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Analysis of Punctuality in Railway Transportation; Coastal Railway Line, Sri Lanka

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Delays in train arrivals is one of the major drawbacks in Sri Lanka railway system. Since people concern more about reliability of a public transport system than comfort, punctuality is a major quality indicator in railway transportation. Both early departures and late departures from any railway station are being considered as concerns of the reliability of operations. Deviation of more than 5 minutes from a station is considered as a delay in operation. In this study three months records of train departure times from origin railway stations and train arrival times to destination railway stations have been gathered and analysed to find out the deviation of scheduled time with actual time. Gathered data has been analysed train wise as well as origin and destination station wise. Furthermore the trains which delayed frequently and the corresponding stations have been identified and the causes of delays have been investigated. Scheduled times were taken from Sri Lanka Railway Department time tables and actual times were taken based on manually registered information from several railway stations of coastal railway line. Results of this study can be used to predict the delays on coastal line railway schedules and to improve the level of service of railway transportation by focusing on the identified causes of delays.
Content may be subject to copyright.
Annual Sessions of IESL, pp. [389 - 394], 2019
© The Institution of Engineers, Sri Lanka
1
Analysis of Punctuality in Railway Transportation;
Coastal Railway Line, Sri Lanka
K.D.P. Damsara & R.M.N.T. Sirisoma
Abstract: Delays in train arrivals is one of the major drawbacks in Sri Lanka railway system. Since
people concern more about reliability of a public transport system than comfort, punctuality is a major
quality indicator in railway transportation. Both early departures and late departures from any railway
station are being considered as concerns of the reliability of operations. Deviation of more than 5
minutes from a station is considered as a delay in operation. In this study three months records of train
departure times from origin railway stations and train arrival times to destination railway stations have
been gathered and analysed to find out the deviation of scheduled time with actual time. Gathered data
has been analysed train wise as well as origin and destination station wise. Furthermore the trains which
delayed frequently and the corresponding stations have been identified and the causes of delays have
been investigated. Scheduled times were taken from Sri Lanka Railway Department time tables and
actual times were taken based on manually registered information from several railway stations of
coastal railway line. Results of this study can be used to predict the delays on coastal line railway
schedules and to improve the level of service of railway transportation by focusing on the identified
causes of delays.
Keywords: Railway transportation, Level of service, Reliability, Delay causes
1. Introduction
Sri Lanka railway system functions under the
Ministry of Civil Aviation and Transport which
is governed by the Sri Lankan government. Sri
Lanka railway network is operated under three
operating regions as Colombo operating region,
Nawalapitiya operating region and
Anuradhapura operating region (Figure 1). In
Colombo operating region there are four railway
lines namely, Coastal line, Main line, Kelani
Valley line and Puttalam railway line.
Figure 1 - Railway lines operating in Colombo
operating region [2]
Coastal railway line has been selected as a case
study for this research which extends over a
distance of 159 km having 3 main railway
stations, 33 railway stations and 31 sub railway
stations. (Department of Sri Lanka Railways,
2017)
Average number of passengers per train in
Coastal railway line has been manipulated in
CoMTrans study based on Sri Lanka Railways
information in Figure 2 as follows.
Eng. K. D. P. Damsara, AMIE(SL), B.Sc. Eng. (KDU),
Department of Civil Engineering, General Sir John Kotelawala
Defence University.
Eng. (Dr.) R. M. N. T. Sirisoma, MIE(SL), B.Sc. Eng. (UoM),
Phd (UoM), Senior Lecturer in General Sir John Kotelawala
Defence University. Currently she is holding the position of
Dean, Faculty of Management, Social Sciences and
Humanities
389
2
Figure 2 - Average no. of passengers in a train
The main objective of this study is to check the
reliability of trains in coastal railway line and to
identify frequently delayed trains in the
morning peak. In fact Sri Lanka Railway
Department is the only service provider for
railway transportation in Sri Lanka which also
owns the railway tracks as well as all the other
infrastructure related to railway. Therefore
introducing changes for railway transportation
is easier compared to the other transportation
services in the country.
2. Literature Review
Several research studies have been carried out in
the field of railway transportation by several
researchers worldwide. Vromans et al. [6]
introduces several measures to assess the
reliability of trains as follows.
