drinks, but if it's on my own dime I'd rather not spend any longer than necessary sitting around in uncomfortable airport seats.
Planes and medium distance trains have the advantage of being a rare. You have already know that if you are late it will be a long time before the next one, so you take extra effort to be there early. With a bus if you miss on, being 10 minutes late by catching the next one isn't as big a deal: it is only 4-5 minutes if you hurry (getting the first bus would average getting you there 5 minutes early, a little running and you can take another minute off). That is all fine, but if the next bus is running late you cross the "magical" 5 minutes late mark and get into trouble for being late.
In Europe, train operators often have a target percentage, like 90%, of trains that must be on time[0] specified in their concession, with a system of fines or bonuses. So they have an incentive to put some padding in their schedules, since that will improve their lateness statistics.
[0] Usually defined as being less than 5 minutes late or so.
And in Belgium those 5 minutes only count at the end of the line. It means that the train can be 15 minutes late and miss connections but it won't be considered late if it made up for the delay upon arriving at the terminus.
In Auckland, New Zealand up until a few years ago it was the start of the trip that determined whethe or not the bus was considered late. Depart on time, but delayed en route and arrive at the end of the line 60 mins late? "On Time"!
I picked this route (between two major London stations) because there are several routes that use two tube lines. Next to the estimated time there's a faint yellow wifi-like symbol. If you click on any one of the options there's a yellow background section with the time to next three trains. The timings are based on both the timetable and the reality of a turn up and go service.
TFL cares a great deal about these kind of contracts with users.
Years ago I was involved with a project to build dynamic displays to show bus times (mostly for third parties like e.g hospitals that wanted to display bus times as a service, but they're in use on some bus stations like Vauxhall and East Croydon as well).
TFL did tons of testing to ensure we complied with requirements to ensure the display would remove time estimates if it could not reach the API often enough, etc. to ensure we never misled passengers.
They were very adamant that the displays always had to under-promise based on what information was available.
I've been in London for five years and don't think I've ever used the printed timetables, the live ones at some bus stops work surprisingly well (and saves me having to whip out my phone to check City Mapper, which started in London).
Something that the article missed is that late buses are compounded. As the delay causes more people to wait, those people getting on delay the bus even further, that's where the adage "wait ages for a bus, then two come at once" stems from. Even if the bus behind it is also delayed, it makes up time as the previous bus has scoped up all passengers. Occationally buses will divert/ terminate to rebalance the timetable.
I was recently in hospital, where the wifi wasn't great so I spent a lot of time looking out the window, and onto a busy junction. During the later part of rush hour buses often arrived together, even saw three of the same bus arrived together (only a couple vehicles separating the last bus) at one point! (like I said, bad wifi) It was staggering seeing so many ambulances arrive during the weekend, they often arrive together as the first ambulance clears a path (like in Die Hard 3).
You also see that on the tube, when people are fighting to get on a train (delaying it further) then the one following a couple of minutes behind is largely empty, it's even a little more pronounced as trains can't leapfrog each other to spread the load.
The conclusion of the article seems to be related to the general rule that if, say, a box of nails advertises 1000 nails, the manufacturer will have set the actual average to be higher than 1000 nails so that some large majority of buyers will always have at least 1000 nails in the box. (I seem to recall an A-Level stats question on my exam asking what the average should be, to ensure that 95% of buyers received at least 1000 nails.)
Again the statement on the box is not a statement of reality, but a contract that the buyer should be (almost) guaranteed of getting at least 1000 nails.
If I recall correctly, calorie values on nutrition boxes are the same, at least in the US: a 100 calorie snack bag will have at least 100 calories, because the FDA mandates that the seller should be at minimum providing what it claims.
>If I recall correctly, calorie values on nutrition boxes are the same, at least in the US: a 100 calorie snack bag will have at least 100 calories, because the FDA mandates that the seller should be at minimum providing what it claims.
Check out our new BigMac Zero. At least zero calories.
As for the "minimum calories," I've searched and either I'm out of date or was never correct: it seems like the FDA used to have a "80/120 rule": "beneficial
nutrients" (vitamin, mineral, protein, total carbohydrate, etc.) must be at least 80% of the label value and "nutrients to limit" (calories, sugars, fats, etc.) must no greater than 120% of the label value. So calories could theoretically be lower than advertised, but not significantly higher.
The FDA seems to no longer have this rule, but calories is still on the "nutrients to limit" side, so the FDA would be mandating maximums, not minimums. My mistake.
Calories should not be considered as just "a nutrient to limit" in such a way that the number is only a maximum. I sometimes used to look at the energy value to choose a ready meal that had at least enough energy so that I would not remain hungry after eating; providing significantly less energy would leave me hungry.
You jest, but TicTacs are allowed to be labelled “sugar free” despite being 91.3% sugar because, to quote, “the amount of sugar per serving (1 mint) is less than 0.5 grams, FDA labeling requirements permit the Nutrition Facts to state that there are 0 grams of sugar per serving“ - https://www.tictacusa.com/en/faq
You could easily notice this same thing in the early days of trans fat removal from product: it was common to see labels and nutrition panels touting "0g trans fats" but have partially hydrogenated oils pretty high up the ingredients list: again mostly on the back of a small serving size. I suppose it's still around in some product categories.
I don't recall ever seeing Tic Tacs actually claim "sugar free," though. "Zero grams" is allowed and most people read it the same way, while "sugar free" actually has some more requirements to be able to use.
US is a mix of measures. Imperial is allowed, but there are only a few places where it is required. Metric is in fact very common - but only for measures not in day to day use (that is intentionally contradictory have fun figuring it out)
> the general rule that if, say, a box of nails advertises 1000 nails, the manufacturer will have set the actual average to be higher than 1000 nails so that some large majority of buyers will always have at least 1000 nails in the box.
