Category: Travel

#didsburydoubles – What might it take to put doubles back on the Didsbury line?

I’m a transport geek. I find stuff like timetables absolutely irresistible.

So thanks to the working timetables exposed in the FOIA request I took a look over lunch to find out what extra resources would be required to provide double trams once again on the Didsbury line.

Firstly, the notionally “busier” Cross-City services – the Didsbury-Shaw trams.

The Didsbury-Shaw 12 minute frequency service requires 12 trams on a circuit to operate it – i.e. it takes 144 minutes for one tram to complete a full round-trip.

There are two Metrolink depots, the original one at Queens Road, and the newer and larger depot at Trafford.

The duties for the Didsbury-Shaw service are split between the depots, 5 duties are provided by Queens Road, and 7 by Trafford.

So, to increase all the Didsbury-Shaw trams, that would require all 12 duties to be double trams, an extra 5 trams provided by Queens Road, and 7 from Trafford.

I don’t know what sort of spare resources Metrolink has around. I can usually see more than 8 trams sat stabled at Trafford depot when I go past in the morning – though I accept they could be stopped due to a fault or awaiting scheduled maintenance such as a planned servicing.

Secondly, the Didsbury-Deansgate service.

This is a much simpler operation, composed of 4 single-tram duties from Trafford depot, on a self-contained “shuttle” operation between Didsbury and Deansgate.

It is therefore theoretically simpler to double, requiring an additional 4 trams to be supplied from Trafford.

To provide double trams on both the Didsbury-Shaw and Didsbury-Deansgate services would require 16 extra trams to be available for traffic.

We’ll assume providing all 16 trams is a non-starter, that Metrolink simply don’t have 16 spare trams available on a daily basis for the moment.

There are three options, as I see them, assuming no significant service changes:

  • The least resource intensive is for Trafford to provide an extra 4 trams each day and convert the 4 Didsbury-Deansgate shuttle duties to double trams.
  • The other is to double all the Didsbury-Shaw duties, which requires 12 extra trams, a somewhat tougher ask.
  • The slightly more radical option is to cancel the Didsbury-Deansgate shuttle, and revert to a 12 minute headway. Use those 4 released trams to strengthen 4 of the Trafford Dids-Shaw duties, only requiring a further 8 trams to be provided, 4 from each depot.

Right now, it seems that the path of least resistance and possibly most rapid solution is for Didsbury-Deansgate trams to be doubled. It feels less than ideal, as the notionally busier trams are the Cross-City ones. But this might at least encourage some passengers to choose to change at Deansgate rather than wait for the direct tram and alleviate some pressure on the Didsbury-Shaw.

However, I feel all doubles on a 12 minute headway used to work okay before. Do we want to go back to that?

#didsburydoubles update – Metrolink Working Timetable via FOIA request

Thanks to Twitter follower @ppixx I’ve been pointed in the direction of a FOIA request which resulted in the release of the Working Timetables currently in use (as of 28th August 2016) on Metrolink.

https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/manchester_metrolink_working_tim_5#incoming-849104

The “Working Timetable” is the hidden “technical” timetable that Metrolink staff use to manage and maintain the service. As such it contains movements of empty trams, like workings to and from depots at the start and end of service. It’s not written to be read by mere mortals.

In terms of what’s happened with our Cross-city Didsbury line commutes, the useful information here is the sequence of trams through the network. This is the bit of information I told you in my last post we didn’t readily have, yet need, to help us make decisions whether to wait for the direct tram or take the first tram and change.

I’ve done the hard work so you don’t have to: What it shows is that if you are travelling to a point beyond Deansgate from the East Didsbury line, during the 6 minute headway period, you may as well almost always wait for the direct tram.

By taking the Deansgate tram and changing, you will have a 4 minute wait for the Altrincham – Bury tram to continue toward Market St, Shudehill and Victoria.

By leaving 6 minutes earlier – because we’re assuming for this example that the first tram is the Deansgate tram – and changing, this is reduced to a 2 minute advantage by the time you get off. The direct tram has almost “caught up”.

However if you are travelling to St Peter’s Square, Piccadilly Gardens or Piccadilly, it makes no significant difference which tram you take from the Didsbury line, both the Deansgate and the Shaw trams have good connections into Piccadilly-bound trams at Deansgate. Both are good options.

#didsburydoubles – can we get Metrolink to reinstate double trams to East Didsbury?

The summer is over, and it’s time to get back to work.

