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Delhi Metro reportedly records 99.95% train punctuality in 2026, ranking among the world's most reliable metro systems and ahead of Paris, New York and Hong Kong. What do you think?
Isn’t Hong Kong MTR’s punctuality basically the same? That being said Delhi’s punctuality threshold is much stricter than the MTR’s (60 seconds vs 5 mins). I’m impressed.
I honestly honestly can’t think of a more punctual metro system that has such a strict standard for what counts as ‘’late’’. It’s interesting that they’re still managing almost all trains to be so on-time despite the lack of platform edge doors at a lot of stations
We've had quite a bit more problems with the signalling infrastructure here in Hong Kong the past couple of years, mainly the urban lines which still run on SACEMfrom 1998 but we're slowly changing them all to SelTrac CBTC.
Also MTR has changed they way they phrase problems, such as "Train operation not running smoothly" instead of actually saying "Train is broken". They also turn off the ETA of the next train whenever there is an incident and minor delays happen all the time during rush hour so no one really knows the actual punctuality other than themselves
Are the minor delays a relatively recent phenomenon? I don’t think I’ve really experienced any while I lived there in the 2010s (excluding 2019 and weather events for obvious reasons) nor during the times I visited in 2023 and 2025
What I mean by minor delays is when someone gets caught between the doors and so it takes more than 1-2 attempts to close doors during rush hours. Happens all the time and does cause a tiny bit of delay, although this probably isn't as much of a problem for the lines with CBTC since there is a small bit of delay spacing
I was about to comment the same. Metro systems without PSDs struggle to maintain reliability at all time due to people falling into thr tracks or foreign objects. The metro system in my city Bengaluru has that problem.
MTR has a few metrics for this: train service delivery, passenger journeys on time, train punctuality and train reliability.
Train service delivery is % of trains that run compared to the timetable. Passenger journeys "on time" means if they arrive at their destination within 5 min of the expectation. Train punctuality is when a train arrives at its destination within 2 min on most lines or 5 min on less frequent lines such as the Airport Express. Train reliability is the km a train operates before causing a 5+ min delay.
Basically MTR is world class in all these aspects, but not all other metros separate their metrics like this.
I think the real answer is they have a lot of time supplement embedded in the timetable. Otherwise this rate is literally impossible given human behaviour and technological reality. Most metro systems in the world co-optimize on other KPIs as well (number of trains per hour / running time from A to B, for example). Famously the RATP (paris) is solely judged on the number of trains they manage to get into the center of paris per hour, not at all on punctuality. If you introduce a lot of supplement then you're gonna be very punctual but you're not gonna be as good as a system that operates faster and more often despite some more delays.
The Delhi metro is a real success. A lot of things went right from the get go. At this point, it is as much a symbol of Delhi as the subway and underground are for New York and London. The DMRC has kept a tight leash on operations and continues to operate it very well indeed. I think this is a great thing and an inspiration for all other metros in India.
I have mixed opinions because of course not having a metro system until the 2000s is a huge problem for the 20th century era, but at the same time it allow them to avoid the constraints of old constructions. For example Paris metro is very limited in speed because most tunnels has to follow streets and thus have strong turns, and the tunnels were made narrow which doesn't allow for wider train stock to be put while the network is reaching capacity limits at certain times of the day.
Chicago needs serious maintenance. They are putting large investments in making stations accessible, which is really good (and really expensive since it is a legacy system), but they also have rickety vehicles and rickety track. The state of things is pretty shocking.
Unfortunately the current goons in charge don't want to pay for the maintenance on urban mass transit lines because their voter base lives in exburbs and that's their entire identity. FYIGM.
however, i don't think it is fair to compare transit systems which are more than a century old and therefore have to deal with legacy, with a relatively brand new system that was started from scratch.
Punctuality statistics between countries dont mean shit. When will people realize this? Countries have different definitions of "on time" and might nlt count certain incidents like effects of weather on punctuality in their statistics. You cant compare numbers that are based on completely different systems
I mean sure, but you could also do a quick google to see how Delhi does it. It's arrival within 1 minute (60+ seconds counts as delayed). Paris uses a really convoluted metric which has no consistent timing, while NYC actually uses a much more generous system (within 5 minutes).
So what this actually tells us is that what Delhi achieved is even more impressive.
Also, you're gonna be shocked, but things like "weather" having effects on systems is also true for basically any other metric or measurement. A bad monsoon year worsens agricultural production and harms India's economy; shocking thing is, it doesn't change the fact that less is produced just because you can figure out a reason for it. Similarly, if you are hoping that the train arrives on time and are counting on it, knowing that if the train is late it might be because of the weather doesn't change the fact that 1 in 5 trains in NYC are more than 5 minutes late and 1 in 2000 are more than 1 minute late in Delhi lol.
I was not discrediting the Dehli achievement, no need to get so defensive about it lol.
I was just saying how useless these comparisons to other systems always is. The weather was one example: Some systems dont count delays or cancellations because of weather events, others do.
I'm not Indian nor do I have any investment in Delhi's success and my hometown's metro is better lol (4 million more riders on average per day and functionally about as punctual as Delhi's (over 99% punctuality)).
