London 2050 (Part 5): Peak Tube

1. Lots of stuff to think about there!

   On Crossrail walking, I do think this is a key point. It should be seen as a goal to get as many to walk to their destinations from the double ended stations, and for CR1 (with its long East-West axis) this should be fairly do-able. However, for CR2, it is a very different story.

   There is a key area where CR2 passes without a station – Picadilly Circus to Green Park (Mayfair and St.James). I’ve argued before that CR2 desperately needs a station to serve that area (the southern entrance to TCR is too far away). The ideal location would appear to be an eastern entrance at Green Park and a western one near (but not at) Picadilly Circus (just like the western end of CR1 Bond Street is near but not at Oxford Circus). There are three main benefits – one is the walkability of CR2 is vastly increased, secondly there is far less need to change off the Victoria line at Victoria, thirdly it provides a connection to the Jubilee line, as a backup to access Canary Wharf (resilience for CR1).

2. Brilliant article. Top marks for ‘Heineken Line’

3. Yes, a lot to absorb.

   I too think the walking thing is the key point. It is obviously useful to try to reduce people making one stop journeys from interchanges. This could potentially have a dramatic effect.

   Coupled with walking is the need, or at least desire, to stop people cluttering up Underground stations. I have mentioned it before but one of the key feature of the Victoria Station Upgrade is that many people will have their journey to/from the platform significantly reduced. Getting these people on and off trains without having to make long detours in underground passage frees up the station and reduces crowdedness. The upgrade will probably do nothing to ease entry to the Victoria Line but it could persuade some people getting off to walk to their office rather than catch the District or Circle Line for one stop to St James’s Park.

   It does seem to make some sense that people using two or more tube lines require more resources than someone who just goes direct from A to B as provision has to be made for them at the interchange station. As the Bank Station Upgrade shows, this can be very expensive. Holborn Station Upgrade is probably also largely about making interchange easier rather than entry/exit considerations.

   If it does transpire that a person making an interchange creates more demand on the system than one who doesn’t then maybe the fares structure should reflect that?

4. Perhaps cycling could be encouraged by having some kind of “Boris Bike dispenser” near the station exits.

   These would have an underground store of bikes so reducing the visible footprint. As a bike is requested it’s picked off the rack and brought up to the surface. A bike could be returned in a similar fashion…

   This would expand the accessible range for each station.

5. Excellent article Jonathan which I’m sure will form the basis of comments for years to come…

   A massive read and plenty to digest and interesting to note that the data backs up many common LR comment observations.

   One small thing I have noticed:

   These figures exclude Thameslink, which will offer an additional 40,000 hourly two-way capacity on top of 2014 capacity (this assumes a future 130 passengers per car, and 16 x 12-car, 8 x 8-car).

   The Cl 700 order was for 55x 12 car trains and 60x 8 car trains which means a number of the via London Bridge services would be 8 car as well reducing the increase in capacity. So is 12tph 12 car and 12 tph 8car a better assumption? which would be an additional 35,840 rather than 40,000.
   (all the 8tph via E&C will be 8 car).
   The potential benefit of going all 12car on Thameslink is an extra 12,480 pax/hr over the 35,840.

   I expect improving walking routes to station/platforms will become a major way to improve tube capacity.

6. @ngh
   Thanks for the capacity info. I was trying to steer a middle course between the various Thameslink estimates!

   I agree that the net increase in capacity could be better or worse depending on assumptions and actual service outcomes, as opposed to present plans. As Graham H has noted elsewhere, we may be locked into the present output for some years, but things could change beyond that.

7. @Arkady, JRC

   What is the reason/context for calling it the ‘Heineken Line’?

8. @LBM: it is from a 1970s advertising campaign: ‘Heineken refreshes the parts other beers cannot reach’

9. “Heineken refreshes the parts other beers cannot reach” was a long used advertising strap line from the early eighties.

   A transport related example here:
   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=55f11XayAyY

10. Station/interchange issues are becoming serious. I regularly use the long underground walk from the Kings Cross LU northern ticket hall to the Victoria Line platforms soon after 09.30 on a Friday and the volume of pedestrian traffic is immense. And that’s a recently upgraded station! Any increase in Tube capacity is likely to overwhelm many of the station corridors that currently are at capacity. Baker Street, even now, is not a place for the claustrophobic.

    Waterloo’s (national rail) peak capacity is planned to be increased by 30% by 2018 ! While that doesn’t mean that passenger traffic will have increased by that much by 2018, it sure puts some serious pressure on TfL. There is very little extra employment space planned for that area, so LUL is expected to shift all those extra commuters. Perhaps TfL should offer the W&C Line back to the SWT/Network Rail Alliance! Somehow, it has to cope until both CR2 and NTfL turn up simultaneously in the 2030s!

11. Surprising that no work is planned on Waterloo tube station until 2045. You’d think the tube station that adjoins to the busiest NR station in the country would be a priority for full step free access (currently available only for the Jubilee and Southbound Bakerloo there, plus technically Eastbound W&C via the steep ramp)

12. Great article, I’ll read in depth when I get home!
    I’m not sure your numbers of current Tube rolling stock (floor area and number of carriages) is correct.
    The Central Line has 8 ‘short’ carriages so should be similar to the Victoria Line
    The Jubilee Line has 7 ‘long’ carriages so its floor area should be around 129 sqm,

13. Pedantic says “Getting these people on and off trains without having to make long detours in underground passage frees up the station and reduces crowdedness“.

    I agree that shortening passages will make passengers’ journeys easier, and for that reason and perhaps others, doing so is a Good Thing.

    I’m less clear about crowdedness-reduction, since the total number of passengers engaged in interchanging at any one moment will be diminished, but the area occupied by them in the shorter passages will be diminished in the same proportion.

    Making the passages wider, on the other hand, could well affect crowdedness, and contribute to safety; but it is an expensive thing to do.

    Pedantic also says “ It is obviously useful to try to reduce people making one stop journeys from interchanges“.

    Whether passengers, having saved a minute in new improved passages, will be willing to invest that minute in opting for a longer walk instead of a one-stop ride is another question. If we really need to discourage one-stop rides, then shouldn’t interchanges be made harder ?

14. @Fandroid

    Or replace it with a Waterloo to Liverpool Street Crossrail?

15. One thing that I don’t think was specifically mentioned is that we are rapidly running out of any way of increasing capacity (at least in the central area) on existing tube lines and where there is spare capacity there are proposals to utilise it as soon as possible. Jonathan emphasises that Crossrail is a real game changer in this respect. We are getting to the point where frequency is getting close to its theoretical maximum on most lines so maybe longer trains and platforms will have to be revisited even if the cost is high.

    One wonders whether the Waterloo & City will actually get pushed towards the front of the queue for upgrading after all as this is one of the few lines where capacity is both needed and can be substantially increased (from 5 trains out of 5 in service to 9 out of 10). It is only short line and the bulk of the work is to do with enlarging the depot rather than the challenge of upgrading the signalling system.

16. @Fandroid – “Perhaps TfL should offer the W&C Line back to the SWT/Network Rail Alliance!” Why should it make any difference? Anyway, 33tph seem to be in prospect – eventually.

    @Miles – verging on the extendador sin. [Thed line’s chief engineer remarked in retirement that he couldn’t understand why the promoters didn’t spend the extra million sovs to do just what you suggest, but I imagine any further debate on the subject will rightly provoke John Bull into another of his al fresco primal screams].

17. @GH

    Careful! You’re heading towards Southend again

18. Great stuff.
    No extra future option of CR2 (Approx W Hampstead or Finchley Rd – Lewisham), as suggested first in 1946-8 …..
    [Non-London transport question snipped. Look it up. LBM]
    

19. @ Mikey C
    Thanks Mikey, I took most floor data from LUL / TfL documents available on the internet, but I’m interested if there is better info (don’t think changes will make a lot of net capacity difference). As set out in the article, ‘full-up’ volumes are largely computed on floor area x 6 passengers/sq.m, not 5.

20. There’s a lot to digest in this excellent article. May I make a few controversial points to start the ball rolling?

    1) A substantial amount of the capacity increase seems to come from increasing the squeeze on standing passengers from 5/m2 to 6. Is that sustainable in the future given the grossing out of the population?
    2) Stations, double-ended or not, may well be the limiting factor (a point that I apologise for making before).
    3) The underlying problem appears to be the distribution of the punters once they arrive in the CAZ ( the matter is linked to the previous point, of course) and walking is an attractive possibility if pedestrians are given some easy walking routes – something the traffic engineers and other lobbyists try and overlook. [The bridgeheads are especially tiresome – N Blackfriars or Waterloo south, anyone?]
    4) I’m sorry to say that CR2 does nothing at all for a finer distribution within the CAZ: it merely brings more and mor punters to interchanges that will collapse under the numbers eventually .

    I expect to be jumped upon at this point, which is good!

    BTW – a small and I hope non-provocative point about the W&C is that it could just about be extended to five car operation; six may be a too big a cost, but I suspect that NTFL doesn’t come in handy packs of five.

21. The putative increase in the density of standing passengers is in an entirely different category from the other upgrades discussed here. It refers to a change in the parameters used in planning, not to an actual physical upgrade. Passengers will make their own decisions as to how tightly to squeeze in, and the operators have very little influence on the matter.

    Which is not to say it is not important, of course. But it should perhaps be considered almost like an external parameter, over which one has no control, like the atmospheric temperature or something. If passengers do choose to squeeze tighter, there will be consequences for the numbers which must be handled in the stations, relative to the number of trains, and therefore for the best way to make investment decisions.

22. @Graham H
    Not a detailed reply, but 6 pax/sq.m is what was adopted as a statistical test/judgment between 5 as planning standard and 7 as crush. This was intended to show what passengers (if pressured, but not up to 7 sq.m crush loading) might experience – or more realistically put up with – on each line.

23. @Graham H

    “NTFL doesn’t come in handy packs of five.”

    Sounds like this should be another NTFL requirement – trains of five and six cars (for the eventual Drain platform extensions).

24. Shouldn’t we cease ordering trains in units of carriages, and shift to buying them by the metre? (I realise it’s not quite as simple as that, of course). But if the design had enough flexibility built in from the outset, there could be big savings.

25. Is there a vague upgrade of Waterloo NR underway at present? Pedestrian routes out of the station have always been terrible, mainly because of the staircase at the main entrance, with an inconveniently placed subway/lift directly in front.
    Improving pedestrian access here would certainly help.

26. @Malcolm – to some extent that happens already, more in the case of trams than metros; modular construction makes it much easier, there are technical limitations,however, such as door and bogie spacing, structural points, and so on. The limitations on set compositions often also have more to do with the way equipment and power are distributed. So not entirely like sausages but fairly close.

    Although for historic reasons, stations are of varying lengths, there is probably more uniformity than on, for example, the mainline network and so the savings are probably less than might be envisaged.

27. NTfL will of course have different car lengths and have articulated bogies so that the cars can be wider for more standing space.

    The indicative length is 10 car NTfL for the Piccadilly. Current Picc is 6 car at 108 metres so I would assume end cars at circa 14m and centre cars at circa 10m. (End + 8x centre + End)

    Based on this Central NTfL would be 12car (End + 10x centre + End).

    W&C is currently 4 car at 66.5m so 6car NTfL (End + 4x centre + End) would be 2m longer than present so may be room for an extra centre car?

    See:
    http://www.tfl.gov.uk/cdn/static/cms/documents/ntfl-feasibility-report.pdf

    It also has a 2021 (now 2024?) overcrowding tube map on page 7

28. @ngh – on that basis, a seventh W&C car would be slightly easier to accommodate than a fifth conventional car, but either option will require some work at Bank.

29. Re GH,

    Thanks I haven’t used the drain in about 5 years (and only twice in my life) so was worried I might be getting forgetful and I couldn’t find W&C platform lengths quickly online! I suspect the selected NTfL dimensions would suit the W&C quite well for a 7th car based on Mk1 eyeball survey at Waterloo.

30. @ngh – I suspect that the extra 2m or so for a six car NTFL could be accommodated by letting the train project into the tunnel, the limiting factors being the precise siting of the signalling equipment,and the position of the first/last door. Finding another 10m at Bank for a seventh car would presumably involve (a) reviving the southwest side platform extension once used for storing offpeak cars, and this in turn would involve the expensive transfer of the travolator machines to the stairway tunnel, and (b) on the northeast side finding a means of relocating the side passage to the northern line (or replacing it with interchange at mezzanine level?). All this assumes that current safety requirements would prevent moving the buffer stops closer to the platform ends. No cheap lunch,therefore!

31. The drawing in the presentation linked to above suggests at least 4m could be in the tunnel. (bottom of page 17)

    Bank & 7th Car. Well 2 bouts of Bank rebuild coming up soon but I’m not sure either would help with those 2 issues apart from the Walbrook entrance providing an alternative during any construction.

32. Very good article and most enjoyable reading.

    @Pedantic of Purley

    With regard to the Victoria Station Upgrade you say “The upgrade will probably do nothing to ease entry to the Victoria Line but it could persuade some people getting off to walk to their office rather than catch the District or Circle Line for one stop to St James’s Park.”

    Agree with the second point and the new entrance on Cardinal Place will most certainly encourage this. However I disagree with the first – the scheme should ease entry to the Victoria Line by being able to send people (i.e. morning peak National Rail customers) down the new bank of escalators from the Victoria line ticket hall down to District line interchange level and then down the existing escalators. This will deliver people, albeit by a slightly longer route, onto the underused north end of the northbound Victoria line platform and should relieve the current overcrowding you get on the platform area at the bottom of the existing escalators that go down directly.

    This could be negated of course by savvy commuters working this out and continuing to use the existing more direct escalators, but the station have the option to make customers go the slightly longer way in the event of platform overcrowding.

33. I’m probably one of the few here generally happy with Crossrail 2. But I would still prefer an extra central station between Tottenham Court Road and Victoria.

    If it is too difficult to rebuild Piccadilly Circus then a Station South of it under Haymarket/The Mall would be good. Either it could be entirely free standing and act only as local distribution node for the Southern West End. There’d be tens of thousands of people who could walk to work in St James, Whitehall and the Strand/Covent Garden.

    If it was in the right place, it could have an underground connection to the Bakerloo at Charing cross.

    With regards to the tube upgrade programme, I’m getting increasingly wary of all this squeezing of two pints from a pint pot.

    The time slippages will no doubt push the cost of it higher.

    Fingers crossed we won’t, but we could end up wondering if extra crossrails would have been better.

    I suspect nothing will be done until congestion is much worse.

34. @ngh- 4m must make the front set of doors more or less bang on level with the platform end wall.

    @Anonymous -your comments prompted me to add a fifth general point about the need for end-distribution capacity within the CAZ, and that is the precise local relationship between employment growth and station location. The underlying assumption in PeakTube seems to be that the growth is evenly spread throughout the CAZ; although this is plausible enough, in practice there are some areas which are more likely as major growth points than others. For example, it is difficult to see where major new employment would be located in the vicinity of Green Park, Piccadilly, or Trafalgar Square not least for conservation reasons. This could have significant knock-on effects on the distribution of tube loadings.

35. to continue where I left off. I suspect CR2 will trundle along until delays multiply on the upgrade programme and that puts a bit of fire in pushing through crossrail 2.

    Anything more ambitious than a new rail line a decade will depend on London continuing to grow and new sense of crisis to impinge on the political consciousness. Only then would a multi line approach be though about and maybe even acted upon.

36. @ Graham H, you’d be surprised how much extra space you can get from ripping out the interior (deathmasking as the trade calls it) and putting a modern rebuild. Also slip in a couple of extra mansard roof floors and you could be looking at a 30% uplift easy.

37. @Rational Plan – thanks for that – and for the term, which I will now try and find a use for in my work on the local Planning Committee. Whether existing Victorian and Edwardian buildings can take that strain is an interesting point – we had that building collapse just off Victoria Street four or five years ago seemingly for just that reason.

38. Re Rational Plan,

    I’m probably one of the few as well.

    With the CR2 Route now safeguarded CR2 have now done a recently added a GIS map (google/bing style) to make the information a little more accessible at the intermediate than the very detailed pdf.

    See:
    http://crossrail2.co.uk/areas-safeguarded/

    The surface safeguarding gives a very good idea of the station locations.

    The proposed Southern TCR CR2 entrance is the North Side of Shaftesbury Avenue and on JR’s map (last image in the article) would be mid way between the “Soho” and “A400” labels along the yellow road. If you then draw an new purple circle for this location would discover the circle will overlap with the Victoria purple circle (and P9 of Waterloo too) so the St James and Whitehall gap on JR’s map won’t exist.

39. @ GH /NGH – I fear your desired extension of tracks at Bank into the travelator / link to the Northern Line won’t work. If my recollection of the Walbrook ticket hall is right the escalators from the Walbrook entrance to the W&C enter just where the pedestrian tunnel to the Northern / DLR starts. Therefore that assumed “spare” bit of tunnel will have lots of people walking through it. Sorry.

    A very interesting article that must have involved an awful lot of work. I thought writing up about what’s already happened was hard enough but predicting the future and doing the maths is another dimension altogether.

    I am left musing that the 2012 numbers are already so much nonsense because of the continued demand growth on rail services. That’s not a criticism of the article as you can only use what is publicly available. Nonetheless I suspect we are in a worse position now than suggested by the numbers given TfL’s regular reports show ever increasing demand. I’ve not endured the height of the peak for a long time but I can only imagine that it is a living nightmare for people trying to travel in the 0815-0915 time band. I don’t see much in published plans that will ease the nightmare even slightly.

    If London’s economy really starts to boom then I think the tube will be overwhelmed in a few year’s time and I don’t see Crossrail coming to the rescue. I tend to agree that we may end up with undesirable results at places like TCR and Bond St where people pile on to other tube lines for a 1 or 2 stops journey. I don’t see Holborn fairing well in all this given how monstrous it already is in the peak. Whether a big emphasis on walking can provide relief I am a bit sceptical about. London doesn’t get much rain compared to other bits of the UK but you can already see a surge in tube and bus use whenever there is medium to heavy rain.

    I fear I am going to sound a little like Graham H in that I’ve said some of this before. We need a proper strategy for tube expansion and I don’t think we have one. As PoP says we will reach the limit with 36 tph and then what? We have no demonstrable strategy to expand station capacity in a prolonged but aggressive programme that will deliver a real step change that will last more than a few months. There’s certainly no funding for it. I agree with JR that something feels “amiss” with demand in East London. If Old Oak Common ever gets redeveloped and the promised stations built then you’ll get the same there that we’re seeing in East London. No obvious plan exists to really expand suburban transport capacity – where’s London equivalent of Paris’s orbital automatic metro lines? Not only have we lost 3-4 years on the upgrades but the lack of thinking for much of the last 8 years about transport needs relative to the never ending construction of tower blocks and population growth means we have probably lost 15-20 years in the delivery of longer term schemes. We really need a pipeline of schemes and the associated funding to try to deal with transport demand. A related thought hits me in that if the segregated cycle superhighways work then there is likely to be a similar and parallel problem in that there will be massive pressure to grow the CSH network and link it all up. So not only a rail infrastructure planning crisis but also a cycling infrastructure planning crisis too. That’s going to test the budgeting skills of future Mayors and TfL.

40. @WW -thank you ! So that’s what lies behind the dogleg in the pedestrian tunnel presumably.

    I suspect you are right to imply that, Rational Plan’s deathmasking (some of which will probably have happened already) despite, the demand growth will be concentrated on those areas such as TCR and Holborn where there are fewer restraints to complete redevelopment, and that this will exacerbate the “CrossRail” effects.

    A related problem, which the existing tube network copes with only somewhat, is the expansion of the CAZ. We have already seen the CAZ creeping north beyond Kings Cross, and to Old Street and putting down toeholds along the South bank. To the west, Chelsea and Belgravia are a major obstacle, but Paddington could easily draw in a lot more development once CR1 opens.

41. Malcomb’s made the obvious and necessary point about passageway capacity at interchange stations.

    Two stations – Holborn and Paddington – have visible problems with narrow platform exits and queuing for access to the escalators from the Picadilly and Bakerloo lines.

    Those passageways have traffic densities close to the danger levels for ‘crowd surge’ at peak times, and I would like to see the safety case for their performance in an emergency evacuation.

    Those are the ones I’ve noticed: I rarely travel elsewhere at peak times but I am certain that similar problems exist within the CAZ; Kings Cross definitely needed the internal remodelling.

    So the discussion about increased capacity on trains needs an accompanying discussion about the safe capacity within existing stations.

42. Has there been any modelling of the customer experience? In 30 years time will journey times be reduced by faster accelerating trains, or reduced by shuffling interchanges and access to the surface? Will standing be required from farther out, will the crush periods be extended outside the peaks? And my biggest worry, will the system become fragile that incidents have greater and longer impact as no resource is available for recovery.

    Tube travel is unpleasant in the peak, will it become more so, and for more of the day?

43. Re: the Waterloo & City line.
    Has anyone considered extending this service at each end, to integrate it with the rest of the tube network? At Waterloo it could link with the Northern line to Kennington, and at Bank with the Central to Epping.
    This would reduce journey times and take a great deal of pressure off some central London interchanges – as well as the overcrowded District & Circle between Monument and Embankment.

44. @Rational Plan, et al:

    There’s a very large elephant facing our MPs at Westminster, which may have unexpected repercussions on the future of this part of London. It’s an elephant that may have the biggest impact of all on TfL’s plans.

    Moving MPs out of the Palace of Westminster for five years is a very expensive proposition. The article only gives the estimated budget for repairing and upgrading the building itself, not the cost of that temporary relocation of our MPs, Lords, and Ladies, which is likely to add at least another billion or so.

    Given the nature of restoration projects on this scale, I think five years may prove wildly optimistic – as will the projected budget. It’s very common to uncover unexpected, and rather nasty, surprises that can cause spiralling costs and overruns. £3 bn. may prove very conservative.

    There’s an entire LR article in this, I suspect.

45. Drawing together a couple of themes – overcrowding and the state of the 1972 Bakerloo stock, I wonder whether the Bakerloo should be re-equipped with 199x stock clones as part of the order for the Battersea extension and Northern/Jubilee frequency enhancements.

    This has two potential benefits:
    a) Increases volume of Battersea order giving opportunities for economies of scale
    b) Allows more time to develop the NT4L concept

46. @Hugh Terry – Don’t go there -you are clearly new to this forum; such topics – and in particular extending the W&C and the GNC – have been done so far beyond death that there is a consensus to ignore such crayonista and extendador activities.

47. @Hugh Terry:

    This topic comes up frequently, mainly because the W&C ‘looks’ like a Tube line, albeit one with much shorter trains and platforms. This is misleading: that technology was chosen because there were no alternatives available at the time. The shuttle trains at Stansted Airport look suspiciously like those on the DLR, but nobody’s suggesting extending this to Chelmsford, Colchester or Southend.

