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Comment by JumpCrisscross | Hacker News Reader

> America seems to be suffering the same fate

Not uniformly. New York's LIRR (90 to 95% [1]) and Metro-North (99% [2]) feature on-time rates that rival the Swiss (93% [3]).

[1] https://www.osc.ny.gov/files/reports/pdf/report-9-2025.pdf

[2] https://wpdh.com/metro-north-on-time-reliability/

[3] https://reporting.sbb.ch/punctuality?=&years=1,4,5,6,7&scrol...

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You might want to look into what they define as being "late".

> A commuter train is considered on-time by the LIRR if it arrives within 5 minutes and 59 seconds of its scheduled arrival time.

The second source doesn't say, but let's assume it's the same as for LIRR, i.e. 6 minutes.

It's also unfortunate that the SBB doesn't immediately tell us the metric, but I happen to know it's 3 minutes (more specifically 2 minutes and 59 seconds).

In other words, the LIRR permits a delay of twice the time as SBB for it to constitute late. The S-trains in Copenhagen now has a punctuality of 97% using a 3 minute metric.[0]

[0] https://www.dsb.dk/om-dsb/virksomheden/rettidighed/s-togs-re...

Is on time counted as time at every stop, or just the terminal. It’s easy to fake the terminal times with little impact by padding the timetable. Being on time at every station is far harder.

Not sure how you compare a small simple system like Lord which is pretty much one line with a few branches with an integrated multi-national system like the entire Swiss railway either

The answer to your question is "it depends". Some also do weighed calculations, where it's "per passenger", which means trains that have a high passenger load being late have a larger impact than one with few passengers. At least in Denmark, where I am most familiar (though I expect most of Europe to be similar), it's per stop.

As for the LIRR, it seems it's only the terminal station that counts:

> Thus, a train is considered late only if it arrives at its final destination six minutes or more after its scheduled arrival time.

Which leads to the common trick: If a train is delayed, it will often skip the last stop and turn at a station before the last. So the train was cancelled and not late at the final destination, therefore doesn't affect the punctuality statistics.

And yes, in Germany this happens and is reflected in rising "cancelled train" statistics. KPIs for Deutsche Bahn managers haven't caught up yet ;)

Final destination minutes values are much easier to cheat so aren’t comparable even without the 6 minute “on time” issue.

Not sure I understand your point; GP was talking about highway maintenance and you're talking about trains.

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