"On time" is a metric that is focused on heavily, but to me it's meaningless. The LIRR is "on time" via schedule padding; a 50 mile trip to Ronkonkoma takes 80

"On time" is a metric that is focused on heavily, but to me it's meaningless. The LIRR is "on time" via schedule padding; a 50 mile trip to Ronkonkoma takes 80 minutes on the fastest express train. With line speeds largely 80mph throughout the route, commuters are robbed of an hour every single day. But hey, at least the "on time performance" metric is at 99%. Easy to do when your average speed is 37mph on 80mph track. The LIRR Today has a great article, that I cannot for the life of me find, where the author used train speed data between stations to figure out what speed "most trains" accomplished (so accounting for curves, station stops, etc.) and redid the schedules according to that data. Without padding, everyone that uses the LIRR would save hours a week in commuting. Incidentally, the LIRR has been moving away from higher train speeds and better connections to reduce travel time in favor of arriving at terminals within 6 minutes of the scheduled time. Schedule padding, replacing 80mph switches with 60mph switches (for the Elmont work), and removing all scheduled connections at Jamaica. I think it's crazy and I'm glad I don't commute to the city from Long Island. The connections at Jamaica disappearing is the most sad to me; that station has a really unique setup where 3 trains arrive at once, and you can transfer through the middle train to get to the other two destinations. It used to work like clockwork, but obviously if the middle train is late, the OTP for 3 trains decreases. Since that's the metric they care about, and not "can I get from any city terminal to any destination easily", that's what gets optimized out. I don't think it's good. It's nice if the trains run on time, but I'd rather be 20 minutes late once a week than spend an extra 5 hours on the train every week. But, not what the agency values.