    The W&C was designed from the outset as a simple shuttle service, and it performs that duty admirably. Extending it would defeat its purpose: providing a direct route to the City for passengers alighting at Waterloo station. (The South Western Railway company that built the terminus originally wanted a site near London Bridge, but they couldn’t raise the money.)

    If you extend the line at either end, you lose a key benefit of a shuttle service: i.e. that passengers are boarding empty trains at each end. They’re not having to fight for space with passengers from elsewhere. This is what makes the line so popular.

    For many technical and engineering reasons, the work needed to upgrade the W&C to modern standards would utterly annihilate any savings made by reusing it as part of a longer line. It really is cheaper to just build a new one instead.

48. National Rail Growth

    Latest ORR data for Q3 FY2014-15 London and South East (effectively NSE land)
    Passenger km +6.8% (YoY)
    Passenger Journeys +8.0% (YoY)

    Which suggests interchanges and the Termini and major interchanges (Stratford, Vauxhall etc.) could get overloaded very soon.

    Thinking more philosophically:
    Based on simple growth rate (i.e. adding a fixed number of passenger journeys a year) at the 8% pa growth in journeys that is a doubling by 2028 and trebling by 2040 and quadrupling by 2053.
    [Based on compound growth rate (not the best practice in this case!) at the 8% pa growth in journeys that is a doubling by early 2024 and trebling by 2030.]

    Clearly there is some post recessionary rebound but both TfL and NR assumed growth rates look very conservative at circa a quarter of this level. Obviously growth can’t keep occurring at the level (greater than population or housing growth estimates but if you assume that the marginal population growth in the working age population all use public transport to commute then TfL and NR numbers all look very low.

49. So, a couple of thoughts on the article (which is long, I may have missed something, apologies if I have).

    NtfL pushed back
    ———————-
    So, one of the key reasons you state as NtfL pushed back has been the inherent inter-working between the Piccadilly Line and District Line around the Acton Town/Ealing Common. Could this problem not be solved by (***ducks behind couch***) giving the Ealing Broadway branch to the Piccadilly Line OR the Rayners Lane branch to the District – even only temporarily. The latter is probably preferable as Ealing Common Depot does house a non-trivial quantity of the District Line stock. This leaves a completely grade-separated junction between a shiny, resignalled Piccadilly line and a non-resignalled District Line at Acton Town. I don’t know whether there are enough S7s to accommodate this, even in the short term though, but if this is the main constraint, would it not make sense to look at it.

    The Waterloo & City
    ————————-
    So this is possible a little creative, shall we say. The main constraint to > 5 train operation is depot capacity, with 5 roads at the depot for stabling. Could this not be bumped up to 9 by stabling in the stations? During operating hours, so long as 5 trains are always running, there’s a reversing road free in the depot (and you don’t have to send out the same train as just came in – so you’re not running the stock too intensely). The 5 that need the most maintenance can be put in the depot each night, with the other 4 in the stations. This is done all over the mainline network, is there any reason this couldn’t be done on the tube?

    Thoughts to ponder?

50. I’ve no idea what the number of standees per square metre is at the moment, perhaps I should have brought a tape measure with me this morning, as the Victoria Line must easily fit in 6 per sq m near the doors, if not more!
    While the population of the country may be getting fatter, I’m not sure that applies to London commuters, who I would assume, are thinner than the national average

51. To co-ordinate the standing passenger density measurement which is about to ensue among LR readership, can I offer the following suggestion:

    Count the people in the carriage when it is full. This does not require a tape measure. (You may receive some funny looks when you ask them to stop moving around).

    Measure the carriage when it is nearly empty. This will cause much less aggro.

    It is safe to assume that tube carriages (unlike tents or baloons, for example) do not expand to any significant extent when full.

52. A very thought provoking article. One thing that occurred to me is that with Crossrail being completely step free (and having set expectations, one can assume Crossrail 2 will also be entirely, or at worst virtually, step free as well), it is going to be more attractive to people with luggage and push chairs and people of reduced mobility. As these users will take up more space this could have a measurable impact on capacity and possibly dwell times if they are a lot of them. This is just an observation: IMO fully step free access was entirely the correct decision.

    Regarding 30 tph/11 car trains on Crossrail, is it reasonable to assume the main issue with bringing forward these enhancements if necessary would be money rather than engineering works? I assume all platform lengths will be long enough to accommodate 11 cars and that the signalling will be 30 tph ready from day 1? Stabling any extra trains is the only obvious thing I could think of.

    My nagging suspicion is that there are a lot of passengers who already factor in overcrowding when choosing their route or time of travel, and that most peak time capacity enhancements will pretty much be gobbled up by latent demand within months. Future passenger growth projections seemed pretty conservative when compared to the actual growth seen in the last 10 to 15 years.

53. @Malcolm: Except for the doors, which seem to have a near panic attack if someone so much as glances at them… 😉

54. @ngh
    As usual the problem working out longer term trends is how much is down to factors such as standard economic indicators (jobs, income, housing growth etc) and how much down to changes in lifestyles, preferences etc. London is a very dynamic area at present, so there are probably more risks in under-estimation than over-estimation with existing infrastructure schemes. ‘NSE-land’ may also be taking something of a hit because of the shortage of adequate additional housing capacity within the GLA area.

    However Network Rail has been looking ahead to 2043 with various scenarios, in its Long Term Planning Process, while London 2050 planning is doing very similar work. So there are estimates out there – they were covered in London 2050 Parts 3 and 4, where I suggested that there appeared to be a shortfall in planned capacity against visible and forecast changes in demand, which could need several new lines and other interventions.

    In Part 5, the analysis also suggests that London might also need a couple more Crossrails, in addition to the two which are already visible as live projects. However it will require detailed corridor planning, with globalised demand pinned down to more precise estimates, to work out the best options. Crossrail 2 planning shows that this can be far from easy!

    As others have commented earlier, plans need to be more ambitious – but starting to anticipate that more may be required is a necessary beginning point, and it is to London 2050’s credit that looking this far ahead is now an accepted process. Specifying, authorising and funding are the emerging challenges, with an acceleration of the Crossrail 2 project being one desirable objective.

55. Anonymous 22:40

    I think we are talking at cross purposes. regarding the Victoria Line at Victoria. The station upgrade will indeed make it easier to get to the platforms. What I am suggesting it won’t do is sort out the fundamental problem that you can’t get on a northbound train in the morning peak because the trains come in full – therefore you can only board at Victoria if someone else gets off. OK, it is not quite as bad as that but pretty close.

    glbotu,

    There is already a plan for the Piccadilly to take over the District Ealing Broadway branch described in detail here.

56. There is an interesting quote in the data tables ‘Better jny times, reduced crowding, wider econ. gains’.

    If you put more TPH on a moving block railway the journey times will increase in general as the trains will run with lower top speed to allow them to get closer together. The only way round this is to increase acceleration and braking rates but they are at the limit of adhesion.

    There may be a bit of improvement available if the increase in TPH allows the platform dwell times to be cut.

    Not sure how this equates to ‘Better Journey Times’ at least for the customer – maybe for the operator ??

57. South Coast Ed – good point, one which also occurred to me yesterday on seeing a large baby buggy being wheeled onto a westbound Jubilee line train at London Bridge around 5.20pm. No law against that, of course, but the impact on congestion and dwell times was predictable and the sort of thing that could wreck a 36tph service. In future it may simply not be possible for people to board with luggage/prams, but the attempt will further hold up the service and increase platform congestion.

    Mikey C – are London commuters slimmer than average due to the sauna effects of tube trains in summer?

58. @Jonathan Roberts – does planning of passenger growth include “induced demand” so provision of more capacity actually creates additional journeys over and above the predicted base increase arising from other factors such as growth in population and the economy?

    Road planning is sometimes criticised for not considering induced demand and I was wondering if applies to rail as well.

    Other paradoxical effects on the roads can occur when a opening a new road sometimes increases journey times or closing a road sometimes reduces journey times as a result of “Braess’s paradox”. Without going through the maths, when presented with a choice of route, a driver may make a selfish decision to improve their journey but at the same time negatively affect other people’s journeys.

    I was wondering if this could also occur with people’s decisions about choice of rail journeys but I suspect the modelling would be horrendous so we are left with Nils Bohr’s quote that prediction is difficult, especially if it is about the future…

59. I was on a Piccadilly service in from Heathrow earlier in the week and given the level of suitcase ‘parking’ everywhere I doubt even 5pax/m^2 would be regularly possible on that line, let alone that people seem to be getting bigger individually.

    Another noticeable thing is that (istm, anyway) tube numbers dip slightly in summer / fine weather as people are more inclined to walk a little further or stay in the sunshine on a bus. They may, of course, be replaced by additional tourists.

    There are regular “noises off” about ‘why does London get all the money for improved transport?’ too, to which that table of pax with only four non-London stations perfectly shows the reason. That table needs to be publicised!

    None of these comments though solve the _real_ problem, which is where to get the money from and start the works *in time to meet the demand*. CR2, (TL2?) have been delayed far too long already and it won’t take much for a collapse of the below-surface transport system under the weight (literally) of would-be users. And I don’t see May 7th changing that either.

60. @ South Coast Ed / 67018 – the issue of more mobility impaired / encumbered people did wander across my mind last night. While MIP users are not a material issue in terms of numbers travelling this will change as more of the rail network becomes accessible. A big route like Crossrail opening up will also increase the demands for more accessible stations. Isn’t it interesting that Crossrail had a political campaign for full MIP access but Thameslink has not? No such demands for all the suburban stations to be upgraded even though the central area stations are being done. Doesn’t even seem to be much of an election issue either.

    I think encumbered people is far more of an issue as more and more people drag round cases, bags, shopping plus families travelling together. That does and will continue to affect on train capacity as well as how well platforms and corridors function in stations.

    I don’t think it’s remotely practical to ban or limit access to the network. It’s hypocritical to encourage people to adopt a public transport focused lifestyle and then limit use to some user groups that you’ve previously encouraged by giving them easier to use stations and trains. Hong Kong MTR has tried over the years to limit luggage and shopping loads on their trains where there is a serious congestion problem. However you can’t really do this if you are the operator of a network that serves cross border traffic where cheaper shopping in Shenzhen is a major reason to travel nor if you also run services to the International Airport! Clearly Airport Express trains do have luggage space but all the connection MTR lines don’t and it seemed to surprise the MTR when people used other lines to connect to the Airport line! I remember the looks from other MTR users when I turned up with two bags on my way to my hotel. On subsequent trips I switched to using the Airbus as it’s virtually door to door and there’s lots of luggage space and no scowls from anyone. 😉 Wonder how commuters at Ealing will react to Crossrail trains full of luggage?

    What TfL and the TOCs do need to be mindful about are the risks associated with more “encumbered” passengers in terms of dwell times, accident risks, evacuation procedures etc. I think the basic issues are well understood by LU but I wonder how well the trends are identified and tracked and where the trigger levels are that force a review of policy and procedures? With 2018/19 bringing several big network changes into play over 18-24 months there must be a lot of thinking going on to try to work out how things might play out. I also wonder if these factors are being considered in a more “up front” way in the design of the NTfL upgrades or Crossrail 2? By that I mean a coherent thought process right throughout the planning and design stages rather than just meeting minimum statutory requirements for access. It could affect the numbers and capacity of lifts, how wide train doors are, how wide platforms and corridors are etc. This all translates into £s pretty quickly but may also be transformative for passengers and could remove / mitigate operational issues for decades.

61. @Reynolds 953 – more capacity does indeed induce travel by rail, as it does for road. A piece of research I commissioned in the early ’90s showed that for NSE traffic, the second most important factor in driving volume was, after CLE, the capacity of the service offered – way ahead of fares, congestion and so on. For obvious reasons, that research was kept away from HMT. I suspect that the finding reflects a considerable level of suppressed demand. However,in a situation where lines are already full and expansion is palpably lagging behind “non-induced” demand, the induced volume becomes irrelevant anyway.

    @Alison W – London gets the biggest absolute share of transport investment because it is bigger than any other UK region – but you knew that! It also has the most heavily used public transport network proportionately and absolutely and the highest modal split in favour of public transport. London couldn’t function without it; Manchester could. The top half dozen or so London bus routes shift more than Tyne and Wear’s system in total. And so on. Perhaps more to the point, investment in many regional projects produces low benefits and little gain compared with a long list of “good” London projects. Indeed, it is noticeable that there are remarkably few regional investment schemes for which support is being sought. Maybe they are actually running out of worthwhile projects…

62. @R 953

    “Braess’ Paradox”

    CityMetric.com explains this a bit more, and induced demand in, in their article yesterday – http://www.citymetric.com/transport/does-building-more-roads-create-more-traffic-934

63. @JohnM
    The recent signal upgrades to the Jubilee, Northern (and I think the Victoria too) have all seen a reduction in journey times AS WELL as an increase in TPH. It’s possibly also to do with how much smaller the signalling blocks now are and the fact they vary depending on the speed and distance away of the train in front. Albeit these journey time reductions aren’t massive, they should be noted in addition to the increased capacity.

    On Crossrail 2 – which someone commented above was ambling along. From what I know I think this is going very fast (given the way any infrastructure planning of this scale has to be developed to get the relevant legal powers).

64. CLE = Central London Employment

65. @ChrisMitch – “Is there a vague upgrade of Waterloo NR underway at present? Pedestrian routes out of the station have always been terrible” –

    Elizabeth House is being rebuilt, which will bring some changes in this department. Some info here and here.

66. @ Reynolds 953
    17 April 2015 at 13:20
    As Graham H has commented, yes there will be induced demand on rail as well as road. Individual passengers will also take advantage of new options if their own generalised journey costs are improved even if others lose out at the margin. However often you want the other benefits that come with transport improvements (eg walk-on 4 tph trains rather than South Eastern 1 or 2 tph at quiet hours), so you just accept that other consequences will come along for the ride as well.

67. @Reynolds 953 – to add a bit to what Jonathan has just said, there are elasticities of demand to a whole variety of factors, not just fares. Speed, frequency and – much trickier – journey quality are probably the main ones. It follows that there will be cross-elasticities as people trade off frequency against reliability for example. This takes modellers into the really tricky realms. LT Planning dealt with the cross-elasticity issue by monetising the main factors in relation to demand and then comparing those values to determine cross-elasticities (hope I got that right!). One of the trickiest issues – and one for which the PDFH is probably the greatest sinner – is whether such relationships are linear or some sort of function. The likelihood is the latter but we very rarely have the data to look at major shifts in demand and often the comfortable assumption is that demand responds to a given factor in a straight line. This is alright for small changes but looking ahead for a generation or two, not so.

68. @Graham H – thanks for the information. I suppose the test is how accurate the models have been at predicting what has actually happened, over the short term anyway.

69. WW – It is an interesting point that Crossrail has attracted many calls to be fully accessible, whereas Thameslink has not. I can only assume this is because Crossrail is viewed as new whereas Thameslink is not, despite both using existing infrastructure. To be honest it’s never struck me before.

    I can’t recall the exact details but wasn’t Crossrail promoted as being fully accessible at one point when in reality some stations were not actually planned to be upgraded to have step free access? That probably brought more pressure to bear which no doubt figured in the decision to grant extra funding to upgrade the remaining stations.

    I think this decision has pretty much cemented expectations that Crossrail is the de facto standard and that all stations on any future “new” lines will follow suit. Combine this with a piecemeal program of introducing step-free access at other stations I agree we will be seeing large growth in encumbered passengers in coming years. Whether the numbers are so great they have ramifications for service frequency, overcrowding, passenger flows and safety remains to be seen. I really can’t see any attempt to restrict access for those with large luggage or buggies as being practical nor can I see it being viewed as a progressive move.

    Maybe more carrot and less stick could help (up to a point)? Technology might in future be able to give passengers an idea of where the least crowded carriages on the next train might be. Or staff might be able to politely suggest that they’d be better advised trying to board from a different part of the platform.

70. @ Graham H

    Re London v.s regional schemes. I do wonder to what extent this is a chicken and egg situation. If the buses in Tyne and Wear were of a similar standard in terms of frequency, reliability, ease of use of ticketing etc. then how much higher would those numbers be? Again looking at Tyne & Wear, the metro is a much more expensive and elaborate scheme than any I am aware of being proposed for a regional city recently. What sort of methodology was used to justify it at the time? Is the reason nothing on that scale is proposed at the moment because there isn’t any perceived chance of them being funded? What would happen if e.g Leeds wanted to spend a couple of billion on a metro? Laughter I imagine!

    This is something that already seems to be a hurdle for large scale investment in London that needs to be addressed. Perhaps some sort of equivalent of the Barnett formula for the regions is needed?

71. @ South Coast Ed

    Must be partly because Crossrail is orders of magnitude more prominent than Thameslink. It hasn’t created or attracted anything like the scale of publicity that Thameslink has… more, longer trains per hour is nothing like as interesting as new tunnels to either the general public or politicians

72. @Herned – At the time that the T&W Metro was being planned, we had a lot fewer planning tools (and only very limited computing power!). My impression – and I only came into contact with the scheme through the introduction of TSG back in the early ’70s – was that it was something of a pork barrel item (in this case, a gift from the then still new Labour government). We didn’t get to re-examine the case , for obvious reasons, but we did subject the Washington extension to a fairly thorough appraisal, which it just about passed. (The point of TSG was that local authorities were in the last resort, free to choose what they wanted to do but if they persisted in buying something that was poor vfm, they got no grant. T&W were VERY keen on their metro. Thatwas the key – know what you want and persist with it.

    Other conurbations might have had comparable schemes but blew it in the ’70s. For example, Manchester had Picc-Vic but couldn’t decide what it should be and where it might go. The funding opportunity window shut before they could get their act together. Still playing catchup. The same is true for Bristol, which dallied with light rail and the Avon Metro ( a mistake not only because of its scale but because it was being promoted by some decidedly dodgy characters), and where the districts spent their time fighting each other. Peace didn’t break out, the government sighed with relief and spent the money on something else. On the other hand, Merseyside was clear that what they wanted was Link and Loop, stuck with that and got it, appraised or not. S Yorks wanted only cheap fares and couldn’t have cared less about investment, and West Yorkshire blew hot and cold about possible tramways – again, dithering cost them dearly. So, a mixed pattern, not entirely down to vfm or ease of funding.

    Does size matter – yes, of course, but compare the British experience with, say, Germany, France or Switzerland, where we find cities of <150 000 investing in infrastructure schemes with good CBRs. Nottingham is a good example of what can be achieved in a medium-sized city here. I suspect that there could be good UK schemes out there (eg a Leeds N-S tramway, extensions to Sheffield and Brum) but Edinburgh has cast a very long shadow over the credibility of new schemes, alas…. and the deregulation of bus services outside London has had a dire effect, too.

    Sorry, a complex answer to a simple question. Been too near the politicians for too long…

73. Re Mikey C 17 April 2015 at 10:26 & AlisonW 17 April 2015 at 13:33

    Standees per square metre:
    From experience on Southern 7 passengers / m^2 in the vestibule is about the maximum possible if there are minimal bags. Alison – Agree slim chance of getting half that on the western end of the Piccadilly until CR1 opens.

74. @ Sleep Deprived – my entirely anecdotal view is that the Vic Line is certainly quicker than it was in terms of “in train” time. The enhanced frequency also reduces total journey time. I’d also say the improved service is pulling in the punters – I’ve been really surprised at the numbers of people on some off peak journeys. No seats available after T Hale on a late Sunday morning journey into town? Never seen that before.

    @ Graham H – the top 2 TfL bus routes carry more pass jnys than the Tyne and Wear Metro system. The Top 8 TfL bus routes carry more pass jnys than all the bus services in Tyne and Wear (2013/14 Govt stats for the T&W numbers).

    @ Herned – as someone who saw the T&W Metro developed and who helped plan bits of the bus network I think the justification was pretty simple. It was about creating an efficient, integrated transport network with the Metro as the backbone of the system with bus services rationalised in areas directly served by Metro and resources used to bolster services elsewhere in the County. There would be the usual business case elements of reduced congestion, faster travel times, reduced cost of running the transport network etc. Things like economic development would have been secondary in those days but there’s no doubt that Newcastle benefitted from the improved accessibility. The other interesting aspect was that the strategy was investment led rather than low fares led. Fares rose each year but service quality also improved substantially leading to a virtuous cycle of a more financially robust network over time with growing patronage.

    The integrated network reached its pinnacle in 1985 and has basically declined ever since with a seismic drop in Metro patronage in 1986/7 due to bus deregulation. There’s been a lot of opinion over the years about the attractiveness of enforced interchange between bus and Metro but as a long time user of the network in those days I found it extremely easy to get round the entire county as bus times were integrated with the Metro. Of course the debate has come full circle with Nexus wanting to regulate services again. What is interesting is that passenger satisfaction with bus services is high in Tyne and Wear (I was looking at the Transport Focus stats the other day) but, of course, the network is much smaller, less convenient and more expensive these days than back in 1985. The lack of control over the bus network has effectively broken any real mechanism for creating integrated transport networks outside London with local political control. It remains to be seen whether the Chancellor’s promises to Greater Manchester on bus regulation ever come to pass and what local politicians achieve with respect to pulling together buses, commuter rail and Metrolink trams.

75. @ Graham H/WW

    Thanks for the comprehensive answers… it would appear a significant cause of the lack of regional transport schemes is self-inflicted stupid decisions, especially bus deregulation. All praise the free market!

76. @ Herned – the fact that some local authorities have managed to build tram lines / networks post 1986 is a minor miracle. While bus deregulation has done some good things it has had some very serious consequences for wider public transport investment decisions. I doubt any politician would ever agree with that but I think it’s clear.

    I think Graham H is also right to emphasise the importance of “local support and clarity” for getting schemes through government approval. He’s completely right that T&W PTE were extremely keen on the Metro and Jack May was the transport cttee chair who was always featured on official Metro documents. It’s worth remembering that the IMF crisis in 1976 caused the construction works to stop for months and it was only in 1977 that work restarted with the first section opening in May 1980 (I remember that day clearly although I’d ridden on several test trains by then! – the joys of more relaxed times and no security guards and 20 foot high fences at building sites). Without that local political support I think it was entirely possible that the tunnels might have been left half built under Newcastle and Gateshead.

77. @ WW/Herned

    Looking at the link provided by LBM above itself linked to another article of interest.

    http://www.citymetric.com/transport/why-changing-trains-good-you-911

78. A fascinating and massive account!

    Something that occurred to me as a query from reading the article: if the tube planning density is 5 people per sq m but peak loadings exceed that – say the 6 people per sq m used for the calculations here, I would assume the dwell time at stations must increase as it takes longer for people to get on and off the train as they squeeze by other passengers staying on the train.

    Then taking this statement in the article as an example: ‘For example the Victoria Line is targeted towards 36 tph by 2016, which is a tremendous task to deliver consistently well, with seconds counting at each station stop and at the termini’.

    There must be a point where the increased dwell time prevents the ability to run the additional trains – ie if the planning used in modelling the service is based on the lower density, can one assume that a higher density can be added to a higher service frequency to maximize the hourly route capacity?

