[parampath]

Remember a board in one of the Japanese railway station where the average delay of trains were marked as 13 seconds ( it was an era before digital camera and couldn't capture it).

Also was impressed with German ICE trains. did a journey from Berlin to Cologne in one of their flagship high speed trains. Train got delayed by an hr due to a suicide attempt in the tracks and reached Cologne a hr late. The last local train from Cologne to Bonn had already left. ( we were a set of 4 Guys) and the train company arranged a free Merc taxi all the way to our door step (Some 50 miles from cologne) and it reached 40 min earlier than our normal expected travel time.
In addition to this, while he said good Bye to us, he also passed on train voucher equivalent to full train fare which we could use it in ICE for any future journey. Basically we traveled for free from Berlin to our home at Bonn


George V

[asingh1977]

Originally Posted by am1m

Hehe, nice one. But it's not fair to compare the Metro crowd to the Mumbai local crowd. The Mumbai local is in a class of it's own and since this thread is about a train being on time (or rather, early), the Mumbai local does that pretty well, especially compared to Indian Railways.

It has nothing to do with a crowd situation and Indians behaving differently when they have a lot of space. Indian's have this innate habit of being selfish and cutting an extremely wide personal swathe when being mobile in any format. Car, walk, or sitting in a cinema hall. It is just plain selfish, and it comes so naturally to most of us, that we do not realize we are intruding ones personal space or are literally physically assaulting.

Example:
Today morning I got into a DLF elevator. Apparently one passenger has figured it out: that it beeps if a human is standing at a certain point. So he actually started pushing people in the elevator left/right to disable the beep. I was like shocked.

Originally Posted by am1m

But when will we Indians learn this?

We are learning the above more, as each day passes. So it cannot improve. Just that people who are civil manner adhering and respecting to others, will continue to be treated like dogs, and write posts like this. All walks of our life are poisoned with rude, boorish, and crude Indians. 3rd World is apt for us.

[am1m]

Originally Posted by asingh1977

It has nothing to do with a crowd situation and Indians behaving differently when they have a lot of space.

Actually, I think that when resources are adequate, people tend to behave more generously.

Originally Posted by asingh1977

Just that people who are civil manner adhering and respecting to others, will continue to be treated like dogs, and write posts like this. All walks of our life are poisoned with rude, boorish, and crude Indians.

Hey hey, no, it's not quite that bad is it?! I know it can feel that way, but there are several examples of we as a people exhibiting good behavior too. I think it's a matter of time and slow change. But very slow I agree. Let's criticize constructively, but let's not show this much self-loathing.

[jayakumarkp]

Slightly off topic. Loved the detail in the report. The way they reported about the conductor's decision to continue without waiting, since he could forecast delays. We hardly get to see such honest details in any Incident reports in India.

[msdivy]

Originally Posted by am1m

But when will we Indians learn this?

Originally Posted by asingh1977

We are learning the above more, as each day passes. So it cannot improve. Just that people who are civil manner adhering and respecting to others, will continue to be treated like dogs, and write posts like this. All walks of our life are poisoned with rude, boorish, and crude Indians. 3rd World is apt for us.

Some of us might have seen the outside world and have some scope of learning. What about the rest? What they see within the well is the world, the world with its boorish, ungracious behavior. Where is the scope to learn?

[giri1.8]

Originally Posted by msdivy

Some of us might have seen the outside world and have some scope of learning. What about the rest? What they see within the well is the world, the world with its boorish, ungracious behavior. Where is the scope to learn?

This seems to be case, almost anyone who has been to a well developed country has certain change to their character in some way or the other. They can observe the benefit of habits like, being clean, being punctual and so on. People who never leave town on the other hand, just wish to push everyone around and never realise their mistakes.

Such miracles can happen in India too, but people who report an incident as such will get bullied or laughed at.

[asingh1977]

Originally Posted by am1m

Actually, I think that when resources are adequate, people tend to behave more generously.

I really do not see that as a reason for the behavior that the general public exhibits outside. They do not do that inside their homes, or for example in highly controlled areas. Like, within the US embassy standing for a VISA. If someone can get away with it, they will try. Or quantum of penalty is minimal. Read: Others just getting annoyed / offended! Big deal.

Originally Posted by am1m

Hey hey, no, it's not quite that bad is it?! I know it can feel that way, but there are several examples of we as a people exhibiting good behavior too. I think it's a matter of time and slow change. But very slow I agree. Let's criticize constructively, but let's not show this much self-loathing.

My points above were observational. If I count everyday: I see more deltas then appreciative activities out in the wild.

Originally Posted by msdivy

Some of us might have seen the outside world and have some scope of learning. What about the rest? What they see within the well is the world, the world with its boorish, ungracious behavior. Where is the scope to learn?

We are humans. Do we actually need to "see" to learn, civil sense. The scope is: Just think before doing something. Our brains are not that slow in terms of raw processing. I went to the US for mere few weeks. It was not an earth shattering or learning experience per say in terms of caring for my nation and fellow men. Yes, but culture is evolutionary.