For many of us in Manchester, we breathe a sigh of relief as it also signals the reconnection of the Northern and Southern parts of the Metrolink tram network after almost two months of no service through the City Centre.

Our messed up commutes could return to something looking like normality, or so we thought…

Last week, Metrolink announced their new service patterns for the re-joined network, no longer constrained by the single-track contraflow system through the St Peter’s Square worksite:

“People of Didsbury rejoice! For we are improving your service, with trams every 6 minutes!”

Now here’s the catch and small print:

Note that while there are twice as many trams, 
they will only be half as long, 
and half of them will terminate at Deansgate, 
on the extreme south side of the city centre, 
which will mean they are no use to some of you.

So, while we get more frequent trams, at least as far as Deansgate, the overall capacity on the line has stayed the same, yet we were experiencing busy and crowded trams when they were double trams every 12 minutes, and we’ve now actually got reduced capacity on cross-city journeys.

We’re already seeing complaints about crowding and reduction of tram length:

So I’ve decided to start tweeting and hashtagging when I observe overcrowding due to single tram operation on the Didsbury line, using the hashtag #didsburydoubles and suggest those similarly affected do the same.

We then make it easier to track and hopefully get this trending on social media and get Metrolink & TfGM to sit up, listen to their users and understand how we actually use their tram network.

On paper the capacity is the same, so what’s happened?

Metrolink planners have made an assumption that passengers will always take the first tram and change where necessary.

Taking a look at my more usual trip into town, I’m normally heading to Market Street or Shudehill:

  • Under the old service pattern there was a direct double tram every 12 minutes.
  • Under the new service pattern there is a direct single tram every 12 minutes, or I can take the Deansgate tram, which runs in between the direct tram, and change at Deansgate.

I now have to make a decision, do I take whatever turns up first and proceed accordingly, or do I always wait for the direct?

I’m missing a vital piece of information if I take the Deansgate tram and change: How long will I need to wait at Deansgate for a Market Street/Shudehill tram?

What I don’t have is the planned sequence through Deansgate. I know that each “route” is planned to have a tram every 6 minutes, and it repeats on a 12 minute cycle. I just don’t know the order they are meant to come in, because Metrolink does not publish that information.

If the tram terminating at Deansgate is immediately followed by a cross-city Altrincham – Bury tram, then I’m fine. My end-to-end journey time remains basically the same, I have to change once, and don’t have to wait long.

But what if the sequence of trams means that I’m waiting, let’s say 4 minutes, for the Altrincham – Bury direct tram? Or worse still, my Didsbury – Deansgate tram arrives at Deansgate platform just in time to see the Altrincham – Bury tram pulling away?

I don’t gain anything and I may as well have taken the direct tram, and who’s to say I’ll be able to even get on to the next tram, that might be busy too?

They have not accounted for human nature: where a direct service exists we will prefer to take it.

Remember that I am a transport geek as well. I’ve studied this stuff, and have a degree from Aston Uni in Transport Management. The thought process above comes naturally to me. Heh… Maybe TfGM/Metrolink could hire me to tell them the blindingly obvious?

An average person won’t even bother going though the thought process above. They will just wait for the direct tram.

On outbound journeys in the evening commute, this situation is made even worse. People are less inclined to change on the way home, because the trams are already at their fullest in the City centre.

One simply daren’t take the first cross-city tram from Shudehill or Market Street and expect to change at Deansgate or Cornbrook because that will mean trying to board an already crowded tram.

This means evening commutes will likely be worse than morning commutes because people will almost certainly wait for the direct.

When the Didsbury line was first opened, there were waves of complaints because the use of the line outstripped Metrolink’s predictions, rapidly leading to the decision to run Didsbury trams as doubles, and this remained until this week.

It’s time to make sure TfGM and Metrolink hear our voices again.

We should at least have the through trams operating as double trams, so that cross-city capacity is restored to what it was before the St Peter’s Square works were completed.

This is how the Altrincham and Bury lines work – a 6 minute headway with alternate trams, the cross-city trams, as doubles.

If you experience an uncomfortably crowded journey on the East Didsbury line, or you have to let a tram depart without you onboard because it arrived already full, please tweet about it and use the #didsburydoubles hashtag.

Driving in Malta – signs of madness?

Number two on the list of things not to do in Malta, according to my guidebook, is drive.

To a Maltese driver, it seems that road markings, signs, signals, and speed limits are advisory rather than mandatory. This means you need your wits about you.

