1. Revision of Error Margins Agenda point 9 (point for decision)
Mathieu Erzar
9-10 November 2011
Meeting of the Working Group on Rail Transport Statistics
Agenda point: 9

2. Aim and current situation
General aim of the margins
Detection of extraordinary growth rates between two consecutive years
Verification of the credibility of the records with the concerned country
Focus on the most important problems
Current situation
Previous revision of the error margins led to thresholds
Taking into account the specificity of the various datasets
Defined on the basis of the reference years 2004, 2005 and 2006
Need to assess if they are still appropriate for the most recent data or if modifications are needed
9-10 November 2011
Meeting of the Working Group on Rail Transport Statistics
Agenda point: 9

3. Revision of the margins
Aims of the new “error margins”
New error margins taking into account the latest developments in the field of rail transport
Reduction of the burden of the countries, by focusing on errors for higher absolute values
Methodology
New analysis based on the and growths
Comparison between the existing thresholds and the results of the analysis
For low absolute values: more tolerance
if the new threshold is higher, increase of the error margin
if the new threshold is lower, current error margin kept
For high absolute values: more focus
if the new threshold is higher, current error margin kept
if the new threshold is lower, decrease of the error margin
9-10 November 2011
Meeting of the Working Group on Rail Transport Statistics
Agenda point: 9

4. Example of application of the new margins proposed
Number of loaded ITUs
YEAR
COUNTRY A
COUNTRY B
Y-1
47 500
40 000 Y
66 200
60 800
Change
39%
52%
Higher values ( and ) included in the interval [50 000;Max]
Example of records provided by reporting countries A and B
Extract of the table with the new margins (full table available at the end of the room document)
COUNTRY A
Growth rate (39%) lower than 50%
The new threshold is not reached
(no clarification needed from the country)
9-10 November 2011
Meeting of the Working Group on Rail Transport Statistics
Agenda point: 9

5. Example of application of the new margins proposed
Number of loaded ITUs
YEAR
COUNTRY A
COUNTRY B
Y-1
47 500
40 000 Y
66 200
60 800
Change
39%
52%
Higher values ( and ) included in the interval [50 000;Max]
Example of records provided by reporting countries A and B
Extract of the table with the new margins (full table available at the end of the room document)
COUNTRY B
Growth rate (52%) higher than 50%
The new threshold is reached
(clarification needed from the country)
9-10 November 2011
Meeting of the Working Group on Rail Transport Statistics
Agenda point: 9

6. Meeting of the Working Group on Rail Transport Statistics
Summary & proposal
The new margins aim at:
Taking into account the latest developments in the field of rail transport
Focusing on the main problems
Reducing the burden of the countries
Errors for Annexes A to E datasets and Alerts for
Annex H datasets
Proposal: Replacement of the current set of error (and alert) margins by a new set of error (and alert) margins (see new thresholds defined in room document)
9-10 November 2011
Meeting of the Working Group on Rail Transport Statistics
Agenda point: 9

7. The Member States are kindly requested
to express their position on the new error margins settings proposed by Eurostat
Thank you for your attention !
9-10 November 2011
Meeting of the Working Group on Rail Transport Statistics
Agenda point: 9