Not good news for the railroads…
http://vote.sparklit.com/poll.spark?pollID=986617
…and right when Congress is mulling more stringent rail regulation.
That doesn’t look to good for the railroad business.
There’s always trucks.
I am sure every large and small railroad CEO is in hysterics on this one. Out of a grand total of 123 respondents, only 97 use rail service. 49 of them said service was worse than last year and 48 said service was the same or better.
Anybody finding this poll of any relavance should write their alma mater and demand a refund of the tuition for their statistics courses.
Most railroads do their own customer staisfaction survies. Often one enquiry is done anonymously by an outside firm to encorage honesty while a second parallel enquiry does not hide the sponser so problems can be surfaced and fixed.
jeaton - ever heard of “sampling”? The likelyhood is that the results of this small sample size can be extrapolated over the entire rail shipper network with a relative degree of confidence. There are other sources of rail shipper views that agree with the general results of this poll.
Though a small website, this poll probably represents the tip of the iceberg.
Keep in mind, though, the smaller the “sampling”, the larger the “margin of error” disclaimer attatched. For all we know, a sampling this small could have a margin of error +or - of 75%.[;)]
When did worse than last year get translated to bad or poor service. Have you ever tried to contact a company for warrenty service recently. Some are bad, some are good, some are better and some are worse… This hardly applies to just railroads. A lot of companies service is not what it could be.[%-)]
The sample size seems somewhat small and there is no statement of confidence, but that is not necessarily a problem. It appears that the selection of the sample may have been made from a magazine subscriber list. In order to be a valid sample of “the entire rail shipper network” then each member of that universe has to be a subscriber.
Of course there may also be problems with the question. Just what is “service”? And then there is the “last experience” bias on the part of the respondence.
There seems to be ample anecdotal information and some data reports showing that rail service is worse than last year. The only conclusion that can be drawn from this survey is that 50 people think that the rail service they receive is worse than last year.
One word…HELL NO! Our roads are already cramed as it is.
My experience of magazine surveys is to be verrrrry suspicious of them. Because the sampling is almost always of the voluntary response type, the results temd to get skewed.
Well, when you consider that those CBS/CNN news polls on Bush’s approval rating represent maybe 1000 participants with an ostensible margin of error of 3%, the LT poll seems more inclusive by comparison. Those 126 participants in the LT poll represent a larger segment of the logistics community than those 1000 participants in the CBS/CNN polls do in representing the views of all Americans.
Yet we can assume you do give credence to the presidential polls?[;)]
Well, I can honestly say, that I’ve forgotten most of statistics class from college. [;)] Perhaps, someone with an economics degree could do the math on the statistical margin of error on a small sample,vague,one-sided opinion poll? My guess of + or - 75% might not be too far off.
I’m doing an opinion poll: Is the weather nicer than yesterday? So far, the results show a 100% yes to the question. My poll basically says nothing either. What’s the weather like where you are today?[}:)]
Did you read the comments from rail shippers?
“Our rates increased an average of 40%, and the level of service has decreased by a similar percentage. We have also had our free time for loading cut to less than 24 hours and no free weekends. Verbal complaints registered but fall on deaf ears, yet they say they want the business”
"We expected a major disruption with White Oil by rail out of the Gulf area after last seasons hurricanes, but the service has been slow to return. We also use Canadian National for inbound flour by rail, and its service level is as well as can be expected, but they are drastically cutting services and increasing charges for things they do. We have been cut from 7 day to 5 day per week service. If we do require a switch or placement on the weekends, there is a $2,500 upcharge. This was included with 7 day service, now it costs us an additional $10,000 per month as we must have at least one switch per weekend. "
“They need to improve their overall Services. Increasing the Rates did not improve service. I use them for Export Containers to West Coast and I think their Service is worst. Too many Rail Delay. So, They increased Rates, But, Service is still way off.”
“We use the rail quite extensivly to move containers from Montreal and the East Coast. They have reduced the free time to 3 days once the box is grouded. Also we have seen the rates go thru the roof. When you try to talk to them the attiude is take it or leave it.”
“They act like they could care less about our business”
“The increase in damage from the cars being humped is unreal. Our product comes out of FT. Worth, Texes to Grt. Falls, Mt. and takes up to 14 days to get here. The rate to ship back has gone from 717.00 to 2300.00 in two months time.”
"Origin: New Bedford, MA
Destination: Fullerton, CA
Days transit average for 2006 approximate 12.5
2005 14
Origin: New Bedford, MA
Destination: Tam
Gee there complaints are free is no longer free. Sounds like my bank and the service is worse.
Surely you jest…I use to work in a warehouse and seen loaded trailers sit for 3-4 days before being picked up…We had one truck line to lose a loaded trailer.
Seen drivers that could barely speak English …I worked there for 17 years and seen a lot of trucking companies get “fired” for poor service…
137 people bothered to vote. Only 9 with gripes wrote more. Read any publication or ask any railroader with marketing knowledge all will tell you rates are up by double digits annually. This so called survey proves nothing at all…
Sorry, couldn’t find the sarcasm smilie to go on the original post. If rail service is so horrible, you’re saying that trucks are even worse?
So in the last year they cut a day and a half off the transit time? I don’t know where you got your degree Dave, but to me that sounds like an improvment. Not to mention that almost every main line is getting some capacity improvements, which, as anyone who has driven through a construction zone knows, slows things down.
Bert
I’ll try to look at this from another perspective, growing pains, or perhaps more acurately, regrowing pains. I don’t have any idea how accurate the survey is, or what the +/- is, etc. The railroad industry is going through a boom cycle now. More customers, more cars/other equipment needed, more capicity needed, more crews, etc. The railroad industry is struggling to keep up and keep their customers happy. In a perfect world customers would everything that they wanted (or at least what the salesman at ABC Railroad promised them). The world’s not perfect. Customers like to complain. That happens in every industry. Everybody is fighting for just that little edge. A survey is a good tool for voicing frustration.
CC