Burning trains and statistical lies
December 31st, 2010
Earlier this week, one of Israel’s trains caught on fire and halted all traffic between Haifa and Tel Aviv, one of Israel’s busiest rail corridors. Despite this service interruption, YNet News reported that Israel Railways claimed a 90% on-time performance metric during the same time period. A miracle, right?
It turns out that Israel Railways only counts operating trains in its calculation. So, all trains that would have been traveling on the Haifa – Tel Aviv line were selectively taken out of the equation! “Lies, damned lies, and statistics.”
Motivation for this creative accounting? On-time performance is used by the Israeli government to set subsidies for Israel Railways.