That bit I actually found easy to cope with by reading the road, anticipating well ahead and driving assertively myself, or assertive as I could be in a tiny Kia with a sewing machine of an engine. Hills, of which Malta has many, meant changing down to 2nd and flooring it, thanks partly to the two suitcases in the boot. Fortunately, many natives also go for the small car too, so you know they are almost in the same boat as you. However, the locals have one big head start… Continue reading “Driving in Malta – signs of madness?”

Today’s wifi moan

Currently in St Julians, Malta. This spectrum makes me sad.

Of course, there's nothing in the 5GHz spectrum
Of course, there’s nothing in the 5GHz spectrum

Congested to hell, barely useable and riddled with “supposedly faster” wide channels.

What makes me even sadder is that the hotel wifi firewall is blocking all sorts of stuff, including ssh and vpns. Sigh.

Guess I’ll have to go back to the beach…

To the airline that can’t get wifi right

So, from the great wifi experience with Premier Inn earlier this week, to today’s naff one with BA.

I’m in BA’s lounge at Gatwick, and using their wifi service. Yes, it’s free, but it really is shockingly slow.

Is this IP over Gastropod carrier?
Is this IP over Gastropod carrier?

Let’s take a quick look at the radio spectrum with Wifi Explorer…

5G Spectrum, not congested, but lots of SSIDs on the same Aruba radioheads.
5G Spectrum, not congested, but lots of SSIDs on the same Aruba radioheads.

There’s an uncongested 5GHz spectrum, and the networks which are visible are all originated from the same three Aruba radio heads, so even though there’s multiple SSIDs on the same channels, at least they are orchestrated.

2.4GHz is a somewhat different story.

BA-wifi-Gatwick-lounge-2-4G-spectrum
Icky, congested 2.4GHz.

However the one which really has earned the “slap” has to be the “wide” 2.4GHz signal…

No1 Lounge Staff, thanks for breaking it for everyone.
No1 Lounge Staff, thanks for breaking it for everyone.

Apparently, the staff at the No1 lounge think their own wifi is so bad, they have brought in their own DrayTek access point and are happily stomping over 60% of the 2.4GHz spectrum with their ridiculous wide signal.

It might be free wifi here, but it’s barely useable. 😦

Apparently, according to @gogo and @AmericanAir this blog is adult themed.

Well. If you ask American Airlines or GoGo Inflight Wifi, this blog is blocked because it contains “adult-and-pornography”…

Apparently, you're looking at pr0n
Apparently, you’re looking at pr0n. Right now.

A reader just contacted me from Flight Level 330 to let me know he couldn’t read my blog. (Well, I suppose people need something to help them sleep…)

Looks like it’s the attack of some overzealous content filters, or maybe GoGo Inflight didn’t agree with my opinions on implementing event and public wifi?

UK ATC Delays – a case of “Computer says No”

Many folks will have read about the ATC delays being experienced in the UK today.

Sadly, a lot of the explanations have been rather technical, not surprising since they are coming from industry experts or from those working for ATC or airlines who have a good understanding of the industry and the jargon that goes with it (e.g. “sectors”, “flow control”, “slot restrictions”, etc.).

Air Traffic Control Principles: To maintain a good margin of safety, an air traffic controller can only manage (“work“) a certain number of aircraft at the same time, taking into account the amount of communication they need to make on the radio with the planes they are working and the phase of flight those planes are in (e.g. takeoff, landing, climb, descent, cruise).

To manage the amount of traffic the UK airspace needs to handle on a daily basis, the skies are carved up into areas known as “sectors“, slotting together like a big 3D jigsaw.

Sectors: A sector handling traffic which is “in the cruise” – has taken off, finished climbing and is in level flight in the general direction of it’s destination – can generally handle more aircraft than a sector which is working traffic that is descending toward it’s destination.

For example, it takes more work to direct an aircraft to line up with the runway in order to land (several radio transmissions over 10-20 minutes), especially in the cloudy weather we get in the UK, than to tell it to fly in a straight line for 200 miles (one radio transmission in half an hour).

As an aircraft goes on it’s journey, it’s handed off from controller to controller.

The pieces of this jigsaw are set up for the “worst case scenario” – the busiest time of the day, when the most aircraft are flying in the UK and the most Air Traffic Controllers are needed on duty.

Control Positions: The consoles you see the controllers working at, which include screens with radar displays showing where the planes are, and display output which helps the controllers organise the traffic they are responsible for, make a record of their decisions, and communicate with neighbouring controllers. This includes the “telephones” and the VHF radio system for speaking to the aircraft, which are integrated into the console at the control position.