79. “Tyne and Wear Metro – Things like economic development would have been secondary in those days … ”

    There was an aim of improving access to employment, as heavy industry declined and potential new jobs might be another part of Tyne and Wear. The problem is that employment centres have developed at some distance from the Metro and none of the initiatives to link them into the Metro have come to fruition.

80. @ Brockley Mike – the dwell time and crowding management issues are fundamental to running a 36 tph service. Clearly LU will have to specify variable dwell times for different stations and link this to the timetable and speed profiles the trains will run to. It does this already but the margin between success and failure is narrower with the more intensive service. Part of me admires LU for trying to reach 36 tph but I rather feel that narrow platforms and huge peak crowding creates huge issues for running such an intensive service.

    PoP has rightly identified Victoria n/b as a real problem given how busy the trains are on arrival. I used to use Victoria daily and it was pretty dreadful at the peak shoulder when I travelled. I’m not convinced that the rebuild will do very much apart from ease the ticket hall queuing. Making people walk for 10 minutes round new corridors and up and down escalators might spread the station loading but doesn’t fix the total demand issue nor platform capacity. The dispatch staff are already programmed to hector people to spread right along the platform already so dumping people at the centre of the platform via the new corridors and escalators is of tiny benefit (IMO). The longer access times at Victoria for a fair proportion of people simply extends their journey times – just as at Kings Cross. My guess would be that there will be a huge temptation at Victoria to set AM peak entry solely via the new links and exit only via the existing escalators. Exit via the new eastern ticket hall at Cardinal Place will also be possible. Being the person I am I would go via the District Line ticket hall in those circumstances because I really object to being routed out of my way at someone else’s convenience.

    @ Guano – I appreciate improving employment access was a factor for the Metro. I was really saying there would not have been the same emphasis then as we have today on employment and regeneration with the “business case”. I went and dug out my old Metro paperwork earlier – a quick scan shows that most of the case was about transport improvements and delivering a step change over the decaying diesel operated BR network. The PTE initiated a transport review in 1971 which is what led to the develoment of the Metro concept. I was quite surprised as to how many newspaper articles I have linked to the different opening dates. Always a nice surprise to rediscover old stuff. I’ll have to try scanning some of it.

81. Line upgrades are much cheaper and better value for money than new lines, and yet the London Infrastructure Plan 2050 did not go beyond the current NTfL plans for some reason. With completion of the Central Line some twenty years away we will still have the Northern & Jubilee Lines running conventional trains that are shorter than the platforms. This comes from the days of falling demand, and the introduction of shorter trains with fewer but longer cars. Those trains will then be older than the current District Line trains that are being replaced. Line capacity at places like Euston and Kings Cross would be boosted by introduction of longer, open-ended NTfL trains. And that would leave the Victoria Line with its current conventional but new cars – but also as old as District Line trains by the time the Northern & Jubilee get upgraded again. The current Victoria Line trains take advantage of the larger tunnels, and cannot work on other lines. If a larger version of NTfL were developed to make use of the gentler curves on the line, it could also suit the Jubilee Line and bring a larger capacity lift than the expected NTfL will do, and all before the 2050 planning horizon.

82. @ ngh 16 April 2015 at 20:59 NTfL has “articulated bogies so that the cars can be wider for more standing space” is conventional wisdom, but your estimate of dimensions (which accord with mine)have most car lengths at 10m which will also be distance between bogie centres. This is same as current Central Line trains, and similar to Bakerloo Line stock. So presumably width of cars will be similar to today.

83. WW
    It is (Vic-line) now 15-16 minutes Walthamstow – KXC, as opposed to 20, 25-26 minutes to Victoria.
    Definitely faster than it used to be.
    Reduction in journey times in Z1 is not so great, presumably because of increased dwell times, as mentioned elsewhere ….

84. I was interested to see that ‘walking’ only received a mention in the final para.
    I’ve several of the ‘walking’ maps produced for main line stations at the time of the Olympics. It would be good to produce similar but better maps when ‘Crossrail’ starts to serve central locations. It might be possible to produce ‘differential’ maps showing locations where walking direct from Crossrail stations would be quicker than an interchange to tube or SSL. Investment (peanuts) in improving access and reliability of walking might be the most cost effective way of reducing congestion, especially at interchanges. (Priority for walking over private motor vehicles?) Most users will be ‘regulars’, but help in getting people to understand the best carriage and exit can save minutes for the final walking leg.

85. Introduce discounted fares for those users that only enter and exit from Crossrail stations would encourage walking and discourage interchange on to the tube for a journey consisting of one or two stops.

86. I think that the opening of Crossrail in combination with the full Thameslink service means that this is a time for preparing options, but not taking decisions. Let the two services come on stream, and spend a few months observing what actually happens before making the next round of firm decisions. Except for Crossrail 2, let’s get that approved ASAP to follow straight on from Crossrail 1.

    Has anyone modelled the potential for modifying the fares system to redistribute demand? Perhaps turning 0900-1030 into a shoulder peak period, to try and tempt perhaps 10-15% of peak passengers to travel a little later?

87. @Jim Chisholm

    Agreed! Could you provide a link to some of the Olympics walking maps? I think your suggestion of similar high quality walking maps for central London is an excellent idea.

    And TfL should make a better effort in promoting their walking interchange Tube map (which I can’t currently even find on their website) which cuts down on unnecessary tube travel, showing the distance to walk between stations.

    However the London Tube and Rail map (nee London Connections map) is more prominent on their site, if one is minded to look at it and not just the Tube map.

88. @Steve L -such things have indeed been modelled -and trialled – all the evidence suggests that you can shift about 5% of the morning peak that way. I guess that even these days, most employers like to see feet on desks by a set hour, silly though that may seem. (Certainly true of my last four employers, who being in the consultancy sector, had the least reason to insist). It is noticeable that whereas the initial round of RUS mentioned peak pricing as the panacea (but then what would NR know about the commercial side of running trains?); such mentions have vanished from the current round. There are also good reasons in regulatory theory for monopolies not charging more than enough to cover their costs – which applies in SWTland and nearly so in the other commuter TOCs.

89. @ Dan – as Crossrail will not be physically separated from all lines at Interchange points it is not possible to price solely on the basis of using Crossrail. Simple example – Stratford to Bond Street which will be possible via Central, Jubilee and Crossrail routes on direct trains. There’s simply no way to prevent people exiting via the LU part of Bond St given low level links. I also think it’s a dangerous precedent to start service specific charging within a zonal structure when you can’t “enforce it” and it may simply not be desirable to charge people *more* to travel on the older service and discount the new one when you want oodles of revenue to pay back some of the capital cost of that line. Our fare structure is already complex enough.

90. @Graham H
    “most employers like to see feet on desks by a set hour ”

    Call it old-fashioned, but my employers would prefer me to keep my feet under the desk!

91. @Jim Chisholm
    The internal logic of the article led to the surface walking option being discussed towards the end. That doesn’t seemed to have discouraged an interesting and positive discussion on the subject. I see no absolute reason why retrospective additional entrances/exits shouldn’t also be considered where justifiable, at existing SSR or some tube stations.

    Bank W&C is to gain an access towards Walbrook/Cannon Street main line. Maybe another exit towards the west, from the western end of the platforms, might also be worth looking at to reduce platform crowding at Bank and improve train throughput – but who, when would pay for it, providing it were feasible? An eastern exit for Euston Square station, plus a Euston Square to Euston link, looks like a positive win with HS2 plans. It will also relieve Kings Cross St Pancras, though simultaneously add to the Euston tube interchange complexity.

    Among SSR stations, St James’s Park already offers an outlet towards Victoria Street, while I recall using other exits (now closed) at Edgware Road (mid-station), the Shakespeare at Victoria, at least one at Liverpool Street, and at Westminster. It looks like Sloane Square nearly had another exit opened at its eastern end, looking at the building there above the platforms. Though none of those would themselves have avoided using another tube if an interchange were required. In the suburbs, numerous subsidiary exits have been closed over the years, for reasons of operating economy. If we were to move eventually to open to open entries/exits with no gates but ‘near-field’ card readers, should some be reopened for passenger benefit?

    However better awareness among other users could for example perhaps deter an unnecessary interchange and traipse by Underground between Embankment and Charing Cross if seeking The Strand or the main line there, and also between Bayswater and Queensway where the Underground map is most misleading. The Monument to Liverpool Street walk also isn’t that far, if one wants to be active rather than laze on a Circle. I and others do use Paddington-Lancaster Gate as an interchange, and indeed it was shown as such (OSI, I presume) on the early 1933-34 Beck diagrams. Maybe Crossrail 1 via Bond Street will supersede that link.

    No doubt readers will suggest options where a supplementary exit could relieve station crowding or help to moderate a heavy duty interchange volume. (‘SubLinimal’ is one expression which comes to mind for this theoretical territory.) Going in the wrong direction for line capacity-impact, might I also dare suggest City Road as a station now deserving review for reopening given the large numbers of high-density flats under development in the locality around the City Basin area. But that’s pointing to the potential for a wider analysis about the accessibility of the tubes in and around Central London, as parts of it undergo redevelopment…

92. Olympic Walking Maps are discussed at:
    http://mappinglondon.co.uk/2012/tfl-why-not-walk-it-maps/
    but it seems they are not available on-line although some are ‘for sale’ on ebay!
    ‘Differential time maps’ can be interesting. I’ve seen some showing difference in driving and train times for destinations from London.

93. WW says “Our fare structure is already complex enough”.

    Too true. But in the rest of your comment, you seem to imply that Dan’s idea of discounted crossrail fares to discourage short distributional rides is not possible. I think such discounts could be possible; the discount would be for any journey from an “outer crossrail” station to an “inner crossrail” station (boundaries to be determined), relative to a journey from the same “outer crossrail” station to a zone-1-non-crossrail station. Of course you would get the same fare if you didn’t use crossrail all the way, but that would normally be quite pointless.

    The parallel would be fares to a so-called London Terminal. Such tickets are accepted at the gates of the relevant zone 1 stations, and no others (disregarding temporary extensions). Granted they are not Oyster fares, but they could be in principle. Oyster does have weird provision for Euston, for instance.

    Of course, just because it is possible does not mean it has to be done. But if one were determined to nudge outer-crossrailers into walking rather than one-stopping, such a thing could be done.

94. @Jonathan Roberts

    City Road, York Way, Shoreditch, City Thameslink and Tower Bridge Road have been discussed here before as potential reopened/new stations on the deep tube lines to improve accessibility to parts of Central London, particularly the fringes where recent or proposed redevelopment has increased the local office and residential population. Mount Pleasant offers a similar opportunity on the Sub Surface lines.

    Double ending Euston Square station to allow direct access to Euston mainline station and avoiding the windswept walk along Euston Road is one of TfL’s long term ambitions associated with the HS2 rebuild at Euston, but should have been done ages ago.

95. @ SleepDeprived
    I am assuming that the improvements quoted are from the existing moving block signalling system on the Jubilee and Northern and the Fixed Block ( with signalling blocks optimised for Journey time as required by the PPP contract) on the Victoria Line.

    I am not sure how the changes for ‘World Class’ will impact the Victoria Line. I think that Brixton and Walthamstow are the limitations on TPH – it is a pity that the 09TS has conventional Head End Control – you have to shut down one end before you can open the other end up. DLR trains that just reverse direction at a terminal have an advantage here despite the fact they are 25 years old. There is some reduction in inter station Journey Time at the expense of energy consumption / heating which helps with the dwell times. Not sure if the problems of irregular headways leaving Brixton & Walthamstow has been cracked – it is a function of the layout.

96. @ J Roberts – TfL were asked by Murad Qureshi about the potential for using remote reading devices instead of ticket gates in a recent Transport Cttee meeting. Shashi Verma said he couldn’t see a case for removing ticket gates given they serve other purposes as well as protecting revenue. Surely with roving staff and technology it should still be perfectly possible to open up subsidiary entrances and maintain an appropriate level of safety and supervision? If not then there must be flaws in the wider strategy of “flexible” LU station operation.

    @ Malcolm – I’m afraid I don’t see the case for offering a financial incentive via the fares structure to encourage people to walk from a station having used a specific line (even if you can’t guarantee that they have used it). It strikes me as pointless. By all means provide really good info about walking routes from stations to local areas. I thought that was part of the Legible London initiative anyway. The blunt truth is that TfL need every last penny of Crossrail revenue they can get because the service has to earn a premium to pay back some of the financing. Offering people discounts for a line predicted to be “full” not long after opening is also bizarre. The London Terminals concept was in existence long before the Underground Ticketing System was invented so the system had to accommodate the concept. Given Crossrail will be on the TfL farescale then fares will already be lower for those people travelling from NR stops as the Zone 1 add on fare should disappear from 31 May this year when TfL take over the Shenfield service. I understand FGW already charges on the TfL tariff as far as West Drayton so fares into Zone 1 won’t change when TfL take over Heathrow Connect.

97. @Malcolm
    “The parallel would be fares to a so-called London Terminal. Such tickets are accepted at the gates of the relevant zone 1 stations, and no others ”

    Not sure what you mean. In my experience a London terminals ticket will open the NR gates of any “London Terminal”, whether there is a valid route to it or not. Thus a Surbiton to “London Terminals” will work the gates at Marylebone, despite there being no valid route between the two! (It will not work the gates at any other Chiltern station though)

98. @timbeau Just because a Surbiton ticket will open a gate at Marylebone does not mean that it is valid for the journey to Marylebone. If tickets were inspected on a train that was not on an acceptable route to an appropriate London terminal, you would be treated as travelling unticketed. Granted tickets are not often inspected on trains within London. But people who prefer to travel ticketedly, regardless of the level of risk of being caught (in which category I boldly put myself, but suspect I would be joined by many of our readers) should avoid taking advantage of such ticket-gate quirks. A more practical example would be tickets from Kent to London terminals not being valid via Thameslink to St Pancras, even though St Pancras is a London terminal, and the gates may well open. (I have not tried it).

99. @WW I agree with the arguments you give against my notion of weird Crossrail-only discounts. I was only really saying that it would be possible to give such discounts. Possible, but probably, for the reasons you give, undesirable.

100. Jonathan Roberts, Evergreenadam,

     As implied by Evergreenadam, let’s not kid ourselves that double-ending Euston Square is a potential HS2 benefit. It is quite the opposite. The reason being for this not already being done I have been told is that it cannot be done until the the plan for Euston with HS2 is finalised as the route of the passageway may impact on the redesigned Euston. So HS2 has probably delayed this by at least ten years already.

101. The making of Crossrail stations fully accessible has come on the back of campaigning by Transport for All see link to news of final stations becoming step free – http://www.transportforall.org.uk/news/minister-confirms-final-three-crossrail-stations-will-be-step-free

     The irony of this is some of these stations on the western side of Crossrail have a very weak case for funding under Access for All rules proving this decision is more political and follows on Mayor Boris agreeing funds to make all London stations step free.

     The point about Thameslink is interesting but Thameslink is seen differently perhaps because of its size and decades in the making. However, why stations in London like Kentish Town are not being made accessible is something Boris could be challenged on but it’s not a TFL project !

102. Melvyn,

     I disagree. Once you have a line almost totally served by step free access there is an argument to be made that it is worth investing the extra money in the remaining stations so that the whole route is step-free and can be advertised as such. Such a move may well increase the step-free journeys made and provide access for all simply because the rules are simple and people understand them. So if the message is “Crossrail is completely accessible” then someone may make a journey from West Drayton to Farringdon, for instance, confident that there will be step-free access. Step-free everywhere also eliminates the fear that ones station may be unexpectedly closed and you end up at a non-step-free station. So the case for the last three stations extends well beyond usage of those stations.

     As an example consider the DLR. Most people know that the DLR has complete step- free access. How many journeys would not be made on that if one had to look up and work out whether one’s journey was step free or not?

     In summary, I don’t think politics comes into it. For a start it is not just the politicians who are pressing for this. Both Terry Morgan and Andrew Wolstenholme of Crossrail have been pressing hard for this and they have no political agenda. It is just common sense and a recognition that one should not be a slave to the case for an individual station but instead look at the bigger picture.

103. It is to be hoped that a three year delay to a start on conversion of the Piccadilly Line for NTfL due to shortage of funds or signal engineers is not wasted time. The recent new trains on the Victoria Line and Metropolitan Line have shown the need for greater development testing. The NTfL feasibility study mentioned the possibility of the Waterloo & City Line being used as a test bed, and this should now become the plan. Resignalling of this short line should be possible together with ten short trains. The Old Dalby test track could be configured as a full size replica of the W&C track layout and a full 10 train service demonstrated for some time. With platform edge doors the accompanying train attendant could remain in the same cab, avoiding the complications of drivers stepping back. Automatic control would allow safe faster entry to dead-end roads, and closer stopping to the track end. The feasibility study noted that platform edge doors shorten usable platform length at conventional tube stations since the end door leaves must be positioned with sufficient room for them to open back. I presume this could affect train lengths at Bank, but sufficient room remains for the new trains to be longer, providing additional capacity earlier.

104. @PoP, 18 April 2015 at 22:27
     Euston Square: “it cannot be done until the the plan for Euston with HS2 is finalised as the route of the passageway may impact on the redesigned Euston. So HS2 has probably delayed this by at least ten years already.”

     While Euston Square-Euston should ideally have been undertaken a while ago – arguably when Euston terminus was rebuilt the last time around in the 1960s – that was the period of making economies to justify schemes, not adding to them.

     You cannot blame HS2 for causing delays in the link-up before 2009, because HS2 didn’t exist as even an outline plan before then. We know how long schemes can take to reach fruition once planning, design and authorisation get going.

     Hence I do see the arrival of HS2 as creating the access and interchange benefit, because it will be the funder, where no one else has attempted to lead and fund the project in the past.

     Entirely relevant to the Peak Tube topic is that it will be a charge on HS2 because of the extra passenger flows via Euston HS, which require active relief of the existing tube station and its access/interchange passages with the need to make the SSR route to the City an attractive option compared to using the Northern Line.

     Is it Crossrail’s fault that the original 1992 scheme as submitted to Parliament was disallowed in 1994 and, perforce, a number of Central London station capacity improvements have waited until the Mk.2 scheme gained powers in 2007?

     I don’t think so. Projects could in theory have been progressed independently, subject to separate powers and funding, with anticipatory provision for other future lines. This certainly the case with Victoria Northern entrance [Crossrail 2 passive provision], while Tottenham Court Road includes passive provision also for Crossrail 2, as will Euston rebuild when plans are finally agreed. Shoreditch High Street station on the Overground includes passive provision for an eventual Central Line station and interchange.

105. I’m sure I have read somewhere that the reason there isn’t already an underground link at Euston/Euston Square is that there is something significant in the way, a main sewer or possibly the River Fleet or a tributary thereof and that makes it much more complicated/expensive

106. @Herned – you may have read it here first! When I was considering the question c1992, the engineers told me that there was a large sewer or drain under Melton Street, which would have to be moved first before anything in the nature of a subway linking Euston Square to the main line station, could be constructed. The cost of that was well beyond any likely NSE budget at the time, even if it could be justified in business terms (doubtful), so I didn’t pursue it. A cheaper option – but not one for the BR of the day – would be to construct another exit on the corner of Melton Street and the Euston Road.

107. Thanks to JR for all article and (as ever) well researched data.

     I can’t help coming back to the thought that what we really need is a “vision thing” to measure the current and expected service levels at.

     If TfL had a defined, measurable tasks to provide Londoners with, say,

     “98% of homes within 15 minutes walk of a mass transit station. trains every 2 minutes in zone 1, 3 mins in zone 2 …’

     Then it would be possible to say if the future plans meet the needs. I’m not saying what the criteria should be, but if we had some to start with them it would be easy to say ” do we build n new station here” or “a new line here” or whatever.

     As it stands the moment questions are, at best, limited to “can we make X less bad”.

     Without trying to come up with the specific rules, it is very worrying that planing is made without clear goals that everyone understands.

108. @ PoP – if politics didn’t come in to making all Crossrail stations accessible why were there questions to the Mayor from Assembly Members for months and months and months on end? Several of the Assembly Members who raised questions have strong links with Transport for All. I am pretty clear that political lobbying did play a part in raising enough pressure to get the money unlocked even if there was a general acceptance that a fully accessible Crossrail is a good idea. It’s no different to what went on with GOBLIN electrification – again relentless lobbying over years. You must surely accept that “general acceptance of a good idea” does not equate to “here’s the money, please get on with it” when we’re dealing with politicians in charge of the “piggy bank”?

     Whether the head honchos at Crossrail supported it or not is surely irrelevant given their stance of “the scope is frozen until our Sponsors change our requirments and write the cheque”? They can’t have it both ways. They’re not daft enough to sit in front of politicians and say “well we don’t care about accessibility, it’s not our issue” because they’d be criticised from pillar to post. The reality is that they are as politically consummate as the politicians themselves and that’s partly why they draw their huge salaries.

     @ Taz – even putting the SSR signalling delays to one side the NTfL project is running late. Weren’t we supposed to be getting a prototype train later this year when the funding settlement and Treasury milestones were set a few years ago? There’s no sign whatsoever of that train being specified never mind procured or built. Would be good to know what’s gone wrong. I note also your remarks about the Bombardier rolling stock being, perhaps, “not ideal” in terms of its build quality or reliability. I note we’ve had a fair few train failures on the Vic Line in the last fortnight. The S Stock has had to go back for modifications and tweaking. I agree a better pilot of the NTfL stock / concept is a good idea but I fear the massive delay to the tube upgrades means there’s no point doing much now because technology will have moved on again and what’s the point of committing to a design that will be out of date before a large fleet enters service.

109. On the thought of theoretical maximum TPH, there will be a point where LU won’t be able to run more trains without solving the dwell time issue.

     A solution that seems to work well is the (as I’ve mentioned in the past) Barcelona AKA Spanish solution, however is it very costly with the need to create an additional platform (and assuming PED’s) for each station.

     Puts crayons back in box…

110. @Malcolm
     “Just because a Surbiton ticket will open a gate at Marylebone does not mean that it is valid for the journey to Marylebone.”
     I didn’t suggest that it was – as I said there is no valid route from Surbiton to Marylebone. Nevertheless the gates seem to accept them – as I discovered recently when I absent-mindedly presented my SWT season ticket instead of my Oyster to a gate at Baker Street (which is a London terminal for Chiltern purposes).

111. @ MarkyMar88 – I suspect there may be some places where an extra platform to allow segregation of boarding and alighting flows may be sensible. However I doubt that solves much to do with dwell time as you have two door cycles to cope with for each stop at that location. It is more likely to be more efficient in terms of platform and station congestion management – being able to split flows would allow platforms to clear and avoid cross flows / jams in passageways.

     However the overall point remains – the more the demand rises and the more congested the system becomes the harder it becomes to maintain dwell times and headways. I suspect therefore that TfL will have some very difficult issues to deal with as stations become inoperable and there is no scope at all for running more trains. Pointless making platforms longer for longer trains if the platforms remain narrow and have narrow twisty stairs and corridors leading to escalators or lifts which can’t cope either. Holborn is a classic example of this problem today never mind with 36 tph on the Piccadilly Line. You can multiply that issue forty or fifty fold (i.e. overloaded stations) across the Underground and then you have a very expensive problem to solve.

