Sir, – Re Tony Burke’s confusion over statistics (December 21st): while I am only a lowly maritime engineer, I would assume that the Iarnród Éireann statistics prove that nearly 100 per cent of the Dart trains ran from A to B, while 75 per cent arrived at A and B at the correct time.
A rail engineer, a statistician or indeed an English language expert could arrive at a different conclusion (although, if we were to get Dart trains to that conclusion, we would all arrive at the correct one, but one of us would be late). – Yours, etc,
Sir, – Tony Burke (December 21st) makes an interesting point about the statistics surrounding the punctuality of the Dart. I was one of those people who argued that the previous definition of punctuality (less than 10 minutes late) was ridiculous.
At least Iarnród Éireann has since amended its position and now records trains as being late when they fail to arrive within five minutes.What the Swiss and the Germans would make of these metrics is another matter entirely. – Yours, etc,