Methodology

A train’s delay is its latest known delay. Pollers store every report; only the newest one for each train counts. A train that runs early counts as 0 minutes late, never as negative.

Delays measured at stations the train has already passed are preferred. They are stored as actual. Some sources only give the train’s present or forecast delay; those are stored as current, and each operator page says which kind it is built on.

The front page ranks today’s lines in Germany, the Netherlands and Switzerland: each line’s trains that set off since midnight (the three countries share one clock). Choose one country to rank its lines on their own. A line is an operator’s line in one regional network. Line names repeat, so each line is shown with its operator and its two ends.

Lines are the names riders see: regional lines (RE 42, RS18, S 3), DB’s long-distance line numbers (ICE 10), NS’s train series (IC 2800). Trains without a line, such as Eurocity trains in Switzerland, count on the Companies tab only.

A train counts as delayed when its latest known delay is 5 minutes or more. A line’s “% delayed” is its delayed trains divided by the trains that ran. Cancelled trains are counted separately and are not part of it. Trains cancelled for planned works count as cancelled, because for a rider they do not run.

“Delay today” on every row adds up the minutes all of the line’s trains were late, so you can see how much delay the line has stacked up so far that day.

A line is ranked once 10 of today’s trains have run, so one late train cannot put a line at the top. Lines are ranked by their delayed share, highest first; ties go to the higher average delay.

A train is on time when it is less than 5 minutes late. The threshold is a setting and applies to every operator alike.

On the company tab, the on-time rate is on-time trains divided by all trains, cancelled trains included. Many operators publish their own punctuality figures with different thresholds, so the board’s rates will not match theirs.

On the company tab, a cancelled train counts as not on time, so cancellations lower the on-time rate. It is left out of the average delay, because a train that never ran has no delay to average. On the line board, cancelled trains are counted separately (see Lines today).

Operators run in many time zones, so the company tab uses rolling windows rather than calendar days. A train belongs to a window when its latest report falls inside it.

Live

The last 60 minutes.

24 h

The last 24 hours. The company tab opens here.

7 days

The last 7 days.

“Most delayed now” on each row looks only at trains that reported in the last 60 minutes, whatever window is chosen.

On the company tab, operators are ranked most delayed first: by average delay, or by on-time rate with the lowest first. Ties go to the other measure, then to the larger sample.

An operator is ranked only with enough trains: at least 10 for Live and 30 for 24 h and 7 days. Below that, it is listed under “Not ranked” with “Too few trains to rank”, and its figures are printed in ink, not in delay red.

Figures are recomputed every 5 minutes. The change column compares each line’s or operator’s rank with the previous snapshot of the same view. Each train’s latest state is kept for 14 days.

When a source stops answering, the rest of the board carries on. Its operators keep the figures they had, marked “No data from the source since” the last successful fetch.

Operator pages sort trains into five bands, drawn in ink density so they read without colour:

• On time: less than 5 minutes late
• 5 to 15 minutes late
• 15 to 30 minutes late
• 30 or more minutes late
• Cancelled

Delay board is not official punctuality data. Sources measure delay differently: some report actual times at every station, some a single current delay, some only the stations Delay board chooses to read. Coverage differs too, so compare operators with that in mind.

Each source and what it covers is listed under Sources and licenses.