     Adding more and more frequency also drives demand so while the upgrades are presented as a solution they are also part of a wider problem (demand generation). If you were being perverse you could almost construct an argument that says it’s beneficial (in terms of choking off demand and defraying massive capital investment costs) to do nothing to add capacity / improve the tube. I’m not advocating that but we should be aware that today’s “virtuous cycle” of improvement creates significant problems for the future for which there is no clear solution.

112. @MarkyMar88: The spanish solution is also extensively used in Brussels, for example at Rogier and Zuid… In the case of Zuid, there are three platofrms with pre-metro trams and the underground adjacent to each other….

113. @WW 19 April 2015 at 12:59 The NTfL was funded to provide a prototype train in 2015, but probably suffered project creep. If it could operate autonomously it will need platform edge doors, etc, and became about much more than new trains. TfL twisted the milestone to become an invitation to tender for the rolling stock in 2015. This was expected to issue on 25 February 2015, but was independently reported as being
     delayed. On-line news at Rail Magazine stated that “The delay relates to funding and scoping the project” affecting the completion date, and is linked with the current Thales contract negotiations. The Feasibility Study promised the first train in 2022. If the Piccadilly Line will not be ready to receive them until three years later, I hope the full project can be proved on the Waterloo & City in the meantime. http://www.railmagazine.com/news/network/2015/02/12/new-tube-for-london-delayed

114. Interesting point about whether all CR2 stations will be expected to be step-free. Some of the SWT suburban stations such as Chessington North and Motspur Park will be very tricky/expensive to put lifts in.

115. @Malc
     That could be a good ‘excuse’ to remove some of the SWT branches from the CR2 network, and simplify/descope it.
     I think I remember that the Tulse Hill-Wimbledon line was removed from the recent south London Overground takeover for similar reasons – too expensive to convert the stations to step-free access. I may be misremembering this slightly though.

116. @ Taz – thanks for confirming my suspicions about delays and “re-interpreted” milestones. Looks like the delay to the rolling stock could be several years. Ironic really when I used to sit beside the LU Picc Line upgrade team back in, oh, 2010! We might get a train by 2022 so only 12 years lost. We’ll have built, commissioned and operated Crossrail in less time. In the context of “peak tube” we really can’t afford any repeats of this scale of delay to any of the programmes that need to happen to deliver the requisite improvements in reliability and capacity.

117. @WW From what I recall, the 2012 tube stock was to all be delivered for the Picc Upgrade by 2014.

118. @Jonathan Roberts:

     Projects could in theory have been progressed independently, subject to separate powers and funding, with anticipatory provision for other future lines

     See Mike Horne’s blog for references to Parliamentary powers obtained in 1991 for post-Kings Cross fire-related capacity improvements to London Bridge (eventually delivered in 1999), Tottenham Court Road, (delivered now), and Holborn (might happen in the 2020s?).

119. @ChrisMitch I’d have thought it was all or nothing w.r.t the CR2 branches – if you start taking them out you lose the opportunity of increasing capacity on the SWML, which means the overall business case for the scheme is reduced.

120. Jonathan Roberts,

     My wording was bad and inaccurate. I should have said that the proposed rebuilding of Euston and its subsequent incorporation into HS2 must have delayed an additional entrance at Euston Square by over a decade.

     Walthamstow Writer,

     Of course accessibility is political in the sense that ultimately everything is political. I was responding to Melvyns comment

     “The irony of this is some of these stations on the western side of Crossrail have a very weak case for funding under Access for All rules proving this decision is more political and follows on Mayor Boris agreeing funds to make all London stations step free”

     To me the comment suggested that the case for complete step-free access was weak and motivated by politics. I think the opposite is true. The case is strong because of the “complete network” effect. The tone of the comment to me suggested it was about a cheap way of winning votes. I don’t think this is the case at all. Let’s not knock politicians at all times. If they can see that something appears obviously sensible and not happening then they will want to ask questions. For once the politicians shouting loudest are not necessarily the ones whose constituency or ward would benefit.

121. @PoP Thank you. Of course someone still has to fund the interchange, whether the cause is commuting growth pressures on the London Midland network or new HS2-related flows. Underlying the case for HS2, however, is the relief of fast line capacity into Euston for more outer commuters, so I believe the link will be justified whether or not HS2 proceeds post-election.

122. Jonathan,

     That is all true of course. I got the impression from a couple of answers to questions put to TfL/LU officials (not by me) in the past was that they would be getting on with it now if it wasn’t for the Euston rebuild. So, if I understood correctly, money wasn’t then an issue – or at least not the primary issue. Of course once there is the possibility that someone else pays for it it makes sense to go quiet on the idea.

123. @MarkyMar88
     “A solution that seems to work well is the (as I’ve mentioned in the past) Barcelona AKA Spanish solution, however is it very costly with the need to create an additional platform (and assuming PED’s) for each station.”

     Sitting looking out of the train windows here at Platform 11, I can see the Spanish Solutions platforms 3 and 3a serving the Central Line westbound here.

     If I said I never waited at one of the platforms so I could take a shortcut though a Central Line train I would be lying…

124. @Malc
     “I’d have thought it was all or nothing w.r.t the CR2 branches – if you start taking them out you lose the opportunity of increasing capacity on the SWML”
     I don’t thin it was ever suggested that all destinations currently served by the slow lines (Twickenham, Shepperton, Hampton Court, Guildford via Cobham, Guildford via Epsom, Chessington, Dorking, and probably some I’ve overlooked) would be on Crossrail 2 – quite apart from anything else, this would leave Earlsfield with no service at all. It would also mean services to each branch would be fairly infrequent.

     A question which does need to be asked is how they will all squeeze through the common Raynes Park – Wimbledon section, but it may be that there is space for an extra two tracks. We may well end up with Crossrail 2 serving all routes via Motspur Park, and Waterloo serving all routes via New Malden; or (perhaps more likely given the accessibility issues mentioned above) vice versa. The latter would also have the political advantage of not denying Waterloo services to the majority of the stations served:
     – Shepperton branch, via Richmond (assuming the paths made available via Richmond from loop services terminating at Twickenham can be used for this purpose)
     – stations beyond Effingham Junction, via Leatherhead
     – Hampton Court and Cobham lines, via interchange with fast services at Surbiton (already the fastest way)

125. @ PoP – thanks for the explanation. I agree that there was a broad consensus from the Mayor downwards to make Crossrail fully accessible. However you could argue that some more deft footwork earlier by TfL and the DfT could have avoided the issue ever becoming quite as “heated” as it did. There is a clear advantage and business case for a network (line) level of accessibility but, unfortunately, you’re also required to determine the optimal position too which may mean some stations wouldn’t be upgraded. We had precisely that issue with network wide gating – some stations had costs exceeding benefits despite the logic on an overarching case of being able to say all LU stations were gated. On the accessibility point there was a political decision to go further than the optimum and equip everywhere because of the wider context of a “new” railway being accessible.

     I can certainly see exactly the same arguments being replayed for Crossrail 2 no matter how far the eventual service pattern stretches. It is to be hoped that the accessibility aspect of the project is determined, scoped and funded from the start and that when the inevitable “cost review” happens that someone doesn’t take the knife to the accessibility provisions. Having to come back later and rework stuff just adds to the expense.

126. Walthamstow Writer,

     Agree. Hopefully those at DfT/TfL will have learnt from the mistakes of Crossrail 1 and not do that again. The Crossrail Act was passed in 2008 and drafted and consulted on before that. Attitudes change quite a bit over time. I would like to think that full accessibility at all stations where Crossrail 2 trains call will be taken as a given from the outset.

     Interesting to note that no-one seems to think we should have full accessibility on all of Thameslink. I think that would have killed the project if it were required because it would considerably knocked up the cost. At least with Crossrails 1 & 2 it would a small portion of the total cost. I do wonder though if, at some point in the future, enough of Thameslink were to be fully accessible that a similar argument could be made for doing the lot. Perhaps this should be looked at once Finsbury Park is fully accessible – so not in the near future then.

127. @timbeau
     One solution to the problem of congestion SW of Wimbledon would be to remove the fast line services completely (into a new tunnel from NE of Wimbledon to SW of Surbiton), which would free up the two central tracks for the suburban network. Each suburban route could then double in frequency with alternate services to Waterloo and Crossrail2, with cross platform interchanges at Wimbledon – no need for an expensive subterranean station, with the funds being used for the long-distance tunnel. Simple!

128. I was wondering how other cities around the world were coping, whether they were seeing the same amount of growth and how they were handling it. Turns out that the only other city in the world on a par with London is New York (both are classified as Alpha++ according to the Wikipedia article on World Cities).

     New York also seems to be experiencing a similar growth to London, and a bit of research shows they have the same solutions – new rail tunnels, expanding existing services, re-openings, more cycling, more buses and so on. They also have similar concerns about over-crowding and improvements not keeping up with growth. Even the costs seem roughly similar – the new Second Avenue subway is currently being built at a cost of $17 billion for 8.5 miles of track, which compares nicely to £15 billion for 24 miles of Crossrail. So, same issues, same solutions, no magic answers there !!

     This is obviously a very high level comparison (mainly using Wikipedia), and I am happy to be corrected if I have made any mistakes. Nevertheless, I think it is interesting to get confirmation that there is nothing unique in what we see in London.

129. the new Second Avenue subway is currently being built at a cost of $17 billion for 8.5 miles of track, which compares nicely to £15 billion for 24 miles of Crossrail. So, same issues, same solutions, no magic answers there !!

     Well its a lot cheaper when you can use a tunnel boring machine through soft clay rather than have to dynamite through the solid rock (with the knowledge that above you are skyscrapers)!

130. @Jim Cobb
     That’s fascinating – and interesting also that it was New York’s 2050 initial planning that was considered most relevant to London when the Mayor decided to start planning for the long term.

131. @PoP – apparently 90% is being dug with a TBM, but presumably those TBM’s will need more maintenance on their cutting heads and work slower than the Crossrail ones. Even then, it is noted that the stations are costing a lot more than the tunnels, something else in common with London.

132. For all the expensive solutions (or patch-ups) to the issue of capacity on our tube, and indeed rail network, I wonder if the strategists aren’t missing a trick? I have hinted at this issue before, but as an Overground driver one of the most obvious issues that affects dwell times in stations (and therefore the number of trains it might be possible to run per hour) is that of passenger behaviour. I personally consider this worthy of an LR article in itself. For all the talk of ATO it means nothing if trains are delayed in stations causing queuing services behind.

     The psychology of passenger behaviour is probably quite complex as it needs to cover how individuals behave in a sometimes stressful social context as well as the norms and conventions that influence how people exit and enter trains whilst also needing to take into account how individual actions can impact massively on hundreds, or potentially thousands, of other passengers.

     I could write at length about how those behaviours impact on my role as a driver and also on the passengers for whom I am responsible, however I will give just a couple of examples. On a busy rush hour service close to capacity with about 600 passengers on board I might be stopped at a busy station with a further 150 passengers boarding for perhaps one minute from the point of door release to door close. On another occasion I might be driving an early afternoon Saturday service with 400 passengers on board and just 100 passengers wish to board at a given station and yet I have to dwell there for close to two minutes. Why? The reasons are many and varied, from there being more prams and children, a few holidaymakers being in the mix along with people left undecided about whether this is their service, but mainly because their are different expectations around personal space and just how close people should stand to each other. Commuters on the whole know where they are going and they board and alight relatively efficiently (with a key exception being the insistence on alighting from one set of doors at Shoreditch High Street!) and it is understood that people will need to be just about touching each other in order for everyone to fit on board so we can dispatch safely and with the minimum of delay.

     I just wonder if the knowledge about how people interact and cooperate, or fail to, might be better used in managing how services are run? It is a mufti-dimensional concept, partly about passenger education through visual or audio means, partly about station design (which might be something so simple as painted zones or lines on platforms) as well as how drivers, guards or platform staff communicate to passengers. Even (more contentiously), about whether sanctions should be rigorously applied to people who deliberately hold up a service or impact on the safety of the railway. By way of example Canada Water has been extremely busy in the peak evening rush since the London Bridge disruption (improvement works), in spite of 5 car services now operating throughout the ELL. This was always an intimidating place to stop as a driver, not just due to the short gradient platform, but because in spite of wide platforms the clamour to be first on the train meant that people would stand dangerously close to the platform edge, earphones in and sometimes stooping to pick up a bag with the motion positioning their head just inches from an arriving train. The automated announcements requesting people stand back behind the yellow line had little effect and so it was negotiated that Overground platform staff would be based there at peak hours. Now up to four staff ensure that passengers stand behind the line and they also help to deter people from attempting to board as the doors are closing, while asking those remaining on the platform to stand well back so that drivers can clearly see the dispatch corridor and depart safely. It is still extremely busy, but the process is much safer and in my experience dwell times at that station have been significantly reduced.

     Off the top of my head I wonder if technology might be introduced that gauges which carriages have most space and this information can be relayed to a particularly busy station ahead and people then advised to move to the most appropriate section of platform? By technology that might be as simple as a person stood on a platform radioing two stations ahead to where the information is required! Now fault might be found with that idea, but in essence I think there are a lot of small and relatively comparatively cheap things that could be done to make best use of existing capacity and improve flow. Ineffective use of carriage space is another cause for delay and whilst I do not always have the time to make announcements, depending on what other tasks I am undertaking, certainly at the likes of Clapham Junction platform 1 I will request that passengers move down from the front of the train to free up space for people running over from the stairs or an arriving West London Line service. Many people will not cooperate, but normally just enough do. That one human request might make the difference between us departing on time or leaving 2 minutes late. All drivers differ, we do have the option of sending an automated announcement over the PA, but I find that people are generally much more responsive to a ‘real’ human voice. Psychology in action!

     I don’t propose the this notion as an alternative to the necessary advancements in signalling or rolling stock but I really think that the purported benefits of ATO will not be fully realised unless much more is done to influence the safe flow of passengers on and off trains as well as the best utilisation of space available on those services where nothing more can be done to increase train length or standing capacity.

     I know when I suggested once before that passengers might need to consider their own behaviour this did not go down well amongst all LR regulars! The challenges of population increase, and particularly in those choosing to live and work in London mean that expensive capacity improvement programmes are not the only answer. I would not be half surprised if more emphasis on influencing how people behave might have a much more radical influence than might be envisaged. It might not solve the crush, but it might help people get to their destination (and therefore out of the crush) just a little sooner.

133. re Latecomer’s comments on dwell-times.
     There used to be a few stations (White City/Wood Lane) springs to mind, where the track had platforms both sides, enabling alighting one side and boarding the other. Not sure if any remain, but re-instatement might be possible in a few places. Most places probably impossible to adjust station layout, expecially deep tubes,, but where possible, then “every little helps”??

134. Ah yes, the Big Apples’ Second Avenue Subway. I remember that one. Suggest people have a look at the wikipedia article. One sentence begins, ‘Digging began in 1972…’
     http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Avenue_Subway

135. Whilst it would clearly be over-expensive to make _every_ station on Thameslink fully accessible (Brighton-Bedford-Cambridge?) it would seem very sensible to ‘accessible-ise’ those inner stations for which TL is a standard alternative route, ie. West Hampstead – LB / E&C.

     That this would include my own nearest TL station of Kentish Town is purely coincidental (though installation of two lifts there would be very easy)

136. @Latecomer

     In my observation, you have excellent points (sic).

     I spend every train trip wondering how people manage to be so selfish in their travelling choices!

     Aside from the lady this morning who had the speakerphone on because she was applying her blusher….

     1) what is so difficult to understand about the words “Keep Left”? The number of times people just wander into a busy oncoming crowd (say at Kings Cross) without a moments thought.

     2) why people stand in front of the doorways of arrived trains and then try to push on before people have disembarked… All it does is make people cross and take up time. Do people not know what to do or do they in know and ignore it?

     Version 2 of this is those folk, having seen someone step aside to let people off then push round impatiently getting in the way and offending everything British by not obeying the order of the queue.

     3) why can’t platforms be marked with “this is the best place to stand for…” Signage? This would really help sometimes with dispersal on platform arrival, rather than having everyone wait as close to the entrance as they can???

137. @Latecomer, Briantist

     Regarding counting seats available on which train cars, some TfL buses are trialing bus seat counter technology, with a screen at the base of the stairs indicating which seats are available. http://www.ianvisits.co.uk/blog/2014/06/22/tfl-testing-new-display-screens-buses/. The technology uses a camera to determine seat usage, not seat weight sensors.

     Certainly the technology is available, it’s the funding that’s an issue. Platform signs indicating seating would also be needed to allow advance notice to passengers at forthcoming stations to move them.

     But as someone commented the last time we discussed this, a few months ago but can’t recall on which thread, a lot of passengers likely already know there is more space to the rear on morning up trains (passengers on down afternoon trains are likely better dispersed according to their station’s exit), but choose to be near the head of of the up train so as to be nearest the gate line upon exiting.

     It comes down to whether a cost-benefit case could be made for increasing capacity by more evenly distributing passengers amongst all the carriages.

138. @Latecomer – I’m always struck watching people board planes and trains that a bit of army discipline wouldn’t go amiss!

     One thing we can be sure of over the next 30 years, whatever happens to the tunnels and trains is that the passengers will be using much more information, not only because technology will improve, but the generational changes will mean nearly all passengers will be smartphone experts. I can envisage a voice whispering in my ear that I want to be at the 3rd door of carriage 4 to arrive opposite my exit, but the coming train is full there and I’d be wise to walk up, not down, the platform, or let the train pass, because the following one is quieter and will still get me to my destination in time. My AI monitoring social would warn me away from the drunks reported by fellow passengers (or sadly, what is that chap in carriage 6 wearing!)

     You would hope such cues would improve load balancing, and reduce stress by giving greater predictability for non-commuters.

     I could also see Big Brother issuing micro fines for people who break the social contract by blocking exits or faffing around, just to ‘encourage’ more efficient behaviour.

139. @ Latecomer – I can see the logic in what you are saying and don’t disagree with your basic concerns. I don’t think “fines” could ever be enforced. Part of the problem is that London is a pretty pressured place and you’ll always have people acting as if the train in the platform is the last train on earth that they *must* catch. That drives some of the behaviour you experience daily. The other thing, responsible for your Shoreditch single door phenomenon, is the principle of least effort. People will always try to take the shortest feasible route and will try to avoid the inevitable crowding at busy times by escaping first. I think it will be a “tough ask” to change human behaviour on a large scale and on a permanent basis. Some people just zone out regular messages on their journeys. That’s possibly why your “human voice” announcements get a better response – they’re outside of the “zoned out” pattern of announcements so passengers listen to them.

     I would expect that the more professional train companies would be well aware of the issues you cite – provided they have a mechanism for garnering good feedback from platform and driving staff. I’d also expect those tasked with safety improvement / risk management in TOCs would also be aware of the issues as they are material to managing a key risk – platform / train interface. One negative is that the ORR’s recent work on platform / train interface showed that the TOCs and Network Rail actually have quite a lot of work to do and are quite a distance behind’s LUL’s experience and management of this risk.

140. @John B

     You have described a fine implementation of the emerging Behavioural Insights field (aka Nudges) in action…

141. @ Jonathan Roberts 18 April 2015 at 18:34 Thanks for the list of subsidiary ticket halls which brought back memories. At one time I think Liverpool Street had five. I recall Talgarth Rd, Hammersmith D&P, Waterloo York Way lifts until 1973 extra escalators, and London Bridge Guys Hospital lifts until 1967 escalators. A new entrance with disabled lifts also would help many stations with narrow stairs and passages.

142. So to recap …

     Sometime in the next 30 years demand will outstrip capacity. Quite when is unclear. It depends on elasticity between routes. In practice, elasticity is probably imperfect and certain routes will exceed capacity before 2050 and there’s a risk of a snowball effect across the network.

     Likewise, at some point before 2050, “spare” capacity on most lines will have been used up by running longer trains, more frequent trains etc.

     It’s unclear whether NR routes into London will saturate before or after 2050, but elasticity factors possibly will conspire to saturation beng reached at about the same time as on the TfL network, at least for Metro routes.

     So 2050 was a convenient horizon because it meant the difficult questions could be avoided. And they were … There are no indications how London might move beyond “peak tube”.

     That feels short-sighted. For instance, how can anybody be sure that NTFL has a better business case than a new line if that option isn’t considered? A new line might obviate the need for NTFL but NTFL at best only delays the necessity for new lines and, as many have observed, goals like 36tph are very challenging and might not prove possible.

143. @latecomer
     “at the likes of Clapham Junction I will request that passengers free up space for people running over from the stairs or an arriving West London Line service”

     @briantist
     “This would really help sometimes with dispersal on platform arrival, rather than having everyone wait as close to the entrance as they can”

     At stations with a large “churn” passengers will wait as close to the entrance as they can. The reason isn’t really hard to understand, and WW and John B have explained it well.

     @WW
     “The other thing, responsible for your Shoreditch single door phenomenon, is the principle of least effort. People will always try to take the shortest feasible route and will try to avoid the inevitable crowding at busy times by escaping first.”

     @John B
     “I can envisage a voice whispering in my ear that I want to be at the 3rd door of carriage 4 to arrive opposite my exit.”

     If people are going to prefer to be in the carriage nearest the exit at their destination, that is the carriage from which most passengers will alight at that station, and thus the one where most space will be created and that people will want to board. watch what happens at Wimbledon’s platform 5 every morning. You can either “pass along the platform” and fight for the one or two spaces that might come free, or hover around the exit and join the hordes waiting to fill the acres of space left by the mass exodus from the rear carriage.

144. And of course gathering by the exits has 2 negative effects, the longest boarding times and the greatest friction preventing platform clearance.

     I remember the delight of first entering the Overground trains and realising you could trot down the train to find a seat or arrive by your exit (anyone remember the “Getting Off in London” booklet from the mid 80’s), great for off-peak load balancing but of no use at 6/m^2 At least wide gangway trains do allow easier passing down a carriage

145. I’ve long been of the opinion that there is significant capacity to be gained by improving passenger behaviour. Consider people on the platform who block the doors for passengers trying to alight, or who even try to board whilst people are still alighting – I’m lucky to be tall enough, heavy enough and Northern enough that if I’m in a good mood I can loom over them until they get out of my way, if I’m in a bad mood then I can just barge my way through them. There are the passengers who won’t move down the carriage – why am I always the one who has to shout at them to move? The people who stare plaintively at a crush loaded doorway rather than moving briskly to another door.

     The question is how to encourage/enforce improved behaviour. I’m all for roving behaviour squads who would hit a station for a week and teach the regulars how to be a good commuter. Hopefully they would then lead irregulars by example. If people refuse to move down the carriage, let’s have them hauled off the train and their travelcard cancelled. Once everyone alighting has done so, if people are failing to board quickly enough then shut the doors and go – they’ll soon learn. Remember that on the Underground, boarding before everyone has finished alighting is a breach of the Ts & Cs.

