Adding recovery time to train schedules
As regular rail commuters know, most trains follow a fixed published timetable. But every so often, the railway gains a minute. The addition of what's called a 'recovery minute' is (1) ________ to allow the morning service, which is gradually (2) ________, to catch up with central schedules — the network's official time records. This sounds simple, but according to planners, because they only get six weeks' (3) ________ of the need to add a recovery minute, it's difficult to insert it into schedules without mistakes being made, (4) ________ services to stop temporarily. In 2012, a recovery minute was added during one weekend but it resulted in over forty trains across one region being cancelled as the booking system (5) ________ down. Some operators are in favour of removing recovery minutes while others (6) ________ that the practical challenges are (7) ________ if everyone adds the minute in the same way and at the same time. They say that we have always taken the published timetable as the reference for daily planning and we shouldn't break this (8) ________ without considering the consequences.