This is actually not a good analogy. These days nails are mass produced and quality controls are good to ensure each has the same rough shape and weight +/- by a few percentage points. And to ensure a quantity for a box is actually ensuring the weight - much easier to control.
This is the reason for the "bakers' dozen". Bakers were at one time required to sell a minimum amount by weight in a dozen, and so would throw in one extra item to ensure the minimum was there.
Ah, here it's on Wikipedia:
"In the United Kingdom when selling certain goods, bakers were obliged to sell goods by the dozen at a specific weight or quality (or a specific average weight). During this time, bakers who sold a dozen units that failed to meet this requirement could be penalized with a fine. Therefore to avoid risking this penalty, some bakers included an extra unit to be sure the minimum weight was met"
I've noticed this when riding on a long tram lane which is supposed to be a fast track and a transfer one. So I prefer more often trams, because it means less people.
I've also noticed that I dont have to remember timetable because it's basically organized in so-much-trams-per-hour, so it's 20mins or 15, 12 etc. So I just need to remeber a minute-offset and an interval.
As a side effect, i've noticed that at rush hour when interval is 5 mins the timetable stops to have meaning because tram can be within -1 to +3 of timetable arrival, that means it can be virtullay any time. Also, I should wait max abt 5 minutes.
I think that intervals vs arrival time change meaningfullness as a relation of interval vs timetable confidence, and passenger travel time confidence for that matter. If you can't plan your arrival at the stop better than +-1min you don't need exact times for 5-6 minute intervals. For 60min it probably makes sense. I guess one could derive good metrics for this.
Generally being 5 minutes late for an appointment counts as you get a dirty look but you are on time. Being more than that and they get mad. So 5 minutes or less intervals mean someone running just a little late isn't actually late to their appointment.
It'd be interesting to see how train companies perform. They publish stats based on destinations. I take train to work and so it happens that it also goes to the airport. If the train is delayed more 10 min, they'd cancel smaller stations and go right to the airport. I wonder how this gets reflected on their stats of which I'm very skeptical to start with.
The buses and underground in central London do have real timetables by the way, but they're primarily for the operators.
If you drive buses or trains you want to know when your service is supposed to start and how long it's supposed to take to get where it's going. But for passengers this is a metro service (except for the first and last services on routes which shut overnight) so they don't care if this is an 1105 running two minutes early or an 1100 running three minutes late.
Timetables are more or less irrelevant at peak times, but if you have connections to make out of peak hours any delays can make a big difference to your day.
I have noticed this paradox when accessing my VPN time based code. More often the time until refresh is >30 seconds than it is <30 seconds (60 seconds between refreshes)
This doesn't hold. The timing of the VPN code widget is not a random variable, but rather fixed. Thus, sampling a random inspection time of the widget has equal probability of being in the 0-30s bucket as it does in the 30-60s bucket.
For a bus, the intuitive explanation is that if you were viewing a timeline, the biggest parts of the timeline would be the "late" buses, and thus you're more likely to "inspect" (arrive at the bus stop) during one of these longer stretches.
Wow, that certainly took a sharp turn into melodrama at the end.
What happened to truth is that there wasn't much clarity to begin with and then the schedulers found out that they could meet expectations by using that ambiguity. Mystery: solved!
Now lets see if they complain about current and electrons going in opposite directions...
I live in Rome. Here we have a schedule for departures, and real time tracking. The schedule for departures is a lie, meaning that any given departure can be canceled without notice, so unless a bus has already left the terminus you cannot be sure it ever will.
So I'm guessing our public transportation works worse than the one the author describes in Rwanda.
I walk out of my place, if I see a bus is approaching I might jump on it otherwise I'll use the subway or a car sharing platform.
Consider that:
* I'm one of the few people in this city to be in walking distance from a subway station (blame it on archeology)
* Car sharing can be cost effective compared to public transportation: it costs 20-30 cents per minute, so if your trip is 10-15 minutes and you're traveling with another person the car is faster and cheaper.
* The only reason I consider the bus at all compared to the subway is because the stop is literally at my doorstep.
At the very least, I would assume most bus time tables are written to reflect the worst case scenario regarding traffic lights. That alone should make the actual average waiting time lower than the theoretical one.
Where I live, buses have a few points where they 'synchronize'. That means they wait there long enough to be exactly on schedule.
This to prevent people missing a bus that goes every hour because it was 5 minutes early.
The "El" (Elevated) trains in Chicago will do the same thing. Sometimes you simply stop between stations. Sometimes, it is only 25 ft before a station and you can see your goal in sight.
Why would they stop for regulation (as opposed to the track in front being occupied, which is obviously a good reason to stop at any place) at anything else but a station?
In Stockholm there is a per station schedule and the busses try to match it, generally being pretty good about it in the suburbs, so you can reliably get to the stop with below a minute to spare and catch the buss.
In the backwater I live in now, the situation is situation is supposedly the same, but the busses are much worse about matching the timetable. Be there 3 minutes before the timetable or watch the buss leave ahead of schedule to then spend those minutes waiting at the tow centre before getting under way again.
You lose this ability to check timings with a non-fixed timings, and have to rely on 'oh, it's probably about half an hour from here to here' or google's guess at the real timetabled journey you'll do (which the operator hasn't really promised you at any stage.) People don't seem to mind this too much.
I wonder if part of this is that waiting for a bus is usually less pleasant than being on one in countries where there is often cold/windy/rainy weather. That's something you don't really get with long-distance trains or planes. I'm going to be grumpy if I have to wait in the pouring rain for 15 minutes, even if I still make it to my appointment on time.