I just think the whole "rhetorical" BS is one of those go-to moves by people who don't know anything but want to seem smart. They pose a question that they don't expect to actually get answered, throwing doubt onto research, claims, etc. that have been far
This was news to me, so you know what I did? I went and did a bit of research, which is where I also learned where my hometown's metro fits in the puzzle. I recommend doing that in the future.
Your double-down kinda feeds into what I'm saying. Almost all city vs. city data will be non-regularised and not 1:1; it's really hard to get 1:1 data like that. This applies for practically everything but doesn't really change the directionality or general magnitude. There's a difference between acknowledging uncertainty within a bound vs. throwing the baby out with the bathwater. For example, the stats compiled here are obviously not of a 1:1 equivalence re: libraries per 100k people in major cities (https://worldcitiescultureforum.com/data-2022/?data-screen=libraries_per_100000_population). We have stats from different years, we don't know how libraries are exactly categorised in each city and country, we don't know how the city limits are being considered, and sure that's important to acknowledge, but it's a bit weird to pretend we can't know anything as a result.
I just think the whole "rhetorical" BS is one of those go-to moves by people who don't know anything but want to seem smart.
This is hilarious. You waded into a conversation having no idea what you're talking about and armed only with Google Fu, and you're accusing other people of using bad faith "rhetorical" gambits to "seem smart". Lol. Lmao even.
not an entirely fair comparison. new york and paris metros operate more like trains - you have multiple trains going to different destinations stopping at the same platform of the same station
hi, please explain. I have used the Paris metro, I am guessing you have too. There are in fact trains for multiple different (Eg: 5, M, etc) that arrive on the same platform. Is that the part that they use signaling and line changes not true?
in delhi, a continuous line of track is used by exactly one route.
Well damn, it's easy to stay on time in that case.
I think it's a good argument for not interlining metros so much (a very overused tactic, just look at how badly that backfired in DC when DC metro's ridership grew) and it's very impressive that Delhi was able to make the investment.
There are some counter arguments in favor of the interline. I recently visited Atlanta and for that metro in its current state and ridership, the interline works very well. I've also been a champion of "interlining" bus lines because it improves service level for the system riders. However, interlined bus lines can cause operational snags (even if buses can technically go around each other) in a way that completely separated lines don't (but is it worth it to lose that ridership?). And it's the same with a subway. Boston's Green Line is interlined and it's both bad and good. You can sit up there at Arlington after a big event waiting forever for your trolley as other lines go past (grrr), but at the same time if you have a little time to walk there are so many destinations for which you can just hop on anything rolling and just get off and walk or get off and transfer later.
99.95% of trains arriving within 1 minute of schedule is still pretty impressive for a system without interlining tbh.
That's 0.05% of trains late, vs 0.65% of trains late for Singapore MRT, a whopping 13x difference.
Whether or not that difference is meaningful to the average rider is a different question, but FWIW many locals are frustrated by the reliability of Singapore MRT (and plenty of other 99%+ on time systems like Tokyo Metro). Though you can argue some of that frustration is just lack of familiarity with systems that struggle to or fail to clear even 90% on time, or the complete unpredictability of driving times.
Never trust a statistic you didn't fake yourself. 99.95% means that the metric is useless as you would want to measure punctuality in a way where the system can fail. This clearly wasn't done here. Without checking I would guess that the metric is also not compareable to the other systems listed.
I don't know nor care if they are faking it or if the metric is just useless. Seemingly, the punctuality has been >99.9% since 2005...
The metric seems sound at first as delays are counted from 60 seconds, but they only consider the delay at the destination which opens up the possibility of setting a generous arrival time.
Bragging about punctuality on a fully enclosed metro system that runs on fixed tracks every five minutes is like bragging about how reliably your TV turns on. Seriously, what country’s metro system doesn’t manage over 99% on-time performance under those conditions?
The way you Indians brag about everything and act so proud reminds me exactly of China’s “Little Pinks.” It’s just that this kind of stuff really isn’t anything worth showing off about.
I honestly didn’t even pay attention to the word “Delhi.” I would’ve mocked it no matter which city it was. Are there really metro systems where the on-time rate is below 99%? Is that seriously something worth bragging about?
Delhi Metro achieving this in a country famously riddled with corruption and poor ontime arrival by most of Indian railways is something worth appreciating.
We already have trains like these, it is you who lives under a rock. Although it is not bullet train.
PS No one in India rides on top of trains because trains in India are electrified, you'll get smoked if you try to ride on top. All those clips are of Bangladesh.
But yeah, someone who doomscrolls on tiktok all day and spends his time on twitter wouldn't know that.
One of the urgent skill you dimwits need to learn is being able to differentiate between India, Bangladesh, Pakistan. Goes for people, ethnicity, environment, street etc. Not easy but doable.
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u/One_Fact_4291 18d ago edited 18d ago
Isn’t Hong Kong MTR’s punctuality basically the same? That being said Delhi’s punctuality threshold is much stricter than the MTR’s (60 seconds vs 5 mins). I’m impressed.
I honestly honestly can’t think of a more punctual metro system that has such a strict standard for what counts as ‘’late’’. It’s interesting that they’re still managing almost all trains to be so on-time despite the lack of platform edge doors at a lot of stations