On time?
or: Everything you (n)ever wanted to know about punctuality
If a company publishes on-time statistics, there is a lot of reason for a second look: Almost every railroad on the planet has its own definition of "on time". Sometimes, there are even two punctuality records for one railroad: The Swiss SBB-CFF-FFS, uses two scales, in order to measure both minor and major delays, and publishes both figures.
The following table shows, wether certain delays are called "on time" or "delayed" by the various punctuality definitions.
Arrival late by minutes:seconds | 01:00 | 01:01 | 04:00 | 04:01 | 04:59 | 05:00 | 14:59 | 15:00 |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
SBB-CFF-FSS (Switzerland), Def. 1 | on time | delayed | delayed | delayed | delayed | delayed | delayed | delayed |
SBB-CFF-FSS (Switzerland), Def. 2 | on time | on time | on time | delayed | delayed | delayed | delayed | delayed |
Deutsche Bahn AG (Germany) | on time | on time | on time | on time | on time | delayed | delayed | delayed |
Amtrak (USA) | on time | on time | on time | on time | on time | on time | on time | delayed |
Eurostar (EU) | on time | on time | on time | on time | on time | on time | on time | delayed |
Common air carrier definition | on time | on time | on time | on time | on time | on time | on time | delayed |
Another important difference: While most passenger railroads attempt to be on time at every station, Amtrak doesn't even try, and puts most of the schedule padding close to the end of the journey. This practice reduces usability by a major margin.