Punctuality of trains at starting point,
ending point and mid points
Transfer punctuality
Number of cancelled trains
Average train delays
Average passenger delays
Punctuality is a complex indicator which is used
to assess the operational quality of a transport
service and the technical state of development of
the system/country [5]. The punctuality of
trains at the starting point affects the punctuality
of trains at midpoints and the end point. If the
passengers have to take another train/mode to
travel to their destination then the transfer
punctuality can also be affected by the
punctuality of trains at start, mid and end.
In fact, if a train delayed, more passengers will
enter the train which increase the dwell time and
ultimately resulted in more delays. [4]
Delays in transportation services always add
additional expenses to the existing system. If the
number of trains delay and the duration of delay
increase, operating cost of the system as well as
the travel-time cost to passengers increase [9].
The authors of the above mentioned study has
introduced an equation to calculate the
punctuality of trains at stations which is adapted
in the methodology of this study as well.
Higgins & Kozan [3] define time reliability for
passengers as the probability of achieving the
scheduled arrival time for each train. If the trains
arrived to the ending station on time, it indicates
zero delay on arrival which ensures a time
reliable transportation service. But again for
trains to arrive the ending station on time,
particular train should depart from the starting
station on time and delays in the middle should
be eliminated or minimized as much as possible.
The total amount of risk of delay for the trains at
its destination represents the likely delay for the
train at its destination averaged over a
reasonable period of time. [7]
There are long distance trains and commuter
trains in operation under Sri Lanka railway for
passenger services. The train distribution
diagram of Western Province is shown in Figure
3. Mostly this section has more than one track
per direction. Other sections have one track per
direction. From Aluthgama to Beliatta, there is
only one rail track for both directions. Hence
trains have to stop and wait in a railway station
when there is a crossing.
Figure 3 - Train distribution diagram of
Western province
390
3
When it comes to Sri Lankan context, ComTrans
study is the most recent study which has ample
of information on transportation in Sri Lanka.
According to that study, public transport
services in Colombo Municipal Council (CMC)
region have loosen their modal share over the
past few decades while the private modes are
significantly increasing their modal share. There
are various reasons for decrease in public
transportation, such as comfort, reliability,
punctuality, connectivity etc. According to these
statistics Coastal railway line carries over 40,000
passengers which is 15% of the Colombo Galle
corridor passengers.
Figure 4 - Passenger flow at CMC boundary
According to the modal share in Western
province, 2.7% trips were made by railway out
of 10 million sample trips. Among those railway
trips, highest percentage of trips are home-based
work trips. Furthermore trip distance by mode
indicates that railway users have the highest
average distance of 25 km while the other modes
have less than 10 km of average. [2]
Transfer patterns of railway users indicate an
average of 1.06 transfers/trip as shown in Figure
5 due to limited number of feeder services and
other facilities like Park & Ride etc. Note that
remaining 14% uses other minor transfer
patterns.
Figure 5 - Transfer patterns of railway users in
Western Province Source
According to the Sri Lanka Railway statistics,
number of passengers in rail transportation has
been increased from 2012 2017 as follows.
Figure 6 - No. of railway passenger island
wide (2012-2017) (Source: Sri Lanka Railways)
Out of 127,971 number of scheduled passenger
trains in year 2017, 120,311 number of trains had
been operated while 7,663 number of passenger
trains have been cancelled. Less than 60% of
trains were operated punctually [1]. Therefore
analysing the punctuality of railway
transportation is a timely need in the country.
3. Methodology
Trains which travel during morning peak hours
in the coastal railway line have been selected for
the case study in order to analyse the
punctuality of trains in this research. As an entry
for the study, distances between coastal railway
stations have been gathered with the assistance
of the Department of Railways. A three months
record of actual train departure and arrival times
of coastal railway line has been collected.
Scheduled times have also been gathered and
then the difference between actual and
scheduled times have been calculated as per the
following equation. [9]

= 


 ….(1)
106.04 118.71 129.5 133.29 136.05 136.66
0
50
100
150
2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017
No. of Passengers (Mn)
No. of Passengers
391
4

= delay of the train i at station k

 = actual arrival/departure time of train i
to/from station k
= scheduled arrival/departure time of train
i to/from station k
If  is greater than 0, it means a delay in
departure or arrival and if  is less than 0, it
means early departure or arrival. However if 
is greater/less than or equal to 5 min, the
difference is taken as critical.