     Even on escalators, amongst the people who will move to the left and know at this means that they must keep moving, when they are a couple of metres from the end they suddenly stop, and this then ripples along the whole escalator, a very common problem at Canary Wharf in the morning peak. Although whilst on the subject of Canary Wharf, I’ve noticed that the PEDs there lead to good discipline in the evening peak, they give clearly defined positions for queues to form.

146. The reason for this article is that London is growing fast. This means that lots of new people are arriving in London all the time. I think that it is these new people who don’t yet know the ropes (plus all the tourists of course). Give them a few weeks, and they learn by observing their fellow commuters. The problem is that by the time these newbies have learned, there are more even newer newbies. So unless we impose some Singaporean levels of nanny-statism, we’ll just have to live with the system we have.

147. @ POP 19 April – I agree with Crossrail being fully accessible but the reality is it was not planned to be fully accessible on existing surface sections but it was only through a campaign by Transport for All that we finally got all existing surface stations on Crossrail to be made step free.

     Some stations got Access for All funding, some Crossrail funding while the remainder were won by a campaign which first got Biris to agree funds for stations within London leaving these final stations on the western end of Crossrail some on the recently agreed Reading extension left out .

     I agree with making routes as accessible as possible which suggests the stations at the northern end of the Jubilee Line should be made step free with just the major jobs at Baker Street, Swiss Cottage and St Johns Wood to be done as longer term projects .

     As for Kentish Town on Thameslink it’s an open air shallow station and installing lift access would be little different to work done at West Hampstead Thameslink and is an example of why London railways should be part of TFL .

148. @ Steve L – I’ve done a quick scan of the TfL Conditions of Carriage and couldn’t find any reference to how to board or alight from a tube train. It might be good behaviour to let people off first but there isn’t a rule as far as I can see.

     @ Chris Mitch – having used public transport pretty extensively in Singapore I don’t recall any “nanny stateism” at all. They do have very large and well organised bus interchanges with proper queuing lanes but given the volumes being handled that makes sense. I wish TfL would do the same at its busiest bus stns – it might instill some order instead of the daily rugby scrum. The MRT is clean and efficient to use but there’s nothing extra special in terms of discipline – the busiest stations have queue lanes by the PEDs but so do many Far Eastern metros given the massive volumes travelling. In reality we have the same at Canary Wharf JLE but without the paint!

149. Melvyn,

     Funnily enough I thought of looking at tube lines and seeing if there was a remote possibility of any of them being anywhere nearly totally step free.

     The most promising was the Jubilee. Not surprising as the Jubilee Line Extension was fully accessible. I am presuming Bond Street will become fully accessible for all lines as a result of Crossrail. That leaves mostly relatively easy to do stations. Only two are deep underground. And then there is Baker Street which needs a lot of money to be thrown at it for all sorts of reasons.

     The Victoria Line seems to have some potential but is made difficult because all its platforms are below ground. Victoria should be fully accessible by 2018, Vauxhall is being worked on now, HS2 and Crossrail2 might result in Euston being fully accessible. The really hard one seems to be Oxford Circus but I suspect this could be reached from Crossrail Bond Street (Hanover Square entrance) if suitable arrangements were made. As I understand it there will be a linking passage for emergency use.

150. Walthamstow Writer,

     10. Trains
     (1) Byelaw 10 applies to trains on or of the railway.
     (2) No person shall enter through any train door until any person leaving by that door
     has passed through it.

     The first section about queuing is also possibly relevant in some circumstances.

151. Would painting yellow guidelines on the platform for people to queue behind to each side at the points where the train doors are, with a ‘hatched’ area in the middle to allow people to exit the train, help? I seem to recall something similar in another metro system (I think it was Singapore).

152. @Anonymous at 3.44

     This only works where there is very accurate stopping of trains in a station to line up with the platform markings. Same issue as stopping trains to line up with the platform edge doors (PED). This consistent accuracy requires computer driven trains. I do not know the capabilities of the individual Underground lines with this capability, but I believe the Jubilee does, having PED’s on the Jubilee Line Extension.

153. LBM @ 0421

     PEDs will require computer driven trains, but stopping trains at a consistent point on the platform to line up with painted marks can be managed without them.

     An example can be found here:

     https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0C_NlyN2rj4

     This is also an example of a train being reversed. Note where the waiting passengers stand and at what point they get on the train.

154. If someone has found a reasonably bearable spot to stand which allows people to pass, why should they “move down” more than those with seats? Surely those with seats near the doors should be expected to move down too once we have transverse seating? What about someone stood next to a seated partner or child?

     Moving down is a flawed concept. Sometimes it works; sometimes it doesn’t. It shouldn’t be relied upon and should never be planned for.

     Moving down can also significantly worsen dwell time. Many people getting off at the next stop will try to move towards the doors. If instead you force them to the middle of carriages, dwell times will be much worse. In fact, to reduce dwell times, you need the opposite instruction of “move down”, telling people to “move near the doors when nearing the station at which you will alight”.

155. There are other reasons why demand at some stations might grown faster than average.

     Take Victoria for instance. Most of those starting a journey from Victoria in the morning want to travel north or east. A very significant number walk but an equally significant proportion uses buses eg for Victoria to Green Park. Those bus routes are probably saturated and I don’t know of any plans to increase capacity, even if possible.

     So to use imaginary (but not unrealistic) numbers to illustrate things, suppose passengers split 60:20:20 tube, walk, bus and that there was a 5%pa increase in the number of passengers. Then the 5% of 20 who would catch a bus couldn’t (full) so the tube increase would be 6% not 5%. It’s perhaps not yet as stark as that, but it will get that way.

     And what of Thameslink stations come 2018 to 2023 say? Thameslink will very quickly fill like Crossrail, so many more Tube passengers from the already struggling London Bridge. Also at Blackfriars and Kings Cross.

     I suspect routine morning closures will be necessary at some stations within 10 years. The hope that the network can be stretched to last until 2050 seems to me like a forlorn hope. I suspect we need to be starting at least two, but probably three or four, new Tube lines now with the most urgent being something on a Euston – London Bridge alignment with an interchange to Crossrail. (And once one realises that London Bridge station is going to need a new Tube line, the rationale of the Bakerloo extension changes.)

156. Holborn is another station which desperately needs new exits, and separate routes from the platforms to those exits. In this case, doesn’t it make sense to resume Holborn – Aldwych shuttles during peak periods? Cheaper than building a new set of exits. New Tube lines don’t have to head out into the suburbs (although filling in the Peckham not spot could be a benefit if one did). There’s good reason to think that a number of shuttles might be more cost effective. We know that tunnel length isn’t the biggest factor in the cost of new provision so why not just add 3 or 4 modern W&C analogues linking super hot spots?

157. Theban,

     As I understand it (which may be wrong), the main problem at Holborn is interchanging rather then entering or exiting. So a well-intentioned attempt to reduce the problem by reopening the Aldwych branch may actually make the problem worse if people start changing from the Central Line to the Aldwych branch platform rather than go to street level and walk the rest of the way.

     One also has to think why the Aldwych branch closed in the first place which was the cost of replacing the lifts at Aldwych. There are currently no lifts in use at Aldwych. Then there is the fact that the service could only be in use for a few years if things go as planned as the plans to enlarge Holborn station require severing the Aldwych branch.

158. LBM / John B / Latecomer
     
     [Snip. Repetition. PoP]

     Theban
     Holborn is “on the list” for rebuilding, as some people here know already – however, I think re-opening Aldwych would actually make things worse. (?)

159. @PoP

     It wouldn’t be cost free but working in the disused Aldwych would be far cheaper than works within a busy, open station.

     As we push towards 100% network utilisation the ability to take a station partially or wholly out of use for years while become impractical. So while reopening Aldwych is fraught I agree, future plans will need to add capacity without temporarily reducing it during the project. That’s an overlooked implication of “peak Tube” and a lesson which needs to be learned from London Bridge.

     My guess is that the penny will fully drop with HS2 and Euston and that it will prove impossible to schedule a scheme of works which allows sufficient capacity for existing travellers to continue making their journeys without adding new capacity first.

     It’s hard equally to see how Baker St could be redeveloped (something mentioned several times on LR as being necessary) without adding new capacity before diminishing existing capacity. Approaching Peak Tube doesn’t just affect passengers, it reduces the opportunity of TfL engineering teams to take long-term possessions of parts of stations for redevelopment.

160. @Steve L
     “Consider people on the platform who block the doors for passengers trying to alight”
     Have you ever visited London in the rush hour? On a crowded platform, with people lined up all along its length there will inevitably be some people who find themselves next to a door when the train arrives. They will do their best to stand aside to “let the papssengers off first”

     “The people who stare plaintively at a crush loaded doorway rather than moving briskly to another door.”
     You cannot move briskly through a crowded platform: better to wait where you are and hope you can get on the next one.

     “. Once everyone alighting has done so, if people are failing to board quickly enough then shut the doors and go”
     Again, this assumes equal loading in each carriage – the carriage nearest the exit will take longer to unload, because more people are alighting from that carriage. And because more people are alighting, there is more space for people who want to board. So they won’t board another carriage because they can’t – the others are full. I am at a loss as to why guards and station staff who hector passengers to “use all the doors” in such circumstances, or even try to close the doors when passengers are trying to board simply do not “get” this fairly obvious fact.

161. Theban,

     Perhaps the long term answer for Aldwych is to forget about the the branch to Holborn and realise that the asset is the station building and tunnels leading to the platforms. So in some long term distant tube/Crossrail scheme, new platforms and escalator shafts could be built but there would still be a substantial cost saving compared to building a station from scratch.

     One of the many problems of reusing the branch is that either it is not well used (so not worth reopening) or it is well used in which case it will suddenly dump lots of people at Holborn rather than supply them as a steady trickle. Worse still in the evening peak, if coming in of the street you have the option of not letting them in if the station is too congested, if they come from Aldwych you can’t prevent them from arriving and adding to the passenger congestion.

162. When I used to commute to Ealing Broadway on the Central Line, admittedly over 40 used ago, I was always bemused by the fact that in the evening peak hour, the front carriages, nearest the exit, were always rammed full beyond public health acceptability, whereas only 2 or 3 people ever emerged from the last car. This even in high Summer when that first car must have been unbearable.

     What must always be remembered is that this is what the commuters chose to do. It is how they CHOSE to travel rather than sit in a near empty car for their journey at the other end of the train. By the time the last of the passengers had been able to emerge from that front car, those from the rear car could get to the barrier first!

163. @timbeau
     @SteveL
     ““The people who stare plaintively at a crush loaded doorway rather than moving briskly to another door.”
     You cannot move briskly through a crowded platform: better to wait where you are and hope you can get on the next one.”

     In fact if you move what will happen is you lose your place in near the front of the “queue” to get on the next train.

164. @Castlebar. The back coaches might have been busy when they started their journey, so it made less difference where they boarded, as they’d be standing for all but the last few stops (not that I know the Central exit pattern). Tube trains are always less busy at the ends, and off-peak I always move that way, but I’m not having problems negotiating the platforms before and after, as I can scurry along as I seats whizzing past.

     But people don’t act as rationally as machines, and there is a danger with transport planning to invoke an IT systems mindset, where new rules can be introduced to optimise problems, and the ‘bots’ can be instructed for the greater good.

165. @ Anonymous 21 April 2015 at 03:44 Would painting yellow guidelines on the platform for people to queue behind to each side at the points where the train doors are, with a ‘hatched’ area in the middle to allow people to exit the train, help? I seem to recall something similar in another metro system (I think it was Singapore).

     This has been trialled on LU from time to time, but never pursued. I can recall trials at Holborn many years ago. I don’t think auto-operation was necessary for that accuracy.

166. @Taz

     Queuing by default happens at Canary Wharf on the Jubilee Line.

     The doors show people where to wait and they do at busy times.

167. @ Taz If it has already been trialled here and it’s been dropped, then perhaps it doesn’t work?

     I suggest it would work in Singapore where people are disciplined, but it hasn’t worked here because they are perhaps not? It’s like bus queues. They used to work until a few abused it. I see the same free for all with any lines on platforms and hence the idea has been quietly abandoned

168. Lots of interesting comments on passenger/customer behaviour above. As I read them I kept having to insert the word “SOME” before every mention, eg

     SOME passengers will always take the shortest route…
     Why won’t SOME passengers move down the carriage?
     SOME commuters are used to cramming themselves in whereas SOME families and tourists aren’t.

     The value of SOME lies between 0 and 1. TfL has commissioned customer segmentation work which shows clearly that different people react differently to announcements, crowding, fare levels etc etc. This makes the job of managing demand, or psychology, or nudging, quite complex. Some (!) messages will appeal to some customers but be very annoying to others.

     In a city as large as this, it is dangerous to assume that our preclivities are shared by everyone else.

169. …including our proclivity for being able to spell “proclivities”!

170. @ Theban The Aldwych Branch wasn’t planned but happened simply because Yerkes inherited two seperate schemes and combined them into one with the Aldwych Branch a leftover which in its day was useful for theatre goers in The Strand.

     The real pity is plans to extend the branch to Waterloo which received a Act of Parliament in Wilson government when Barbara Castle was Transport Minister never went ahead as it would have provide a link to Waterloo which would have been well used when Eurostar was there and might even still. be open today !

     It sounds like plans for Holborn Station upgrade will preclude its future use and upgrade of Holborn Station has to take priority it’s a pity it lost its Crossrail Station as work would have now been well underway.

     In Crayonista mode the Alwych Branch would be better if one forgot Aldwych Station and built a link to Temple Station instead giving interchange to Circle/ District Line with extension to Waterloo with new Station on South Bank but methinks Cross River Tram Project is far better option !

171. @ Melvyn

     You are absolutely right.

     In the ideal Crayonista world, the shuttle/branch would be Holborn – Temple – Waterloo. The “Aldwych” place name could then quietly leave the crayonista’s gazetteer.

     Unfortunately, we are where we are, and although I agree with your idea, I fear we shall never see it gestate.

172. Having watched the Shinjuku terminating train video above I then watched a couple more featuring the Yamanote Line at Shinjuku. What was telling was the mix of human control and technology to try to control boarding and alighting. There were the famous gloved platform staff, painted queuing positions, audio “tunes” announcing arrivals, imminent door closure etc, countdown clocks for the staff etc. I timed the phases of he dwell time and it was typically 60-70 second total dwell time with 35 seconds being needed just for people to alight. A mass surge of boarding then followed with some people being content to queue in line for the next train and others dashing along to squash themselves inside. The platform staff were very alert to anyone getting in the way of doors actually closing so as to allow the train to depart on time. You can argue that London has elements of these practices but not all of them working together. Perhaps we need some Japanese “dingly ding” chimes at Canada Water to improve behaviours? 😉

     The other striking thing, although I have seen it myself, is just the sheer enormous volume of people crushed inside 12 car trains running at 90-120 second headways and that’s just one line among many. We aren’t quite at that point and probably can’t do what the Japanese have done in connecting main line and subway routes to give a wide range of through running services. We’re bound by a constrained tunnel and rolling stock legacy while the Japanese took a more considered view several decades later than others. Does leave me wondering what London can do even though we’re millions of people behind Tokyo in terms of the population that has to travel.

173. @Walthamstow Writer:

     “We’re bound by a constrained tunnel and rolling stock legacy while the Japanese took a more considered view several decades later than others.”

     The Japanese opted for a primarily narrow gauge system for almost all of their original lines, including their urban and suburban metros. This imposes its own limitations on matters such as track geometry and line speeds. Their high-speed lines, like the Shinkansen, all use standard gauge, as well as dedicated tracks, so the two systems cannot be made to mix easily.

174. @ Chris H

     I didn’t feel the need to write ‘some people’ before each and every aspect of the behaviours I observed (although I did write “commuters on the whole”), simply because the general patterns of behaviour vary across those groups. Of course some weekend passengers with their children are the same people who commuted during the week, their behaviour may be different to some other families on the train, they may be standing in frustration at parents wheeling their prams on backwards while leaving their older child alone on the platform out of my view. The trends however will be broadly similar, in the same way that I will be lucky not to have a late Friday or Saturday night journey without repeated door blocking from passengers under the influence of alcohol. Not all passengers on the train will have been drinking but the ones who do and who go on to act irresponsibly make it a regular enough event for me to be able to predict it reasonably accurately.

     @ Theban

     Whilst I don’t rely upon people moving down I do request it at times because the consequence otherwise is increasing delay. I am not permitted to close the doors while people are in the act of boarding (I can if they are simply moving towards the train and are not yet in my dispatch corridor – although I have to try to take into account their speed of movement if I am able to). I would not expect someone necessarily to move away from their seated partner (although I have as a passenger on quite a few occasions!), but nor do I feel the need to try to cover all scenarios with my announcements. People have a choice to respond or not (I reserve my more insistent tones for those holding a door open waiting for their friend who hasn’t even obtained a ticket from the machine yet). Some people respond to my kindly request to move down, some don’t – usually just enough people do to help us get under way just that little bit sooner and avoid the signaller running the freight service across our path. Again as a passenger I have asked people to create more space for a group of us attempting to board. People employ some tricks that they think are quite smart, like holding an outstretched newspaper in front of them, we know what they were up to, and they probably know that that we do, but it is quite easy for them to feign ignorance by fixing a stare on the front page of the Standard seemingly absorbed in the headline of “Rush Hour Chaos”!

     I knew that my original contribution posed more questions than it did provide answers. I don’t have many answers myself, but I am grateful for the interesting responses and I still think that there is vast potential in a range of low cost measures that might just improve things a little, whatever the complexity of human behaviour.

175. Perhaps the dwell time problem could be solved to some extent by very clearly designating each door as either an entrance or an exit and painting the positions of these clearly on the platforms. The wall of humanity on the platform at each entrance position would rapidly deter any clever dick who tried to exit that way! (and the other way round too). Between the peaks indiscipline would occur but it wouldn’t matter. Surely driver training could include strict adherence to stop positions, to ensure the platform markings were always correct. After all, if someone can program an ATO train to stop consistently, why cannot the mk 1 human brain do the same?

176. @Taz said ‘ Automatic control would allow safe faster entry to dead-end roads, and closer stopping to the track end. ‘

     All the current ATP systems have such a slow response that this is not true. To get a fast approach you need a layout like Brixton or Walthamstow so there is an overrun area to allow the ATP time to react. If not you end up with a design like Stratford JLE where there is a large overun at the ‘buffer’ end and customers have to walk a significant extra distance.

     The other design constrain is that during the approach the ATO can suddenly decide to call for full acceleration so you have to allow for the gain in speed at full acceleration rate while the ATP decides to act and then the time / distance taken for the train to stop from this higher speed.

     Look at the approach speeeds to Ealing Broadway on the Central Line if you want to see how slow the approach has to be. The problems approaching the dead end here was the reason for this being the last piece of ATO to be commisioned on the Central Line.

177. It seems to me that the issues here all come back to money and how the infrastructure is paid for. You can keep increasing capacity on the existing system cheaply (!) by running a few more trains, relaxing over-crowding standards and tweaking behavior, but after all that is done, the only choice is to dramatically expand the system. The current available capacity will run out one day, maybe by 2050, maybe earlier, but it will run out no matter how many clever upgrades you do.

     Therefore, isn’t the 2050 study more about “this is what we can do cheaply – after this, we are talking real money” ? Once the 2050 study is complete, you have a baseline and work should start on what happens after 2050 and how to pay for it, possibly bringing some enhancements forward.

     In my own job, it is very hard to predict growth, as it often happens at short notice as new customers come on board. Therefore, for the major systems, I have a series of investment options – if you want 5% growth, this is the solution, whilst if you want 20% growth, this is the option. In this way, the extra costs can be built into new customer contracts and things get paid for properly.

     We have talked about developer contributions and other ways of putting money into the pot to develop the system, but it doesn’t yet feel like anyone wants to properly determine how enhancements are paid for. They are hoping that the government will stump up rather than actually working out how to do it properly.

     In my view, each station, each line, each area of London should have a series of investments plans describing how to add various tiers of additional capacity. It is a huge amount of work and the numbers will be eye-wateringly high, but it will demonstrate what is needed. I would probably help to suppress demand as developers realise the true cost of building.

     This is probably the fevered ramblings of an over-systematic mind, and I suspect it is several steps too far for the people in charge of all this, but the only other alternative seems to be to just muddle on through, as usual.

178. Fandroid

     The dedicated exit doors might work for regular commuters*, but would probably fall down when you take into account visitors or infrequent travellers e.g. those using a peak train to reach a holiday point of departure.

     * anecdote alert: I always try to be one of those people that moves down the coach, but equally (being aware of dwell time issues) I try to move towards the doors well before reaching my intended alighting station. Whilst doing so I have been met with the refrain “can’t you wait until the train has stopped?”.

     Signage, announcements (in multiple languages) and walls of humanity may guide the occasional traveller, but I fear that there will always be cases of regular commuters forging their own self centred path…

179. Dedicated exit doors would also fail when people who only just managed to cram onto the train have to squeeze down the aisle to the exit doors to get off the train.

180. Teban @ 10.18
     Indeed, you are re-stating the problem(s) we are currently experiencing @ LBG, with rebuilding an existing, working station.

     Latecomer
     I still think that there is vast potential in a range of low cost measures that might just improve things a little Agreed, wholeheartedly.
     However, I am one of those people who react very, very badly to being shouted at – I tend to freeze up, rather than react as “ordered”. I also have an acquaintance who wears ear-muffs on the tube, since she has hypersensitive hearing.

181. Separate entry and exit doors are used on buses, and everyone seems to understand them. The maximum efficiency of dwell time would require the whole length of the train to be door – and perhaps the Spanish solution as well. There would of course be no seats. A guided system already exists which does all this – it’s called a lift (or elevator if you live across the pond)

     What is the maximum proportion of car length which can be door? For most types, (sliding, plug) it’s 50%. Hinged doors also 50% if you want them to turn through 180 degrees, otherwise the thickness of the hinges. You could design sliding or plug doors which overlap in the open position, giving you 67%. Up and over doors could theoretically give you 100. %

182. If we accept that there are structural limitations on the amount of doors that can be incorporated in a carriage, how do we ensure that the maximum amount of alighting/boarding pax are presented at the door to reduce dwell?

     Boarding pax is easier, as they are filtering to the signposted positions on the platform i.e. they will be carried by momentum as they enter the platform. There will be a level of alertness and anticipation of arriving trains.

     Alighting is more difficult – passenger may be engrossed with phone/book/freebie newspaper, and not realise they need to move to egress door. They may not want to move whilst the vehicle is in motion. Non-regular travellers may be confused by the arrangements and may not understand the rationale behind a significant proportion of fellow pax heading for a particular door.

     Although the arrangements on [2 door] buses is well understood by most, I would not use them as a model for passenger flows (for the reasons given above).

