Record levels of satisfaction with London Overground

Are we all riding the same trains?  A new survey by independent passenger watchdog Passenger Focus indicates that 94% of passengers are satisfied with the service provided by London Overground - the highest in the country!

I too the liberty of examining the original survey.  The headline finding is that

"Nationally the percentage of passengers satisfied with their

journey overall was 85%. This is significantly improved

compared to Autumn 2011 (when 84% of passengers

were satisfied). 83% of passengers were satisfied overall

with their journey in Spring 2012."

Leaving aside the fact that a one percent increase is hardly a 'significant' improvement, the survey methodology makes no mention of error margins, which is highly suspect.  Error margins in surveys are often in the range of 2-5%, which could completely (and 'significantly') reverse this claim.  Hmm.  I wonder what else is wrong with this survey...

Oh, here's one (on the same page, no less):

"For regional operators 86% of passengers were very or fairly

satisfied with their journey overall, not significantly different

to Autumn 2011, when 87% were satisfied."

So a one percent increase is significant, but a one percent decrease is insignificant.  Yeah, that makes sense.  I'll stop short of calling the watchdog far from as independent as claimed, but those are some pretty major flaws in interpretation.

Diving further into the report, one can find numerous instances of a 2% change (up or down) being described as insignificant, but a 1% change as significant.  And still, though sample sizes are provided, no margin of error.  And a quick glance shows me at least one instance of a single percentage point rise in a small sample being treated as more significant than a larger percentage point rise in a big sample.

You can download the report yourself (free) from here to check out your individual train operators, but frankly I've seen enough to ignore all the findings as fundamentally flawed.

In other news, if you're the conspiracy theory type, you can find 'evidence' here that TfL is experimenting with nerve gas to kill its customers directly (rather than as is the current favoured method: indirectly by frustration).

This morning's update, and an apology

First, the apology: on a couple of occasions in the last week or so now, I have attempted to add my evening journey updates to the pre-existing morning story of commuting woe.  This worked perfectly when I first began my blog, but for some reason the last two times it has not: my mobile has told me that the update has been published, but upon checking the next morning on a laptop, I have found the update missing.  Oh!  And it also seems to temporarily rearrange the format of the blog, also for reasons unknown (starting to sound representative of the TfL experience, isn't it?).  I don't know what's causing this problem, but will refrain from mobile updates until I can figure it out.

For anyone who's actually taken note of my commands to check back in the evening for updates, and then seen none, I apologise, and I promise I have not been lazy.  I have made the updates, they're just not showing up.

So, without further ado, a reproduction of last night's update, transcribed by my own fair hand from my own diabolical mobile:

"Tube delay on the Bakerloo Line meant I missed my train from Waterloo.  Overall, this resulted in a 32-minute delay in the supposed arrival time.  £80.  Ouch."

So.  Not much in terms of an update, but plenty in terms of readies for your intrepid hero.  It was also especially galling because my daughter had apparently forgone her lunchtime nap during the day and thus needed to go to bed earlier than usual, which meant I barely saw her yesterday.  And I'd even brought her a present (in the form of a favourite snack), which she couldn't then have because she'd already brushed her teeth.

Add that to this morning: a two-minute delay on the train to Waterloo (accrued over the length of the journey with no explanation or apology).  This caused me to take a later tube than the one Journey Planner recommended, which was delayed by a further three minutes, making five in total for another £12.50.  Grand total of 37 minutes and £92.50 between last night and this morning.  That's around 25% of a combined theoretical journey time of a little over two hours.  Unacceptable!


UPDATE: one minute's delay on the Bakerloo Line coming home, but it didn't matter as I made the connecting train anyway (I got skilz).  However, that train was delayed by a minute too, so I'll be claiming another £2.50.  Doesn't seem like much after the recent haul!