Scheduled duration () of a trip has been
calculated by using the following equation.
=   ….(2)
 = Scheduled arrival time
 = Scheduled departure time
Actual duration () of a trip has been
calculated by using the following equation.
=   …(3)
 = Actual arrival time
 = Actual departure time
Trains are assumed to stop at each station for 1
minute - dwell time (can vary in special cases).
Therefore dwell time has been reduced from the
durations calculated from above equations (2) &
(3) in order to calculate the speed of each train.
Distance of each trip has been calculated using
the distance from Colombo Fort to particular
railway station, which has been gathered at the
initial stage of the study.
From the above gathered information and
calculations, distance between coastal line
railway stations, number of delays (train-wise)
in arrival, station wise number of delays/early
departs from origin stations, train wise actual
speed variation with the scheduled speed has
been identified. Furthermore critical delays and
early departures have been identified separately
and recommended to take necessary actions to
eliminate those issues in order to maintain a
punctual railway system in the country.
This research study has been carried out on
Coastal Railway Line of Sri Lanka from 1st of
January 2019 to 31st of March 2019. Train
operation data was collected from the Sri Lanka
Railway department for all the trains operating
during morning peak hours in Coastal Line.
4. Results and Discussion
Results obtained from this study are discussed
under the respective headings below.
4.1 Distance to Coastal Railway Stations
Currently, trains are operating from Beliatta to
Colombo Fort/Maradana in the coastal railway
line. The distance of origin railway stations
where trains are starting in coastal line to
Colombo Fort/Maradana railway station as
follows.
Table 1 - Distance of origin station to
Maradana station
Station Name
Distance in km
(from Maradana)
Colombo Fort (FOT)
1.900
Ratmalana (RML)
15.910
Moratuwa (MRT)
20.849
Panadura (PND)
28.149
Kalutara South (KTS)
43.757
Aluthgama (ALT)
61.561
Induruwa (IDA)
66.839
Galle (GLE)
115.78
4.2 Number of Delays in Origin and
Destination
Train arrival times to Colombo Fort or
Maradana have been sub divided in to 30 minute
intervals in order to make it easier to analyse as
per the Table 2. Late or early arrival is a cost for
the passengers, because late arrivals lead to
knock-on delays and early arrivals lead to idling
of trains at railway stations. [9]
Train no. 8304 which travels from Aluthgama to
Colombo Fort shows the lowest percentage of
delays (68%) in arrival time while seven trains
showed a 100% percentage of delays in arrival.
It means those trains have been delayed in
whole 3 months study period when arriving to
Colombo. Most critical fact is that most of the
late arrival trains scheduled arrival time lies in
between 8.00 am to 9.00 am, which is mainly the
office starting time.
The percentage of delayed arrivals of a
particular train has been calculated using the
following formula;
ǤሺΨሻ
= .   
.   …(4)
392
5
Table 2 - Morning peak train arrival data (in 30
minutes intervals)
Time Train
Nos. From/To
No. of
delays
(%)
5.00-5.30
8302
73%
5.30-6.00
8304 ALT/FOT 68%
6.00-6.30
8309
89%
8309.1 ALT/FOT 94%
6.30-7.00
8311
90%
7.00-7.30 8310 PND/MDA 91%
7.30-8.00
8313
96%
8316 PND/MDA 93%
8320
82%
8321 GLE/MDA 83%
8327
100%
8.00-8.30 8324 ALT/MDA 100%
8326
100%
8324.1 ALT/MDA 92%
8328
100%
8.30-9.00
8325 MRT/MDA 97%
8331
95%
8333 KTS/FOT 100%
8334
100%
8334.1 KTS/FOT 100%
9.00-9.30
8330
98%
8335
94%
9.30-10.00
8341 MRT/MDA 98%
Furthermore there are some delays as well as
early departs which have been reported in origin
stations as well. Table 3 shows the number of
early departs and delays recorded in each origin
stations for the study period of three months.
Table 3 - Number of delays/early departs
(station wise)
Origin
station
No. of Early
departures
No. of late
departures
<
5min
>=5
min
<
5min
>=5
min
Ratmalana
11
44
Moratuwa
4
1
43
111
Panadura
5
201
90
Kaluthara
South
2 106 17
Aluthgama
1
1
31
9
Induruwa
9
2
Galle
13
5
It is critical that since trains are not starting on
the scheduled time, that delay continues till the
destination. Ratmalana, Induruwa and Galle
railway stations have not shown any early
departures but Moratuwa, Panadura and
Kalutara south railway stations have recorded a
higher number of delays throughout the period.