[Alfresco]

Originally Posted by am1m

Thankfully these days we have the train running status information available online, so can plan and avoid waiting at the station.

The situation has improved a lot compared to two decades back. We, as a society, are slowly learning the efficiencies derived from punctuality.

IR has also contributed a lot by having the NTES app showing that we are at the destination when we are at least 15 minutes away.
A few minutes after the train departs from the last reporting station (non-stopping), the information is updated to show that the train has reached the destination. Just a few days back, my train was waiting at Tilak Bridge station before New Delhi station but the app was showing that I was at New Delhi station. Even the GPS tracking information is not real-time.

[Naveen_0181]

Originally Posted by msdivy

Some of us might have seen the outside world and have some scope of learning. What about the rest? What they see within the well is the world, the world with its boorish, ungracious behavior. Where is the scope to learn?

Only after I lived in a foreign land I realized how much we lack on some basic etiquette's!

The first day in my India office after my first onsite assignment in Europe, I smiled at a lady in the elevator and got a serious stare back and soon I realized!

[puneetakhouri]

Read somewhere that the Japanese trains always arrive on time because they already have some slack built into their travel durations.

Just like some domestic carriers here in India which always arrive on time by marking the duration of a 2 hour flight to a 2:15 minutes one, it gives them some time to compensate for any delays that might occur midway.

Also because of this slack the trains do not travel at the "peak" speed defined for a particular section of the track. This also helps in preventing drivers from pushing the trains beyond safety limits to stick to timelines which is important in a country which has punctuality built into their entire system.

[aroonanand]

Not just Japan, the situation (clean trains running on time, public transport sticking to a schedule) is similar in most countries in Asia and Europe

My wife & I travelled through Vienna, Hungary, Czech, Germany and Netherlands last year and in every single place, the situation was similar. Clean trains and buses that run on time, clear announcements (multi-lingual in most places) and an immediate apology if something is not as per schedule. Was pleasantly surprised to see this even in countries like Hungary and Czech which are still "developing" in relative terms to rest of EU. And what I realized is people take pride in the job they do in all these places, even if it is a so-called "blue-collar" job of being a driver or a cleaner at a station. Have noted this pride even in Singapore, HK where every job matters.

In Amsterdam, we faced this incident where the bus driver was unable to print the tickets from her handheld and therefore let us travel for free. She apologized, refused to take money saying that the system glitch is the company's issue and therefore the passengers should not be made to pay. Noted at multiple places in Amsterdam of how intra-city buses are timed and if the bus reaches a stop a min or 2 early, the driver waits till the cut-off has passed before starting off.

Will India ever go that way?? Naaah... As many others pointed out, we are just too selfish to be cared only about "I-me-myself" and not bothered about how our actions (even simple things like just cutting a lane without giving adequate notice / indicator) can put others to inconvenience

[groom]

The train running on time etc happens on daily basis but only for shinkansen (bullte train).
I commute every day in sub-urb of tokyo using the Tokyo-Den-en-toshi line, and the trains are usually late on daily basis especially in the evening during the peak commute time. Trains are also late in Japan for one interesting reason - People jump in front of the trains and commit suicide very often. They have have closing doors on the platform so that people dont jump.

And nobody cares about train being late, because most Japanese (read nearly all) are glued to their smart phones.

The torture system and being stringent on time is significantly relaxed after the Shinkansen accident that happened some time ago.

[deathwalkr]

Unimaginable scenario here. Being a frequent commuter by train for work between cities, delays have become part and parcel of the journey.

To an extent, where this train which is always late and i mean always, few weeks back, it was on time and imagine the surprise on everyone's face. Some of them were actually calling up their relatives and saying train is on time!

Too many signal crossings, track maintenance work which drags on for ages and ages with no end in sight.

Good music noise cancelling headphones and chillllll

Indian Standard Time indeed...

[nutmello]

Hats off to JR , contrast this with what I went thro recently. My family recently ( May 2018) had a nightmarish 36 hour delay in Bangalore Agartala Humsafar Superfast express. Train Reached NJP ( New Jalpaiguri) station 36 hours delayed. Toilets ran dry twice and fully dry minutes after Howrah station. Pantry went out of stock. Entire train filed with filth, garbage and two of my little children fell ill, spoiling our entire Sikkim holiday plan.

[bhp_maniac]

Hats off to JR. A few years back when I was on an official trip to Japan, I boarded a train from Narita airport station to Kawasaki. Few minutes past departure, the conductor came up to me and apologized for a 30 sec delay they had in departure. I didn't even notice that until he informed me the same . He did that to all the passengers.


Few days later, when a Japanese colleague of mine told me he would meet me at the hotel lobby at "8:22" to catch "8:27" train, I was literally since we Indians are always used to round time like 8:20, 8:25 or even 8:15, 8:30 etc.