183. @Steve L “Let’s have them hauled off” – No, let’s not do that at all. Can you imagine the sheer disruption of handling every alleged “incident” and the time taken to get platform staff and then BTP on board and the arguments, the fights before the”offenders” were removed? A half hour delay would be trivial. Now repeat that for every coach on every crowded train…

     @LBM.Taz and others – platform door markings already exist* -eg on the W&C, where they seem highly effective, at least up to the point where the platform is rammed solid.

     @castlebar – forgive me if recall (again?) a remark by one of HMT’s finest, when told that trains arriving at London termini tended to be overfull at the front even when there were spare seats at the back,simply suggested removing the front carriage in each case.When this story was relayed to the CEO of Fox’s Biscuits by a mutual friend, he remarked that he received similar suggestions as a way of dealing with “the first biscuit in the packet is always broken” syndrome.

     @Latecomer – you are right about the strategic problem,but a further difficulty is that – for entirely legitimate reasons – there is always a chance that someone will delay a train whilst their wheelchair or pram is boarding, and even though statistically you can cope with that by assuming an x% of the event happening and writing a timetable accordingly, in practical termsyou simply cannot do that when the service is running at max tph. In the end we are left with soft measures to speed things up – the penalty for dealing with people, alas.

     * The door markings on the W&C were indicated with the NSE racing slugs. On the Monday after the transfer to LU, some of us went down to see what changes had been made. Apart from the new line maps and station names,someone had diligently spent the Sunday closure sandblasting off the said slugs – such were the priorities apparently.

184. Tube carriages with up-and-over sides as ‘doors’ would be ‘interesting’, to say the least.

     But going back to some earlier comments about moving people around *within* stations I’m wondering if we should be doing something illogical. *Adding* gates.

     Currently, a number of stations have _marked_ routes to and from platforms which are designed to keep arriving and departing pax separate. Except being the creatures-of-least-distance that most of us are we tend to use the shortest route and ignore the signs, thus meeting ‘resistance’ in the form of oncoming pax.

     In such locations, if a pass-through full-height gate/door was inserted in the route such that pax were effectively ‘persuaded’ to use the correct access route then more people would move around faster. It wouldn’t need Oyster swiping, just a push-bar opening in the direction required.

     From memory, there used to be intermediate gates serving this purpose on the Paris Metro.

185. (forgot a bit…)

     The other advantage of this is that where you can put the entrance towards one end of the platforms and the exit near the other you automatically spread people around instead of congregating where they arrive.

186. @Jim Cobb

     I agree very much with a lot of what you say but disagree when you state that development should be discouraged, or priced more expensively. That will only act to reduce the supply of affordable housing even further and cause considerable social and economic problems.

     Put simply, and as someone who may move away from London later this year, the county needs to decide whether it needs a prosperous, growing London. If the UK (or England) does, then the price is high investment. If we don’t, then fine but that’s not cheap either as if we go for a more distributed approach the multiple high speed rail lines will be necessary. The country has leveraged its Victorian rail heritage for years but one way or another the next generation is going to have to meet very serious expenditure.

187. @Graham H.
     ” The door markings on the W&C were indicated with the NSE racing slugs. Someone had diligently spent the Sunday closure sandblasting off the said slugs ”

     They can’t have done it very well – twenty years later, the “racing slugs” are still there (except where the DDA hump has been built over them).
     http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4b/Waterloo_tube_station_Waterloo_%26_City_line_Bank_train.JPG
     http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/62/Bank_station_Waterloo_%26_City_line_platform.JPG
     http://c8.alamy.com/comp/D1CJWF/waterloo-city-line-train-nicknamed-the-drain-at-bank-station-bank-D1CJWF.jpg

     Indeed, they are still aligned with the 1940 stock’s doors – they were not moved during the upgrade for the 1992 stock!

188. @timbeau – indeed -done in too much haste…

189. @Theban – I didn’t say that I thought that growth in London should be stifled, only that if you include the transport infrastructure costs into developments, growth could be stifled. I actually don’t have a view either way whether a growing London is good or bad, but I do have a view that you cannot grow without the associated infrastructure investment.

     I agree that there is a decision to be made whether the rest of the UK want to invest more into London, and I think the answer is currently no, because people identify themselves more with their local region rather than their country. Investing in London is not seen as helping other parts of the country.

190. @ Jim Cobb

     In my view, each station, each line, each area of London should have a series of investments plans describing how to add various tiers of additional capacity. It is a huge amount of work and the numbers will be eye-wateringly high, but it will demonstrate what is needed.

     While I understand the sentiment behind this I think there are real problems in defining areas and then understanding what demands there will be *in* an area as well as *between* areas. We have a hard enough issue with understanding whether the 2050 plans are adequate or “right” (whatever that means). Trying to distill that info down into meaningful investment or improvement programmes at a line or station level will be very difficult. It also risks creating a hostage to fortune. I ran part of the Investment Programme for LU over many years and we went from feast to famine all the time. This meant that your planned “good intentions” were turned to dust on the receipt of the E Mail or memo that said “cut budgets by 30% this year and 20% next year”. I think things have been a bit better recently but TfL and Network Rail are subject to the whims of politicians, the Treasury and the economy. I like the concept behind your idea because in theory it would show people that improvements are planned and their transport needs might be met. However you need vastly more certainty around development and also transport investment funding to make it a plausible proposition.

     Like you the more I think about it the less convinced I am about the 2050 Plans. They don’t feel adequate in terms of known issues nor fast enough in terms of implementation to deal with growth.

191. @Jim

     I think you are right and that there’s little popular support for London-centric investment but if not then I’m firmly of the view that much more of the country needs to be brought within an hour of London by train and the cost of train travel slashed. I used to have two desks, one in the West End and one in the City. It regularly used to take 45 minutes to travel between them, sometimes longer. Getting out to Earls Court from the City could be worse than that by taxi – and presumably worse still from Docklands. (I sometimes used the Tube but then I couldn’t work en route which meant I had 30-40 minutes of time I couldn’t charge so a taxi actually cost the firm less.). The business area of London isn’t small – and even less so when I had clients out at the far reaches of the Central or District Lines, or – worse – without Tube or rail nearby. So I do think with suitable investment and PR, high speed rail might allow places like Bristol or Oxford or Cambridge or Basingstoke to soak up more of the growth.

     That’s not cheap and I question whether many towns and cities would really want a lot of growth. There are clear strategic decisions to be taken.

     I think the key is a national strategy for the growth of GDP.

192. @WW

     Like you the more I think about it the less convinced I am about the 2050 Plans. They don’t feel adequate in terms of known issues nor fast enough in terms of implementation to deal with growth.

     Very much so. As someone else said it feels like a list of what can be done relatively cheaply with a date of 2050 slapped on it, 2050 being when that work will be done. I am sure there really was more goodwill than that went into it but ducking the difficult issues does reduce its credibility.

     While it may be too early (but not by much) to crayon in new Tube lines the timeframe when that planning work will need to start should have been overt as should the criteria used to guide that planning. Both Haykerloo and CR2 feel like they are pushed because there’s inertia behind them. One wonders whether there might be other “better” schemes but we don’t know because the priority criteria aren’t specified.

193. “it feels like a list of what can be done relatively cheaply with a date of 2050 slapped on it” = another generation’s problem.

194. @WW – I understand and fully agree with you. Nevertheless, the current process is obviously not working and a new solution is needed. Of course, we won’t get a new solution and we will just muddle on through. It will provide lots of discussion points for this forum though !

     Apparently, it is not just Transport with this issue – I was talking to a guy at BT the other day and they are running out of space in their Exchanges and in the cable trunks. The reckon that in Central London, they will need to double the number of Exchanges within the next 20 years to keep up with growth, and will need to build many new cable trunks, which will be highly disruptive and expensive. He reckoned that connection costs for new data links will need to increase dramatically to cover the costs of this work.

195. It is worth pointing out that the first line on the Shanghai metro opened in 1993 and today it has 14 lines, 337 stations, a route length of 548 Km and has 8 million passengers a day. In the next 5 years, an additional 4 lines will opened and existing 5 lines extended, giving a total route mileage of 800 Km. Compare that to what London is planning to do in the next 35 years.

     Of course, it is easier and cheaper to build new lines in China, but the Chinese is investing huge amounts of money in their Infrastructure. If London wants to keep up, the 2050 plan should be the 2020 plan.

196. @ Theban

     Your two postings around midnight were very interesting

     You said “….I’m firmly of the view that much more of the country needs to be brought within an hour of London by train and the cost of train travel slashed….”

     I wonder how much of the county “needs to be” as opposed to the aspirational “wants to be”. Many people THINK they need to be, but actually they don’t. They just ‘want to be’. This simple false truth of needing to be within an hour of London is perhaps responsible for a lot of the dilemmas that transport planners now face. I remember seeing various head offices around London as a boy 50 years ago, and wondered why for example, the National Coal Board NEEDED to be near Hyde Park Corner. That is just one example of many. To cater for this presumed “Need”, staff and office space costs must have been unnecessarily high, for which the ‘end user’ (invariably the public) had to pick up the tab. Perhaps a change of attitude is needed about this, and if London were then no longer such a magnet, we much get better non-London focused transport systems in the U.K

197. @Castlebar – I work for a global company who has a large office in London for two reasons. Firstly, all its customers and potential customers have offices in London and so we need an office close by otherwise our customers would go elsewhere. Secondly, London is a world city and therefore prestigious, so any reputable company wants an office here. Even though the owners of my company are French, the London office is far larger than the Paris office. If a company wants to be successful, it has to be seen to be successful, and that means a smart office in London. If London doesn’t want those kinds of companies, then they will go to other cities in other countries, not to other cities in the UK.

     This may not be the same as the NCB, but even then, if UK companies want to attract foreign investors, they have be close to those investors, which means in London.

198. Building on the AlisonW Paris inspired directional flow management, may I suggest a set of doors not on the platform edge but set back along very busy platforms, that could delay opening for departees until concentrations of arrivees had dispersed along an edge corridor toward the exits, the doors maybe releasing sequentially as the arrivees moved along. These could be used with or without PEDs and could give some of the benefits of the double platform Spanish solution, but the existing platform area would have to be wide enough or additional expensive galleries and cross-passageways would be needed behind it, for which the usable space must exist at the particular location. Practicality versus a double platform would no doubt vary significantly from site to site in tight complex CAZ tube locations, but it might be an alternative in some cases.

199. @Jim Cobb
     “I was talking to a guy at BT the other day and they are running out of space in their Exchanges and in the cable trunks”

     I find that surprising. One optical fibre can do the same work as dozens of copper wires used to. And the BT estate is littered with enormous exchange buildings which used to be filled from top to bottom with mechanical Strowger switches, with all the work now done by a computer in one corner of one room. (But they can’t sell the building because that one remaining computer has to be there, as all the cables /fibres lead to it from miles around).

200. @timbeau – yes, that is what I said, but apparently not. The new equipment is a lot smaller, but there is a lot more of it. In many cases, some of the space and/or exchanges were sold off because there was so much spare, but now it is filling up again. In the case of the trunks, apparently many still have the old copper cable because it is left over from the change to fibre and now it is too difficult to remove.

201. @Castlebar, 22 April 2015 at 12:52

     “I wonder how much of the county “needs to be” as opposed to the aspirational “wants to be”. Many people THINK they need to be, but actually they don’t. They just ‘want to be’. This simple false truth of needing to be within an hour of London is perhaps responsible for a lot of the dilemmas that transport planners now face.”

     Whilst basing timetables around regular intervals and easy to recall clockface departures is admirable, it is not so easy to meld journey times to getting under that ‘magic’ hour for generic commuter town, or for that matter ninety minutes or three hours for Norwich and Plymouth respectively. Each corridor is different and the number, densities and relative spacing of the bigger towns and important interchanges along it will influence journey times as well and often as much as the distance and top speed capability of stock and infrastructure. Somewhat arbitrary ’round’ target figures in this respect can make service planning unnecessarily difficult and measures to achieve them might involve additional service tiers to cover gaps created by stops removed from speeded up expresses, or introduction of skip-stopping patterns for the expresses, often an unpopular move resulting in reduced local journey opportunities along a corridor, with some journeys becoming less frequent and attractive at best, and in some cases practically impossible.

202. @Jim Cobb, building metro’s is capital intensive. It turns out constructing Metro’s in China’s is no cheaper than Mainland Europe (which is still qite a bit cheaper than us though). China is still in the relatively easy stage of economic transition. Adopting standards from the west and shovelling money into infrastructure gives a big boost to Chinese GDP.

     The first 10,000 km of motorway and high speed railway has made a big difference to GDP. So does building all those new flats and factories. Subsequent tranches won’t yield such a big boost to growth.

     China achieves it’s stellar investent record from directing the vast savings of it’s people (everyone saves as much as they can in many Asian countries due to poor social security systems and other tax rules). China spends at least 10 times the amount the UK does on infrastucture as a percent of Government spending.

     The UK spends it’s money on Welfare, pensions and the NHS. It’s a political choice we have made. I also don’t think it’s going to change that much look at all those saying we should cancel HS2 or scrap trident to save making cuts to social security during the current austerity.

     Austerity hopefully won’t be for ever as it’s allready clear in the run up to election as everyone pretends they won’t have to deal with it over then next 5 years.

     But by 2020 or so, assuming no one goes mad with the credit card in the meantime, People will have to start looking at options. If London’s has continued to grow then problems on the rail network will be increasing despite all this ectra money spent. Capacity crunches won’t be long way away but less than 15 years. Though all i expect is that crossrail 2 will actually at that point move into it’s serious phase and will be battling about funding and maybe moving forward to Parliamentary permission.

     I just can’t see anything being so bad, that the British state could cope with the idea of massively expanding spending on infrastructure and lauching 2 or 3 mega projects at once.

     Coud the DFT cope with trying to steer through a high speed network and 2 crossrails at the same time!

203. The final map in the article has been updated in light of confirmation by TfL of the location of the intended southern entrance to Tottenham Court Road station if Crossail 2 gets built.

204. @Rational plan – I don’t disagree with anything you have said, and certainly do not think we will ever invest in infrastructure in the same way the Chinese are – that was just to present an alternative view, which is really what I am trying to say.

     My concern is that the London 2050 is presenting one view on growth and presenting one set of solutions to meet that growth. Great. Good job. If the growth is slower, presumably the projects are implemented over a longer period. If the growth is faster than expected, then what ? London 2050 becomes London 2035 ? What happens after that ?

     Surely it would be better if there were a series of options, ranging from steady state refresh, all the way up to Chinese expansionism, detailing the costs and the benefits of each option, as well as providing options for paying for them. The politicians can then make a considered choice depending on the priorities given to them by the populace.

     I realise that this is a lot of work and it is probably never going to happen, mainly because long-term strategic planning is a anathema to the British psyche. Nevertheless, I can’t help feeling that the London 2050 study should have been more inspirational and visionary.

205. @ Jim Cobb – I think there are probably as many views amongst the planners and Mayoral advisers as there are opinions expressed in the comments on here. I may be accused of being “unfair” but I wonder if there is any sort of consensus in the corridors of power. There seems to be a real dislike of new tube lines and only lukewarm support for tube extensions. DLR is out of favour for further expansion. There is only tolerance / funding for one Crossrail at a time but no vision beyond CR2. We need to be careful not to be distracted by the China metro vision because as already said above their level of infrastructure development is in a completely different place. AFAIK there is not the same scale of suburban rail service alongside a Metro so decision makers have fewer issues to balance / trade and probably no great organisational conflict. London has decades of such hassles and the long standing resistance to “LT” running suburban rail is only being circumvented by a subtle “guerilla” campaign by TfL to progressively take over chunk by chunk. It remains to be seen if TfL will “win the war” of taking over all the suburban rail services it wants.

     Once we get to 36 tph upgraded tube lines there’s not really anywhere to go with the tube apart from targeted station expansion and continuing to fill up off peak capacity that isn’t used to the maximum extent. That’ll mean whatever “crisis” there is in capacity applies over more days in the week and more hours every day. That then raises the impact of any engineering works that are needed plus the scale of cost of any alternative services. There are going to be some interesting impacts on budgets, project / maintenance planning and how efficiency is determined. TfL may also end having an enormous scale of operations and will be a major “customer” of Network Rail (assuming NR itself survives whatever political plots are being schemed up as we speak). That may then create some tensions about who leads on future rail upgrades or new Crossrails and exactly who scopes what work in the future. Interesting times ahead I think.

206. @WW Some prescient thoughts there, and I largely agree with them. As I said in the main article: “The future, beyond the Underground upgrades set out in TfL plans, will have to be with new lines offering new capacity. ‘Peak Tube’ means just that, for the existing tubes and SSR.” London 2050 Parts 3, 4 and 5 all point towards substantial additional route capacity being required, beyond the limits of the existing radial and Central London rail network.

     Clearly TfL hopes that gaining a degree of influence over Network Rail operating parameters can achieve strong increases in capacity on selected National Rail routes in London, radially and orbitally, whether or not they are actually painted orange as well on the map (which is more of a marketing issue, to achieve better use of an unappreciated network and some traffic relief off the tubes)… “The Balham Line” (ie, Victoria-Clapham-Croydon/Crystal Palace etc)? – could that help to attract passengers off the pressurised Northern.

     It is heroic to think that Crossrail’s ‘within 60 seconds’ operating parameters before penalties are applied, as set out in a TfL Board paper last year ^^, are going to co-exist comfortably with the ‘within 5 minutes’ tendency for performance on ex-NSE services, where Network Rail appears constitutionally unwilling to push timetabling to the absolute limits of the ‘Rules of the Plan’, let along tighten up those Rules. Nor will area public transport capacity of any sort be maximised in those circumstances. Thameslink will face similar tensions between its headway-led and timetable-led sections.

     ^^ http://www.tfl.gov.uk/cdn/static/cms/documents/fpc-20140717-part-1-item05-crossrail-train-operating-concession.pdf

     The London Bridge problems this year could be read as giving succour to the Network Rail leeriness about pressing the National Rail system harder. Yet there is a fundamental difference with the TfL approach, which in short is indeed to press the system harder *with a clear understanding* of what it will require to operate a less forgiving timetable successfully, and also to pressure engineering times downwards to permit some 24 hour operations even in single line tube tunnels. You would have thought that was easier to achieve on a largely surface-based system.

     Maybe it’s that *shared understanding and doing* output-aligned and knowledge-based ingredient which is lacking. A totally integrated systems approach between the infrastructure and operating elements may well be required if National Rail is to deliver the desired 80% capacity increase in route capacity sought by London 2050. This points towards a structural reorganisation of high-capacity urban railway responsibilities into line-based vertical operating units focused on maximising throughput safely, to meet overall capacity considerations and London strategic planning requirements. So nothing minor.

     On National Rail routes, is this achieved through an ‘Alliance’ as per SWT, an ‘Alliance-plus’ commercially sharing pains and rewards, or a classic ‘single railway unit’ that may or may not report to TfL rather than DfT, for inner suburban services? The reporting lines up and the contractual rules down and across also merit consideration, since the franchising rules should not ignorant of (though they sometimes appear to be) the infrastructure and maintenance supply elements.

     You also need to define what the levels of redundancy across the high capacity systems should be, so that if part of a line shuts, we don’t end up in systemic ‘catastrophe’ mode (I am talking statistically here about unexpected requirements to vary operating behaviours and to make significant short-term changes to passenger travel flows, as we have seen at London Bridge and can occur from day to day with any rail system). If 20,000 passengers rapidly need to find a different way of making their journey, can the network accommodate that? What other options are there – and relatively easy to offer – or are people just encouraged to go to the nearest cafés/bistros and enjoy life for an hour or so? That’s probably a valid option!

207. Upgrading the Tube by longer / wider trains is probably a non-starter because of the massive disruption that would be caused whilst the infrastructure is upgraded (tunnels rebored to greater diameter and station tunnels extended) – the passengers will not simply melt away for the duration. It is, in most cases, cheaper to build a duplicate line to a higher standard – and of course you end up with two lines instead of one. Disruption can thus be limited to the interchange points. This is the difference between HS2 and the previous WCML upgrade.
     This is probably the biggest lesson to be learned from the two major projects going on at present. Crossrail is basically a duplicate Central / H&C line. It will return a much greater benefit, for proportionately less disruption, than the Thameslink 2000-and-counting upgrade, for which I suspect the CBR will turn out to be much less than that for a hypothetical Crossrail 3 linking the same routes (Brighton and GNR) between, say, New Cross Gate and Finsbury Park.

208. @timbeau
     I beg to suggest that Crossrail is far more than what you describe. While functionally that is the main outcome in terms of Central London relief of the existing Underground network, Crossrail also confers far better accessibility to and indeed across and beyond Central London, for further-flung suburbs and commuter towns. It is at least possible that a significant amount of Crossrail capacity will be taken up with cross-London commuters stimulated anew or attracted off the M25, which could put limits on the intra-Central London relief.

     I know Graham H has argued that, in the case of Thameslink, the main overlap between northern and southern service groups is just across Central London and not much further. However in the case of Crossrail, it will be serving all three of the currently-favoured Satellite Activity Zones (Canary, OOC, Stratford), which means that passengers could be seeking to reach those from the far side of London. Also locations such as Heathrow and the Thames Valley business belt shouldn’t be set aside. So this is another aggregation of travel demands where a new orthodoxy may emerge for London’s new main-line sized undergrounds.

209. @ timbeau

     Well said!

210. @Jonathan Roberts – I agree with your analysis of CrossRail’s markets. For at least the last century, London has been expanding east-west rather than north-south and there is no obvious reason that that won’t continue. OOC may well reinforce the trend. [Briefly, in the last quarter of the C19, it looked as if north-south might be the future, with continuous development reaching Enfield and Croydon well before it reached Uxbridge and Romford, and with TCR and the Strand as the main shopping streets before Mr Selfridge had other ideas.].

211. I earlier stated that the London Infrastructure Plan 2050 does not mention line upgrades beyond the Central line in twenty years time. If the NTfL then reaches the Northern line it should offer a 10% capacity uplift, as the Feasibility Study promises over current Piccadilly line trains. The Northern line currently operates short trains like the Piccadilly, but both formerly operated trains as long as the Bakerloo. That would mean a 36tph service carrying equivalent of almost 40tph of current trains, double last year’s service! NTfL for the Jubilee would offer at least a similar level of increase, since it was built for trains of Victoria or Central line length but uses shorter 7-car trains. But perhaps a SuperNTfL with slightly wider cars to take advantage of wider tunnels and gentler curves on the line than older tubes may add say 2% more standing space. The Victoria line trains currently fill their platforms and may soon achieve 36tph, but NTfL would provide a further 5% capacity uplift just from the open-ended cars, and perhaps the SuperNTfL could make that 7%. Passengers would benefit from air-con and power savings could be considerable. The current trains and signalling would be due for renewal in the 2035-2050 period anyway.