Among them Moratuwa station has shown 111
number of more than 5 minutes (critical) delayed
departs. As it has been shown in Table 3, in some
stations, the trains have departed more than 5
minutes earlier than the scheduled time. Early
departures should be eliminated since it is
completely unethical to depart earlier than the
scheduled time for public transport services.
4.3 Speed variation of trains
Scheduled average speed of coastal railway line
trains are between 35-50 km/h. However the
actual average speed of trains varies as shown in
the figure 7.
Figure 7 - Average speed variation of trains
along the Southern Coastal Line
The above figure shows that majority of trains
are travelling on a speed lesser than the
scheduled speed. Furthermore departure delays
ultimately increase the number of delays at
arrival to Colombo Fort or Maradana.
4.4 Causes for Train Delays
There are several causes for train delays and
early departures/arrivals. Those delay causes
can be categorised as depicted in Figure 8.
Figure 8 - Delay causes
Delay causes
Operational
causes
causes due to
passengers
Causes due
to weather Other
393
6
Operational causes can occur due to
infrastructure problems, train failures,
accidents, de-railing etc. Delay causes due to
passengers may occur due to increase of
passenger demands in peak hours or,
injuries/deaths of passengers due to accidents.
Heavy raining, wind or other climate changes
may also affect the travel time of a train. Other
than that strikes or other union actions can also
result in huge delays in railway transportation.
5. Conclusion & Recommendations
Quality of Railway services measured with eight
KPI’s such as accommodation, journey time,
connectivity, punctuality, resilience, passenger
comfort, energy, and resource usage [8]. There
are some standards used in other countries to
enhance the reliability of railway
transportations. For example, most of the
European countries use European Train Control
System (ETCS) and the countries where ETCS is
not available use other automated systems to
train control and protection. In Great Britain,
Public Performance Measure (PPM) measures
the punctuality and reliability of passenger
services in the country. Similar to the
methodology followed in this research, PPM
compares train operations against the scheduled
time table and shows the percentage of trains
arriving destinations on time.
According to the results obtained from this
research study, It was found that most of the
delays or early departs originated at Panadura,
Moratuwa and Kalutara South railway stations.
Therefore authorities should concern more
about the causes of those delays in order to
eliminate or minimize them. More critically,
there were few early departures recorded in
some railway stations which needed to be
considered as a priority. Majority of the trains
arriving Colombo Fort or Maradana has been
recorded as delayed frequently. Train arrived on
scheduled time has been recorded very rarely.
Therefore either controlling those delay causes
or adjustment of railway schedules according to
those delays should be done in order to increase
the reliability of the service. Some trains have
shown a reasonable variation in scheduled
speed and the actual average speed which marks
another finding of this study. Delays should be
eliminated or minimized by taking necessary
actions against the identified causes. Re-
scheduling of trains should be carried out
according to the identified sections with more
delay and lower speed.
Authors’ recommendation is to adjust railway
timetables to maintain optimum use of train
paths and ensure sufficient train separation in
order to avoid conflicts. Furthermore, use
scheduling software to analyse and update the
train schedules with the help of the findings of
this study.
Acknowledgements
The authors wish to acknowledge Sri Lanka
Railway Department for providing necessary
information for this study.
References
[1] Department of Sri Lanka Railways, “Performance
Report - 2017,” Colombo, 2017.
[2] Japan International Coorperation Agency,
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[3] A. Higgins and E. Kozan, “Modelling Delay Risks
Associated with Train Schedules,” Transp. Plan.
Technol., vol. 19, pp. 89108, 1995.
[4] B. Adeline, P. Dersin, E. Fabre, L. Helouet, and K.
Kecir, “An efficient evaluation scheme for KPIs in
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[5] E. Nagy and C. Csiszár, “Analysis of Delay
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[6] M. Vromans, R. Dekker, and L. Kroon,
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[9] R. M. N. T. Sirisoma, S. C. Wirasinghe, and D.
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in Calgary.” Lisbon,Portugal, 2010.
394
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