Merging sectors (Band-boxing): At night, when less planes are in the UK’s skies, the traffic is less dense, and fewer controllers are needed. These sectors are combined together, known in industry jargon as band-boxing.

The radars, radios and telephone lines for all the different sectors being combined are re-routed to the control position working the band-boxed sector. This is done using control software, and I suspect it’s this control software which has suffered a failure and become stuck in “night mode”.

It can’t “un-bandbox” the sectors, and re-route the radio and telephone lines to the right place in the control room.

The Net Effect: Because of the failure, it’s not possible to un-bandbox the merged sectors, and delegate control of the airspace to a greater number of controllers. Going back to my first point, a controller can only work a certain amount of planes while maintaining an acceptable margin of safety.

If it’s not possible to have more controllers working the traffic, they simply have to make sure there are fewer planes in the same bit of sky at the same time. To do this, ATC uses a process known as Flow Control, which consists of setting very specific (to within a few minutes) take-off times for aircraft. Because we know a plane is going to fly at a certain speed, at a requested height, along a known route, ATC can work out where a plane should be at a given time, based on it’s take-off time.

If there is too much traffic expected in the same place at the same time, ATC will work out the soonest it could safely work the traffic and then work that backward into take-off times for each plane – the slot time you hear pilots refer to.

Therefore when you hear a pilot talk about missing our slot, they don’t necessarily mean missing their time to use the runway at the departure airport, but their allotted time through some point in the air, maybe a couple of hours into the future.

Obviously, when something like this happens, the flow control and slot restrictions become more severe, also you can’t just go on delaying flights indefinitely. Airlines must also try and do their bit to reduce the strain on the available ATC resources, and they will therefore start making tactical cancellations – for instance reducing the number of flights on a given route, especially if it’s a high-frequency route with a plane every hour or two. Maybe they will cancel 50% of the flights and transfer passengers to those planes which will still operate. This frees up a slot in the airspace to be used for a flight which runs less regularly and makes sure that route is still served.

Where airlines have a fleet of planes of different sizes, so these are the larger carriers such as BA, they may try and combine two flights together on one single larger aircraft (e.g. two Airbus A319s onto a single Boeing 767). Again, this makes more space in the skies.

If you’re travelling today, I hope you get where you’re going eventually. You’ll need a lot of patience though, and resign yourself to being delayed. Sadly, being delayed is one risk you take whenever you travel, and by whatever method you choose.

If you don’t really need to make your journey today, contact your airline and offer to travel another day, they may appreciate having one less person to carry and you will release your seat for someone else that might really need it.

First A380 Experience

In some ways, I’m probably a stick in the mud. Years of experience with networks and systems make you wary about the early adopter of “point-zero” software releases, and if you can, wait until they shake the bugs out.

So, despite being a bit of a travel addict, I still managed to not go on an Airbus A380 until last weekend – they didn’t work the routes I’ve been flying and weren’t operated by many airlines I regularly fly.

That changed last week when I flew on British Airways’ new A380 to Los Angeles.

The overall impression I got was how quiet the plane is. It’s seriously quiet. On takeoff, you basically just notice a change in engine note and a bit of acceleration. During the flight, it’s so quiet that you can hear a person snoring a couple of feet away.

While there were one or two rough edges on the service because the aircraft is still fairly new in the BA fleet, such as things taking a little longer than usual as the crew get used to the new equipment, it’s pretty impressive stuff, even though BA chose not to have “bling” elements such as inflight bars, lounges or showers. They chose to try and ensure consistency in the long haul product, keeping a similar look and feel to existing aircraft such as the 777-300, but behind the scenes, the galley equipment is new and different from that flying on the majority of the older fleet.

One thing I noticed was that even on the A380’s upper deck, you don’t have that same exclusiveness of the 747-400 upper deck, often sought-after among frequent fliers. It’s not quite the same on the 380. It’s definitely spacious, but as there’s more of you up there, it doesn’t feel quite as special.

BA’s Heathrow Lounge Food, Pt 2: The Lord of the Flies?

Following on from my recent post regarding a rather poor Environmental Health Report for BA’s “exclusive” Concorde Room, Hillingdon Council, the local authority responsible for Heathrow, have conducted further inspections of BA’s lounge operations at the airport.

This time, the largest lounge in T5, the “Galleries Club South” scored 2 out of 5, like it’s neighbour.

The report for this lounge highlights a number of basic food hygiene failings that seem to indicate a real lack of care.

Continue reading “BA’s Heathrow Lounge Food, Pt 2: The Lord of the Flies?”