212. @Taz
     The difference is not great:
     Northern: six car 1995 stock: 106.62m
     Piccadilly: six car 1973 stock: 105.65m
     Bakerloo: seven car 1972 stock: 113.552m
     all three: seven car 1959 stock: 110.5m

     It is doubtful that a train much longer than 106m would now be allowed on either the Northern or the Piccy without extending the subterranean platforms: on both lines there were stations where 1959 stock stopped with both drivers cabs in the tunnel beyond the platform ends – acceptable when there was a guard at the inner end of the rear carriage, and therefore on the platform.

     @taz
     “Passengers would benefit from air-con”
     Aircon is not practical on a vehicle which opens its doors every couple of minutes, causing equalisation of temperatures within and without however hard the aircon is working. And in tunnels it simply makes the tunnels (including stations) hotter (indeed, according to the third law of thermodynamics, the process cannot be 100% efficient, so more heat will end up in the tunnel than was extracted from the train).

213. @ timbeau is that really true? If so why has TfL pursued air cooling as opposed to air conditioning on the sub service lines and also on the planned NTFL stock? I agree that cool air is lost as doors open at stations but equally you can make the same argument about heating trains in winter.

     I accept that the tunnels can become overheated unless something is done to ventilate them more adequately but TfL however reluctantly have been pursuing that goal as well.

     The point about air cooling and air conditioning is that if these are absent the tube services in summer months are like to become even more intolerable that they are at present. I recognise it does present a real engineering challenge but I think we have no alternative. However traditional railway management was long hostile to air conditioning on commuter trains but Southern seem to have few problems with it. I still think the purchase of the 376 stock by South Eastern was a real error because it omitted air conditioning a mistake that TfL did not repeat when it ordered the 378 stock for use on London Overground

214. Doesn’t the piston effect apply on deep tubes, aided by water cooling in the depths of tunnels.

     SSL have a much larger profile, so the piston effect is less.

     A heat pump system should allow office blocks to get space heating cheaply, with in-ground reservoirs near the tubes.

     But at 7/m^2 some cool air flow in the carriages is vital.

215. Many, many years ago, in his great book “I tried to run a railway” (a copy picked up for 50p at Woking flea market in January), Gerry Fiennes stated that one of his priorities would have been to “Four-track the Central Line. Two generations later they agree to build Crossrail

216. @John B
     The piston effect merely moves air about, it doesn’t cool it. Indeed, insofar as it results in some degree of compression, it actually has a slight heating effect.
     “SSL have a much larger profile, so the piston effect is less.” Surely a bigger profile would create a bigger piston. The reasons the piston effect is less on the SSL are twofold – firstly that the trains are less of a snug fit in he tunnels, and secondly because they have many more ventilation connections to the surface – a legacy of steam traction.

217. Timbeau is right:

     Air-conditioning merely attempts to pump the heat from inside the train to the exterior… It works on the SSL as there are so many vents…

     Air cooling attempts to pump the hear from the tunnel to cold water in the ground. I believe an experiment at Victoria was successful? In the confines of the deep tunnels that is much more likely to prove beneficial. If combined with adequate airflow through the train, it should work…

     Trying to air condition the deep tube trains would make stations very uncomfortable places to be. They are bad enough already…

218. I meant SSL tunnel profiles, not trains, of course. Some pistoned air flow from the tunnels cools people more by perspiration of course, but you do need to vent that hot, damp air, and if it can’t come out of the portals you need active cooling

     The wikipedia article (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Underground_cooling) says

     “The heat in the tunnels is generated by the trains (motors and braking systems etc.), station equipment and body heat from the passengers. About 80% of the heat comes from the operation of the trains, 15% from other equipment, and 5% from people—it is calculated that tube passengers account for about 56 gigawatt-hours of heat energy emitted in an average year.

     Temperatures underground slowly increase as the ground around the tube tunnels warms up. When a new line is built, the temperature of the surrounding ground, and of the air in the tunnels, is about 14°C; however, unless the line has very high capacity ventilation, the air warms up as soon as trains begin to operate, and gradually transfers heat to the ground. Over about thirty years, the background temperature rises by ten or fifteen degrees.”

     So I assume TfL are planning cooling to compensate, and expect CR1 to warm by 2050. It says the Victoria cooling trial started in 2006, what was the outcome?

219. @Castlebar 22nd April 12:52

     Sorry I may have misled you with some slack writing. When I said that more places need to be within London I was talking about an alternative to expanding capacity within London. Sorry I was very unclear. My premise was that if we don’t invest in London transport the alternative is an equally, perhaps more, expensive one of a large high speed rail network centred on London. Businesses, I suggest, can accommodate being within an hour of the West End, the City of London, Westminster or Canary Wharf (with the main central focal point somewhat dependent on the type of business) and it matters little whether that is a slow Tube covering a short distance or a super-fast maglev covering several tens of miles providing cost and duration of travel are the same.

     I suspect that once the Treasury realise the cost of maintaining national growth isn’t any less if a provincial solution is adopted they might become less resistant to investing in London transport infrastructure, even if their political masters don’t …

220. If air conditioning /cooling is not practical on tube tunnels it suggests the extension of the Bakerloo beyond a short extension even with larger tunnels is the wrong way round and should instead be extenstion of mainline trains northwards in a Thameslink 2 type project .would be a better option instead ?

     The Crossrail Project has demonstrated the massive benefits of full station upgrades by demolishing buildings at street level then burrowing out a new much larger station which can accommodate far more passengers and include more escalators and provide step free lifts and a bigger space to deal with tube overheating in restricted stations.

     Simply look at TCR and forget Crossrail and one can see how much better it will be for Central and Northern Line users with the later already benefiting from the new exit route and sub-surface area . Imagine the benefit to Oxford Circus if it received a similar upgrade and yet the 2050 plan has no plan for this despite passengers being regularly locked out of the station!

     As for Crossrail proving a 4 track Central Line well given the restricted space between platforms on the Central Line sections of it would benefit from schemes as planned for Northern Line at Bank allowing at least one running line to become a Middle concource for more escalators and lifts .

221. @ Melvyn – I think you need to get some facts in the right order. Yes TCR is rather more spacious than previously and yes the Northern Line has got some new escalators. Apart from some tarting up and some lifts the Central Line won’t see much improvement as the existing escalators are being retained. The additional circulating corridor is only provided because of Crossrail as is the extra ticket hall half way along Oxford St. Neither of the tube platforms are being made much more spacious although I think the wall surfaces are being taken back to provide a small amount of extra space. You need to allocate the various elements of the work to the right project. Yes the LU project is an improvement but Crossrail adds a fair amount extra to the future much expanded station. It will also, of course, pull in a huge amount of demand.

     Oxford Circus is overloaded because access to the Central Line is not possible at TCR at present. That is what has tipped Oxo over in the peaks. When Crossrail opens it will undoubtedly pull in people who currently use the tube but who will switch to the much faster Crossrail service. Hanover Square ticket hall, although not linked to Oxo, will undoubtedly relieve Oxo. Therefore Oxo is not on the TfL hitlist because Crossrail will bring a lot of relief in the short term as will the 36tph Victoria Line. The improved Bond Street will also take some pressure off Oxford Circus too. The combined effect of Crossrail and the TCR and Bond St works are probably more than enough to defray a very big spend at Oxo for quite a long time.

222. timbeau @ 23 April 2015 at 13:02 My 10% figure for Northern line NTfL uplift was same as Piccadilly line in feasibility study. From the same source the NTfL will feature conventional air-con as a minimum but “NTfL is continuing studies into alternative “hybrid” cooling systems as a potential adaptation of conventional saloon cooling. Hybrid systems allow generation and storage of thermal energy whilst trains are operating outside of tunnels. This store is then used to cool the air for circulation in the saloons when the trains operate in the tunnels (the areas of the line where customer comfort levels can be most improved). This would enable less heat to be discharged into the tunnels and Underground stations, which would potentially reduce the need for infrastructure cooling and/or reduce temperatures.” http://www.tfl.gov.uk/cdn/static/cms/documents/ntfl-feasibility-report.pdf

223. @WW

     Indeed, which doesn’t just mean people switching from the Central to Crossrail, but also large numbers who change from the Bakerloo at Oxford Circus instead interchanging earlier at Paddington (or going straight to Crossrail from a commuter train instead of Bakerloo and central).

     Of course, if CR2 gets built in its current form – or even a very similar one -, that will further relieve Oxford Circus by turning the many Vic-Central line interchange passengers move to CR1-CR2 at TCR. In fact, in the long-run it’s TCR we could be worrying about rather than Oxford Circus.

224. @ Anon II – agreed about the Bakerloo line impact with the advent of Crossrail. It will be interesting to see how things pan out.

     While TCR may end up being enormous it will also have 4 potentially cavernous ticket halls plus huge below ground platforms and linking corridors and escalators. It could become the London equivalent of Paris’s Chatelet les Halles. One small thing springs to mind while writing this is whether TfL will consider a below ground linkage from the southern end of the CR2 Crossrail station to Leicester Square for Picc Line connections. I believe there are serious sewer / water connections under Charing Cross Road so such a link may not be feasible even if a connection closer to Leicester Square tube might be desirable.

225. @Anonymous II

     Generally it’s hard to tell how journeys might change until stations open. In this case you might be right as I hate the VIctoria – Central interchange at Oxford Circus and I doubt I am alone. Nonetheless, ease of interchange is a key factor which can be overlooked and if new CR / CR2 stations require route marches for interchange they might not prove as popular as a glance at a network diagram might suggest. Equally, if interchanges are enticing then CR / CR2 might suck in some journeys which are NOT such obvious conversions from existing lines.

226. @Rational Plan: China spends at least 10 times the amount the UK does on infrastucture as a percent of Government spending. The UK spends it’s money on Welfare, pensions and the NHS. It’s a political choice we have made.

     It’s also a demographic inevitability given the higher proportion of old people to young people in the UK. The Chinese are spending so much on infrastructure partly because they know in the future they will be more like the UK (especially as a result of the One Child Policy) and they will need infrastructure to support the economy, but won’t be able to afford to build as much by then. They are in a race to get rich before they get old.

     @John B: 80% of the heat comes from the operation of the trains
     … mainly as electrical energy wasted in the form of heat. If you can increase the electrical efficiency of the trains, you will generate less heat even if you are running more trains.

227. Ian J -0820 – although the electrical energy is wasted as heat, this is now the preferred method of train braking systems in use. Regenerative/rheostatic braking helps to save wear and tear on brake pads (and feed electrical energy back into the supply) and so to extend ‘service’ intervals and save money. As I understand it, one of the downsides to rheostatic braking, particularly in enclosed areas, is the huge amount of heat generated by banks of resistors, which has nowhere to dissipate in our small tube tunnels.

228. Rheostatic braking will dump the same amount of heat as friction braking. So not a downside when compared to friction braking only a downside compared to regenerative braking.

229. Yes, regenerative braking has the advantage of turning kinetic energy back into electrical energy instead of heat, so long as there is somewhere for the power to go – the ideal would be to be able to feed power back all the way into the grid. And increasing line voltage and the conductivity of conductor rails reduces the amount of power that goes into heating up conductor rails before it even reaches the trains.

     @Taz: it is interesting from that document that the major reasons given for adopting articulation are to make wider end gangways possible (by reducing the movement of the car ends relative to each other) and to enable double doors at the end of each car, rather than the weight gain which is often given as the main advantage.

     Also the interesting chart on p. 27: with NTfL, the trains are predicted to get cooler, while platforms will get (slightly) warmer.

230. Can anyone tell me exactly what the proposed route of “Crossrail 3” (roughly) is please? I keep seeing it referred to on here but I’ve never seen it referred to in TfL documentation.

231. @Malc – it’s simply a shorthand way of saying that a SE-NW route for some future Crossrail-style line ought to be a high priority, nothing more (or else the crayonistas will get you)

232. I wonder how much pressure could be relieved by nudging people towards doubling that 800m walking radius?

     In particular, whether there are opportunities to do the same kind of signal modelling on pedestrian crossings that they’ve recently adopted for road traffic (though clearly something has to give – difficult to maximise both at the same time), and look further at high capacity pedestrian-priority routes – in the same way cycling is being prioritised on certain routes? A mile, even a mile-and-a-half, isn’t far for most people to walk provided there’s not too much in the way of crowding or long waits at crossings; given the choice between 15 minutes extra walking & ten stuck on miserably overcrowded trains and in station corridors, the former’s easily preferable.

233. @ Theban

     it matters little whether that is a slow Tube covering a short distance or a super-fast maglev covering several tens of miles providing cost and duration of travel are the same.

     Duration’s easy (at least during the working day. Less so at night at least until NR & its franchisees reach the same conclusions as TfL have done regarding peoples’ travel needs at less obvious hours). Farringdon to Croydon will be, what, 20ish minutes on the new Thameslink? Cost is rather more difficult, though. You’d need some pretty clever ticketing to allow fast travel to and from an outer-London town centre at Zone 1-equivalent rates without inadvertantly subsidising those traveling inwards from nearby suburbs.

234. @Hilltopper:

     Walking further is only an option if you’re (a) fit, and / or (b) unencumbered with luggage, shopping, or children. As the UK’s population is also ageing, I doubt we’ll see that radius increasing substantially.

     The conflicts between pedestrians and road users are also difficult to balance. Most of the road traffic—especially in central London—is essential. It’s mostly comprised of service vehicles, such as plumbers, electricians, lift maintenance people, HVAC maintenance people, window cleaners, and so on. This is traffic that cannot be removed from London’s roads without directly affecting its economy.

235. OK, so I have an idea for reducing dwell times, but it is a bit off-the-wall.

     [Too far off the wall for this site really. But allowed to remain, as a concession to a new poster. Please try to make any future suggestions somewhat closer to feasibility. Detailed comments on this suggestion are discouraged. Malcolm (moderator)]

     How about a system where everybody is forced to disembark at every station?

     You would have two platforms at each stop (two for each direction), one of which would effectively act as a pre-boarded train carriage, complete with “sides” and a roof. When a train arrives, the carriages belonging to it would move off the bogeys on to a “departures” platform, probably sideways opposite the station platform – or possibly upwards – a bit like the “Spanish” or King WIlliam Street system.

     Then the pre-boarded platform would shift over and become part of the train, departing as soon as it could be technically secured to the train bogeys.

     Passengers who had just been forcibly disembarked could then decide whether to exit the station. One side of their “platform-carriage” would open towards the exit. Then it would close, and the other side would be opened allowing new passengers (those entering the system at that station whether by interchange or on foot from outside) to board.

     It would work a bit like bubble-cars at a ski resort, allowing people time to faff around at boarding time. Stations could then just become big holes in the ground allowing space for people to queue up to get into a bubble car, or space for them to queue to get out again.

     You could even have lifts at ground level that would become parts of train, and if people could specify their destination upon arrival in the sytem, they could be pre-sorted into destination cars or “destination-not-before” cars, which might increase efficiencies.

     You could also tweak the system in order to try to balance the interests of those boarding a train near its origin with those further up the line, by forcing everyone arriving at a station by whatever means (on a train or on foot) to wait their turn to be incorporated into a moving train according to whatever algorithm you wanted.

     As technology allowed, you could atomise and “stack” parts of a train in different configurations at different stations to cater for differing physical constraints, or move carriages like crates to effect automatic interchange between lines.

     We need to reduce friction in the system, and since everybody more or less knows where they are going when they enter the system, the system needs to be able to adapt to these signals and manage entry and exit loads at the busiest stations.

236. Would it be too far off the wall for me – not a first time commentator here – to put in a plea for the correct spelling of “bogie”?

237. Surely carriages have bogies, tube cars have trucks.

238. OK, bogie, I apologize.

239. “Most of the road traffic ….. is essential. It’s mostly comprised of service vehicles, such as plumbers, electricians, lift maintenance people, HVAC maintenance people, window cleaners, and so on. This is traffic that cannot be removed from London’s roads without directly affecting its economy.”

     A hundred years ago many of the equivalent functions were carried out by people who travelled by tram carrying a tool box. Could they make better use of space, or use smaller vehicles or find other ways of reducing their impact?

240. Am I alone in thinking that this thread has recently degenerated into the usual disreputable internet chat forum mix of unsupported opinion and factoid?

241. I see the most outrageous of the barstool comments has been deleted – good

242. @Guano:

     Quite possibly. I suspect increased automation—including for road vehicles—will play a much bigger part in future solutions than most people expect. And probably in ways none of us ever imagined.

243. Walking further is only an option if you’re (a) fit, and / or (b) unencumbered with luggage, shopping, or children. As the UK’s population is also ageing, I doubt we’ll see that radius increasing substantially.
     

     We’re talking about peak times though, which implies the vast majority affected are working age adults carrying not much more than a briefcase. Granted, the definition of working age is being stretched upward a little lately.

     
     The conflicts between pedestrians and road users are also difficult to balance. Most of the road traffic—especially in central London—is essential. It’s mostly comprised of service vehicles, such as plumbers, electricians, lift maintenance people, HVAC maintenance people, window cleaners, and so on. This is traffic that cannot be removed from London’s roads without directly affecting its economy.
     

     Yes and no – I suspect there’s potential, in theory, for a lot more load sharing (how many plumbers’ or locksmiths’ vans drive in daily from the M25 carrying 90% identical kit?), but it’d certainly add to hassle and costs. And again, the problems (for now) are concentrated on the high peak. Increased C-charge on vehicle movements at times of highest pedestrian demand would help.

244. Anomnibus: “Walking further is only an option if you’re (a) fit, and / or (b) unencumbered with luggage, shopping, or children”, which is an awful lot of people, many of whom would benefit from the exercise of walking, that most under-rated, most important, most environmental, least intrusive and least invested-in transport mode.

245. I think the issue with workmen and their tools is quite a serious one. Certainly when the Congestion Charge came in there was quite an upsurge of people carrying work boxes on the Underground. It seems to have disappeared and one would like to think it is because they now have a secure locker at work.

     I noticed around a year ago there seemed to be an incredible number of people carrying long spirit levels. I presumed they had lockers but they weren’t big enough for the spirit levels.

     At the time of the congestion charge BT looked at slimming down its kit for telecommunication engineers. They realised that the things that they needed most only occupied a small bag and these were adequate for most jobs.

     All that I am saying is that these issues aren’t trivial but if people think and plan differently there are often alternative ways of doing things.

246. @PoP
     “people carrying work boxes on the Underground. It seems to have disappeared and one would like to think it is because they now have a secure locker at work.”
     For many such people “at work” is
     a) is on someone else’s premises
     b) can be several different places in the course of one day
     c) may not be known until you call in at the beginning of your duty day.

     One solution that some utility companies have tried is to have staff travelling light, using public transport or bikes, with a small number of roving vans delivering what they need to the various sites they visit. Thus one van can support several staff, and the staff do not have the headache of parking.
     Paramedics on pushbikes are another example – they can get there quicker, and call for an ambulance only if the patient is unable either to be treated on the spot or to use some other means to get to hospital.

247. timbeau,

     In the case of a) where a is a large construction site it might be someone else’s premises but that doesn’t prevent a locker being provided. Remember big schemes have to have environmental impact statements and demonstrate that construction is not going to put an unacceptable strain on local roads etc. So putting in a secure locker and encouraging travel by public transport ticks a box.

248. A lot of the traffic is quite unnecessary, in ages past those plumbers etc., would have lived in town and the businesses would have been located in town. As were the transport access points (goods yards and wharves), so goods would have actually travelled a lot less on London’s roads.

     But now that all has to come from locations such as Dagenham, Enfield, Park Royal, Croydon etc.. This all adds to the number of vehicles on London’s roads. Not an efficient use of space….

249. Well, there is no doubt that engineers have downsized the number of parts they carry around with them. When an “emergency gas engineer” calls here, he NEVER has the correct part in his van and it always has to be ordered, requiring a courier service to deliver it. So that means a special courier travelling from A to B carrying just one part then going back to base, empty handed. Then the engineer needs to make a repeat visit. here. This doesn’t fit well with what I have read on some of the postings above.

250. One solution that some utility companies have tried is to have staff travelling light, using public transport or bikes, with a small number of roving vans delivering what they need to the various sites they visit. Thus one van can support several staff, and the staff do not have the headache of parking.

     Which is workable if you’re a large employer able to put a dozen or so vans around the city centre in support of a workforce of a hundred, but most white van trades are self-employed or small firms.

     Given sufficient economic incentives, I’m sure the app economy could solve this one (vans as mobile depots supporting tens of workers), but at present it’s just easier to drive in carrying everything you might need. Seems like one of those inefficiencies like the minicab industry that will remain largely unchanged for years until violently turned on its head in a matter of months (thanks, Uber).

     As were the transport access points (goods yards and wharves), so goods would have actually travelled a lot less on London’s roads.

     I’m surprised more use isn’t made of the river for freight, but I guess most of the riverbank is now so developed as to make this impossible. Is there anywhere in the centre of town you could drive a van on to or off a boat, even if you wanted to?

251. @Hilltopper
     ” Is there anywhere in the centre of town you could drive a van on to or off a boat, even if you wanted to?”

     Can’t think of anywhere except the MI6 slipway, (used by Duck Tours) .
     https://c2.staticflickr.com/8/7451/9181162332_c61081e67e_z.jpg.

     But a landing-craft type boat is a different matter – it must be able to float close enough to the shore to allow a road vehicle to get on – without grounding when the boat settles lower in the water when the vehicle is on board.

     Certainly nowhere is likely to be usable at all states of the tide.

252. Regarding Platform Edge Doors, look what the Railway Gazette brought into my inbox today:

     http://www.railwaygazette.com/news/technology/single-view/view/wire-ropes-as-platform-screens.html

     That should make installing them in the deep-level stations a tad easier…?

253. @Straphan

     I’m not sure about those – it would stop people falling onto the tracks, but would not prevent some dragging incidents – coats, bag straps etc caught in the doors). Indeed, assuming the doors close first, the descending wires would drag someone caught in the doors down underneath them even before the train moved.

254. @timbeau: I don’t know how this system works exactly, but I would imagine it would not allow a train to set off unless the ropes were in the ‘closed’ position with the rope at a correct stress (i.e. nothing tangled in it).

     This contraption does solve the issue of ventilation and different door positions quite well, I must say.

255. Those wire rope doors look promising. Presumably they could be placed a tad closer to the platform edge, as there is no need for space behind the static screens to house the doors when they are open. Possibly a bit simpler to construct too. Every little bit helps when considering how to introduce PEDs into cramped existing platforms accessed via narrow tunnels.

256. re Staphan,

     “ropes were in the ‘closed’ position with the rope at a correct stress”

     Just wait until bored passengers start playing the giant guitar placed in front of them 😉

257. TfL obviously having a big think about the vans and lorries on the road too:

     http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-32510884

     London’s Transport Commissioner Sir Peter Hendy said the need for businesses to adapt has “never been more pressing”.
     “We must build on all the work we did together during the London 2012 Games to make further progress on retiming outside the busiest times, rerouting and consolidating deliveries,”

258. @Hilltopper: There are a good few issues with the Thames:

     – it is tidal (7 metres variation), meaning only small craft can use it all of the time
     – there are significant speed limits: 8km/h upstream of Teddington; 15km/h upstream of Wandsworth Bridge.
     – there are locks on the river starting at Kingston

     The Seine in Paris – on the other hand – is regularly used by barges carrying 20 or more containers each.

