An observation

[ozbob]

Feedback received:

Standing on Central Station Thursday night between 5:15 and 5:30 pm.

Lots of people sitting and standing waiting for trains - none to be seen (there was a period of about 5 minutes where there was not a train at any platform) this cannot be true as the way to move people quickly is to have trains at platforms ready to go or arriving at close intervals.

More units and more crews are needed.

Signalling and infrastructure as currently set up can surely handle a train into each platform at least every 3 minutes.
Maths is easy then - 6 platforms, 3 minutes. In one hour that would be 20 trains for each platform which would be 120 trains (60 each way).  With each train carrying 715 passengers, that is 85,800 passengers every hour. (In the period from 4:30 pm to 7:00 pm, over 200,000 people could be carried.)

A check of the current time table on the Down at Central shows that from 5:00 pm to 6:00 pm inclusive there are 27 trains total (Platform 3 - 9, Platform 4 - 6 and Platform 6 - 12).

Even if all of these trains are at CRUSH capacity - 1000, that is only 27,000.

Just think if even half as many again were running - 40 (27 + 13) and these carried 715 each.

The total carried would be 28,600.  Take 1600 people out of road transport in the city and you could be looking at least 800 motor vehicles less on the crowded inner city roads.


A check of the current time table on the Up at Central shows that from 5:00 pm to 6:00 pm inclusive there are only 22 trains total (Platform 1 - 7, Platform 2 - 7 and Platform 6 - .

Even if all of these trains are at CRUSH capacity - 1000, that is only 22,000.

Just think if even half as many again were running - 33 (22 + 11) and these carried 715 each.

The total carried would be 23,595.  Take 1595 people out of road transport in the city and you could be looking at least 795 motor vehicles less on the crowded inner city roads.

There is an easy reduction of over 1500 vehicles.

Proper counts and surveys of peak hour trains would likely show these numbers would be even better than this.


Noel Haynes

[stephenk]

These figures show that there is still some track capacity remaining, particularly in the evening peak.

The ICRCS sees maximum capacity as 25tph on the suburban tracks, and 19tph on the main tracks through the core section. Realistically I think that 20tph and 17tph are more appropriate figures, and the figures I have used in the calculations below. The maximum currently run on either line is (as far as I can work out) 19tph and 13tph respectively.

In the am peak there is still spare capacity for an extra 4-6tph on all core tracks with the exception of inbound across the Merivale Bridge. In the evening all core tracks have around 4-6tph of spare capacity.

Unfortunately poor infrastructure outside of the core section can cause issues with train pathing, and reversing capacity. The lack of trains also means that the core section is not being used at it's full potential.