     With regard to road congestion, having returned to commuting by bike recently, I have to say that deliveries have become more of a nuisance than they once were. However, in terms of congestion on the roads, at least at certain times of the day it would appear to be black cabs cruising along and looking for a fare. I once counted no less than 20 (!) cabs one after another trundling past me at High Holborn, only about half of them carrying passengers.

259. @straphan
     “meaning only small craft can use it all of the time”
     Not when the tide is at its strongest they can’t. The tides also make journey times highly variable, and mean that many landing points are only usable at certain states of the tide.

     “there are locks on the river starting at Kingston”
     The first one is actually at Richmond (half-tide lock), the next two at Teddington and Molesey. (There is no lock at Kingston).

260. Re Staphan,
     “There are significant speed limits: 8km/h upstream of Teddington; 15km/h upstream of Wandsworth Bridge.”

     Speed limits are in Knots so 8 Knots (14.8km/h) above Wandsworth relative to the water which can either be quite quick or quite slow relative to land depending which way the tide is going. Normally on the Thames it will be going out for about 7hours and coming in for 5.5hours (very simplified!)

261. I can answer WW’s “I believe there are serious sewer / water connections under Charing Cross Road” in the affirmative. When I was Head of Technology at Capiral Radio I needed to get some heavyweight (tonnes) computer equipment installed somewhere in our building (which connected LSq with CXR) and ended up looking in the basements where, yes, I discovered there is a very major sewer barely feet below the road surface (ie it was above our heads)

     (As the room also held some major UPS gear and the emergency broadcast system equipment having so much liquid nearby was something to be ‘aware’ of!)

     As regards a connecting tunnel though I’d worry more about what is under Shaftesbury Avenue.

     straphan: Go look at films set in London pre-1965 or so and you will *masses* of traffic on the Thames. Yes, there are the tidal issues but access to the river might actually work out easier/cheaper to provide than other alternatives.

262. @ Ngh – the timing of the “move delivery times” message is quite telling. It coincides with TfL ramping up the scale of roadworks in connection with cycle priority. We now have TfL works on the Embankment, Lower Thames St, Vauxhall Bridge Rd, Hyde Park Corner, Aldgate, Bow Road, Elephant and Castle, Oval, St Georges Circus, TCR, Victoria. I’ve probably missed some but the scale of these works will only increase in the coming months which must pose a significant risk to effective traffic management in and around Zone 1. There must also be a big challenge for TfL to meet its targets for the year even though they have been reduced for some of the highway ones to reflect traffic growth and the impact of all of the works.

263. Re WW,

     How much power do TfL have to change the London Lorry Control Scheme* (ex-GLC?) to help the delivery companies or is it all stick no carrot?

     *Restricts routes for vehicles >18tonnes, controlled hours are:
     Monday to Saturday am : 9pm – 7am
     Saturday 1pm to 7am Monday morning.

264. @AlisonW – yes,there was massive (by today’s standards)of river traffic fifty or more years ago,but the bulk of it upstream from the Royals was travelling to riverside industries such as the power stations;there was very little transfer to road for onward transmission,and even where there was, road movement was within a very limited radius.

     Brentford might be the archetypal site, with coking coal arriving at the NT Gas works, and a (small) amount of riverborne freight arriving at Brentford Dock for the industries in the area and up to the Great West Road. (And a small amount of canal-borne freight, too!)

     Same at Chiswick – small amounts arriving at the Cherry Blossom wharf.

     One issue that may be relevant here is the changing nature of freight. Fifty years ago, long distance road freight was only just beginning to develop (few motorways), there were no centralised logistics centres of the sort we now have, containerisation had yet to appear on a substantial scale, and total volumes (other than house coal) were lower than today. So river traffic WAS more important than today,but only in a much smaller market. If river traffic is to be revived therefore,there would seem to be two questions to be resolved first: (1) how does river fit into today’s logistical changes; (2) what traffics are suitable for movement in this way.

     The answers may not be palatable. With riverside end-users such as NTGB having vanished, river traffic is reduced to being one link in a chain whose final point relies on road, and the implied double handling from container ports and bulk break centres with all that that implies by way of cost.

265. In fairness, the Thames really does see quite a lot of freight traffic. What’s changed is that most of that freight only ever gets as far upriver as Tilbury.

     Cargo ships are a textbook illustration that if quadruple the volume of a ship, you’ll only need to double the power needed to shift it, which is why shipping by sea is still a major part of modern freight logistics. The down-side is that you need ever-bigger and more automated docks to cope with the sheer volumes of freight these ships bring with them, which is part of the reason why London’s historic docks stopped being viable businesses.

266. GH is correct

     In the 1950s, there were stables for barge horses at Brentford Docks. In the early 1950s, the remaining barge (NOT narrow boat) traffic was tugged by motorised ‘go carts as the horses were sent to the knackers. Thames river barges ran up the Grand Union Canal as far as Hayes and ALL of it was delivered to canalside wharfage thus eliminating road traffic completely. This traffic was still fairly intensive timber to Hayes and cereals etc to food processors like Quaker Oats etc in the late 1950s, but was almost completely gone 5 years later, finally being extinguished in about 1966. Working narrow boats which could travel further north up the Grand Union (the last traffics I know of were timber for Croxley Mills paperworks and Roses lime juice for a similar destination) also around 1965. In all cases, road traffic was avoided because an incredibly high number of factories (such as J Lyons and Rockware Glass at Greenford) all had their own canalside wharfage which had initially been the reason for the location of the factory sites.

     NONE of this traffic was lost to the railways. It was all lost to the roads

267. @Graham H
     “Brentford might be the archetypal site, with coking coal arriving at the NT Gas works, and a (small) amount of riverborne freight arriving at Brentford Dock for the industries in the area and up to the Great West Road. (And a small amount of canal-borne freight, too!)”
     Not to mention the transhipment to/from the GWR.
     http://www.sabre-roads.org.uk/maps/index.php?view=51.48171,-0.30577&map=NPEMap&zoom=16&layer=3&markers=51.48081,-0.30501,
     which carried everything from coal, steel, timber, pulp, flour, feedstuffs, cork, Morris cars, Firestone tyres, Quaker oats, and coke (from Southall gasworks, not narcotics!)
     http://www.gwr.org.uk/nobrentford.html

     Quite large sea-going colliers got up the Thames at least as far as Fulham Power station.
     https://www.flickr.com/photos/78104432@N07/8558372198/
     http://www.searlecanada.org/sunderland/images3/hackney1.jpg
     Known as “flatirons” because of their lack of superstructure to allow them to negotiate the bridges, (funnel, mast and in some cases even the wheelhouse were collapsible, as shown here
     http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flatiron_(ship)#/media/File:SS_%27Ewell%27_about_to_pass_under_London_Bridge.jpg )

     they were nevertheless so big that they had to time their trips very carefully to both fit underneath the bridges and avoid grounding on the river bottom – (and possibly breaking into the Bakerloo Line!) – obviously their upstream (laden) trips had to be made near high tide and their downstream (empty) trips near low tide (although ballast could be used to adjust their freeboard when empty).
     https://www.flickr.com/photos/78104432@N07/8558372198/

268. The Upper Pool in 1965
     http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2015/01/30/2527301500000578-0-image-a-37_1422580624448.jpg

     The same view fifty years later
     https://www.google.co.uk/maps/place/London+Bridge/@51.507974,-0.087654,3a,15y,115.17h,91.1t/data=!3m4!1e1!3m2!1svFMmt3AE6OBTYMdRWymJeQ!2e0!4m2!3m1!1s0x4876035159bb13c5:0xa61e28267c3563ac

269. The main river traffic now is non recyclable refuse that is containerised at Waste Transfer Stations (e.g. Smuggler Wharf – Wandsworth (circa 5,000 tonnes /week), Cringle Dock – Battersea, Wallbrook Wharf – Cannon Street and others) then barged down river.
     It used to go to landfill in Essex but now goes to an Energy from Waste facility in Belvedere (72MW power).

270. @timbeau – thanks for that – the stuff you see in 1965 went straight to the adjacent mills. Much of the volume that we had then – especially bulk food raw material (wheat, flour, sugar), scrap metal, and coal has vanished from London altogether. London really has very little industry left now. The freight we consume today – finished products, white goods, office supplies -relies entirely on road for its arrival in London and its movement straight to the end-retailer, often in the same vehicle. Adding in the river to the logistical chain would involve breaking it twice, whereas in 1965 and earlier,the breaks usually occurred at a point (factory,warehouse, shop) where a chain break was inevitable.

     Would – be proponents of river traffic need to demonstrate how the river can be used for today’s traffics -especially above the Barrier, where the opportunities for modal transfer are limited and specialised.

271. @ straphan – with yesterday’s Supreme Court decision on air quality, maybe TfL will need to come up with a plan sooner than later to address all those taxis…

272. Outside my office here on The Highway, I can see a steady stream of tipper trucks, if they could be forced to unload at Wallbrook where a conveyer belt could be installed to take the rubble onto a pontoon where barges can be tied up, that would at least take those off the roads… A set of tugs could then tow them somewhere like Dagenham for unloading.

     Perhaps a similar facility could be provided somewhere around the bridge going into Victoria?

273. Re Reynolds 953,

     Still very surprised how little coverage the ruling has got. (Not sure if it is the big distraction for journalists next Thursday or that most haven’t realised the potential significance?)

     Taxis – Nissan were proposing a petrol based hybrid for their future London Taxi but apparently got annoyed with TfL apparently changing potential rules for the Ultra Low Emission Zone quicker than they could redesign the vehicle so gave up…

     All the recent LTI variants seem to have very powerful engines and accelerate quite well, so I wonder if an engine remap to reduce emissions might be the quickest solution (lots of commercial fleets do this). Unfortunately NO2 is one of the harder emissions to reduce by remapping.
     The transport sector will be in the main recipient of measures to reduce it.
     Swapping to an equivalent petrol vehicle (if available) would produce about half the NO2 emissions.

     Expect lots more hybrid buses!

     It is DEFRA’s problem but DfT and TfL (in London) are the ones who have the main solutions. The question will be who pays.

     The are some NO2 issues around Heathrow (they admit to minor ones) but not around Gatwick.

     It potentially makes a Blackwall Tunnel alternative more viable as the approaches car parks are hot spots.

     Unfortunately big infrastructure projects would probably be deemed to slow to deliver an effect to be able to jump on the bandwagon.

     The main issue with NO2 emissions is that vehicle manufacturers appear to design everything around meeting the EURO6/VI rules rather than real driving (London Buses included).

274. @Southern heights – everything is possible if you chuck enough pelf at it but by and large public bodies opt for the cheapest solution available – and so does the private sector.

     The underlying traffic problem relates to freight-generated kerbside activities such as unloading, messenger services, catering building trades and the like. It is these that delay buses and cyclists – and other traffic. Many of these are extremely difficult to consolidate or retime (how do you coordinate all the plumbers visiting a particular street?) and require the occupants of buildings to be similarly ready to collaborate with the scheme. I was struck yesterday (no, not by a brick or even an election poster) by the response of delivery people to TfL’s “7 Year Olympic delivery plan” – what would be the cost of manning up offices and business 24/7/365 to receive deliveries?

275. @ Graham H I’d have thought much of it in the city centre is going direct to its consumer, not to an intermediate retailer (aside from food, there isn’t that much retail left in the Square Mile). Either way though, the last few miles are inevitably going to be on-road.

     Where this gets interesting with automation & self propelled vehicles is that the size and shape of a typical goods van is dictated as much by its need for a driver as by the shape of the goods themselves (95% of what we get delivered in the office weighs no more than a couple of kilos). If delivery becomes completely automated, is it preferable to deliver small loads with a single van-sized vehicle, or a fleet of something crate-sized? Given the inevitable speed and range limitations on a small autonomous unit (even more acute with Amazon’s proposed airborne delivery drones, though I’m not sure those are any more than a PR stunt), you’d need something fast and full-sized to get it within a few miles of its destination, but that something might be road, river or rail.

     Sounds science-fictiony, sure, but the economic arguments aren’t. Is a person in a Transit the most cost-effective way of delivering a box of pencils or a new computer mouse?

276. On the subject of deliveries, I would be very interested to see inside the vans and lorries coursing through the streets of London. How much do they have in them? I appreciate that for a goods operator it is almost certainly more efficient to load all the drops into one van with driver and have him criss-cross central London to make his drops, but that’s not necessarily the more efficient solution for the city. A similar question comes around HGVs: some might prefer to get rid of them from the city centre, but what would happen? Would six vans take the place of each HGV, making congestion worse?

     The number of goods vehicles on the roads has increased by something like 50% over the last 20 years, which seems to be over and above the increase in population, employment or demand for goods and services.

277. @Hilltopper – I agree that a high percentage of deliveries are direct from producer/wholesaler to end-user but it’s interesting to observe the variety and quantity of “producer-branded” delivery vehicles compared with “consolidator-branded” ones (by which I mean the likes of DHL or 3665. The problem seems to be the many-to-many distribution patterns. Take for example, a specialist cheese producer van I noticed the other day – not only would the cheese merchant wish to ensure that his product (no doubt, widely distributed around the capital’s restaurants) was stored, handled, and delivered in carefully controlled circumstances, but no consolidator would want to maintain specialist handling facilities for such small scale business. Multiply that over many small specialisms and you have a traffic problem.

     No doubt, you are right, and your average cheese broker will one day send out a fleet of auto-boxes or whatever but we are not there yet, and as with Amazon’s drones, the problem of receiving the goods remains or even despatching them precisely enough to the right address.

278. @Hilltopper
     “aside from food, there isn’t that much retail left in the Square Mile”
     You’ve not been to Cheapside recently then?

     @Reynolds 953
     “maybe TfL will need to come up with a plan sooner than later to address all those taxis…”
     It is surprising to me that taxis, whose stop-start work cycle seems admirably suited for hybrid operation, are still all diesel, more than 15 years after hybrid cars became a practical proposition. Indeed, knowing the problems city-based Euro 4 diesel users have with particulate filters failing to recharge without the occasional sustained 50mph run, I wonder how diesel taxis cope at all.

279. Containers arriving on big ships at DP World’s London Gateway could be directly transshipped onto barges for offloading at more central distribution hubs (such as Brentford, indeed) removing both lorry and train transfer.

     Maybe … :-O

280. @AlisonW

     Maybe indeed. This would only cut down on London traffic if the container had goods destined entirely (or mostly) for London (well within M25). Which might be possible, but it could cause difficulties at the loading end. If a substantial fraction of the contents of the container is destined for anywhere else (even Watford, say, let alone Milton Keynes or Dublin), then there would be a Brentford-Watford truck movement instead of a Gateway-Watford (via M25) one. And the warehouse in Brentford would be occupying much more expensive land than the equivalent at London Gateway.

     The Thames through London is actually fairly busy these days, but it’s mainly tourists who are filling it up.

281. Another freight use of the Thames is for large-scale transport construction materials, not least by TfL, who ship(ped) the spoil from the Crossrail eastern tunnels to Wallasea Island by barge. Similarly land is safeguarded in Battersea Park for spoil from the Crossrail 2 tunnels to be shipped out by river.

     @knowing the problems city-based Euro 4 diesel users have with particulate filters failing to recharge without the occasional sustained 50mph run, I wonder how diesel taxis cope at all

     I believe a lot of taxi drivers live quite a long way out of town and use the drive in to “run in” the engine; an occasional non-peak-time trip down the M4 to Heathrow would help too.

282. Every large construction project has to have an assessment of HGV movements submitted as part of its bid to obtain planning permission. I have, on occasion assisted colleagues by looking at alternatives to HGVs – rail or river.

     With rail, you create a ‘consolidation centre’ at a rail freight terminal with good rail connections. Rather than transporting everything by individual lorries, you load a few hundred tonnes of material onto a train, which then makes a once-daily or twice-daily delivery to the construction site. You do something similar for the spoil.

     The trouble is that there are precious few places where you can employ this. In order for this to make sense, the construction site has to be right next to the railway, and next to a spot where you can park a freight train clear of the passenger traffic. And since most construction takes place in central London, using rail makes little sense. Lorries will still be needed for the last mile, and that last mile will be along the most congested streets.

     The same goes for transport by river. You would really need to build a road-to-river transfer terminal right in the centre of London – right where all the tourists stroll around and right where you have all the cafes, Christmas markets, and so on.

283. There are already numerous construction materials sites (cement batching plants) sites by the River, usually they just take delivery of aggregate by barge with cement powder delivery by road to the sites.
     (2 at Wandsworth, 2 at Battersea…)
     There are also cement batching plant with rail delivery of materials (Stewarts Lane and Angerstein)

284. Most of those still need HGVs to transport to the construction site. They do cut lorry miles in inner and outer London, but that still leaves lorries running through the CAZ where the streets are at their narrowest and where we have the most cyclists.

285. AlisonW – Brentford Docks is “stylish, contemporary waterside living” and “residential investment opportunities” these days…

286. If the objection to barging stuff up the river is the double transshipment how far up the Thames could a RORO Barge take Container laden lorries and Vans? This would cut down on cross London traffic for lots of individual deliveries. It could be made free of congestion charge to encourage use.
     What! Crayons! Me!

287. RORO is Roll On, Roll Off, so lorries and vans are driven right on to and off the barge. There are also RORO rail cars, and Eurostar is similarly RORO. For barges and ships, it is indeed a case of RORORO your boat…

288. @RayK:

     If you’re just going from one bank to the other, there’s already a Ro-Ro ferry at Woolwich, known colloquially as the Woolwich Free Ferry. Additional such ferries have been suggested over the years, but nothing has come of this yet.

     If you’re talking about sending vehicles up and down the river and under the bridges, it depends on the size of the barge, the size of the vehicles on it, and the tidal range at each bridge. A Ro-Ro barge or ferry would need a bridge deck that’s high enough to see over the vehicles, so I’m not sure how far such a vessel could get without scraping paint off girders during high tide.

     (Note: The Rhine extensively for freight, particularly through Germany, but that river makes the Thames look like a small woodland stream.)

289. @Anomnibus
     Yes it would need to be carefully looked into. I wonder if it would work for Transit sized vehicles.
     Really the problem (If it is one) has been created by the people who built all those low bridges without foresight.
     Why are bridge decks at the back of vessels? Is it one of those historical things such as to be near the rudder? Surely technology could supply a solution.

290. RayK: Nothing prevents the steering hut from being on the side, some CCTV cameras could be used to cover the opposite side.

     One problem I foresee is the good old “elf and safetea”, if you’re over in the Netherlands ever, go on a vehicular ferry sometime, then compare it to the Woolwich Ferry….

291. Long Branch Mike,

     RORORO is something quite different. This is the design of the former Townsend Thoresen Cross Channel Car Ferries. Roll on, roll off, roll over.

     Feel free to delete if considered in too bad taste.

292. @LBM

     Eurostar would not be considered RORO as it is a conventional high speed passenger railway. Eurotunnel are the RORO operator from Folkestone (Cheriton) to Calais (Fretun). They have two types of trains, one for cars and coaches, and one for Heavy Goods Vehicles (HGVs). On the former drivers and passengers remain with their vehicles throughout the journey whereas on the latter drivers sit in a separate cabin which constitutes a legal break in their driving time.

293. @James Bunting. Yes, and one could add another reason for separating out the LGVs (Large Goods Vehicles) (the replacement term these days). They tend to go on fire rather more often. (They can also be a bit bigger and still fit in, being only surrounded by a sort of wire mesh thing, rather than a train body).

     For a break to count as a break (in driving hours terms) the driver must be free to leave the cab – so having to sit there while being unloaded is not a break, but it can be a break even if the driver doesn’t leave the cab, provided that he or she could have done. But if something else, such as the rules of Le Shuttle, or of a ferry, obliges leaving the cab, then it can be a break. Clear?

294. Barges and Ferries.

     This has come up before can’t remember which thread circa 18 months ago?

     PLA Hydrographic charts
     http://www.pla.co.uk/Safety/PLA-Hydrographic-Service-Published-Surveys

     (don’t attempt to open unless you have decent internet connection and modern machine!)

     The depth at low tide is marked on the charts to the nearest 10cm it should be noted that you suddenly lose a lot depth (circa 2m) in the Upper Pool half way between HMS Belfast and the old London Bridge, this has been known for at least 2,000 years…

     Concord was a very big pain take downstream (from Isleworth) and took several days
     http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/3597301.stm

295. @ Alison W etc

     Rail access was removed from Brentford Docks many years ago, the rail bridge across the A4 was removed a.s.a.p. thereafter, and rail re-instatement south of Brentford “Waste Transfer Station” would now be nigh on impossible

296. Just to show how much thinking about tube capacity / services has moved on in 25 years here is an old Thames News clip from 1989 about LRT having to use fares to price off demand because there were no other practical options available to them at the time. How times have changed. Also features the refurbished Picc Circus Station.

     https://youtu.be/V3a8bEyxZTE

297. @ W W

     I’m not sure there was actual “thinking” back in the 60s, 70s, & 80s. There was an obedience to a political dogma. This was sometimes in opposition to any long term planning or “thinking”

298. And for those with access to BBC iPlayer for a number of days yet, compare WW’s clip with this 60 mins-worth of sometimes annoying/sometimes refreshing* analysis of the situation today:

     Nick and Margaret: The Trouble with Our Trains:

     http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b05sz83j/nick-and-margaret-the-trouble-with-our-trains

     Southern (South East) and Virgin feature, amongst others but not the tube as such but the same problems are considered.

     * When I use the term “refreshing”, I use it as an element of surprise, in that what most of us know anyway at least is getting a public airing.

299. ………..in fact, I would add to last night’s comment about “thinking’, that back in those days, anyone capable of ‘free thinking’ or, ‘thinking outside the box’ was discouraged, and often moved away from the cosy comfort zone. Gerry Fiennes immediately comes to mind. Robert Adley MP who called for an integrated transport system was treated similarly.

300. @ Castlebar – I haven’t posted all the Thames News links I looked at yesterday as I didn’t want to drown the blog with links. One thing that is striking, if only by way of a reminder of times past, is the endless stream of problems with the trains and tubes and repeated calls for extra funding. Those calls came not only from LRT / BR but also the London Chamber of Commerce, City of London, tourist board etc. It’s interesting to see that consensus forming and yet the politicians of the time being, as you say, tied very strongly to dogma. There’s a clip of Cecil Parkinson speaking at a Tory Party conference basically saying everything’s OK although fare subsidy is evil and even the loyal Tory audience look disbelieving – presumably as a result of their commuting experience with BR. There’s also a clip with the then Tory MP for Streatham claiming he’d got the SoS’s attention about a tube line to Streatham and Croydon. That’s still not materialised and even Mr Umunna has been making the same demands.

     We now have the opposite problem which is a belief in “infrastructure” spending but no acceptance of the need for appropriate funding to support comprehensive service levels to get the best out of improved infrastructure / stop growth in car usage. London seems to have largely got out of the trap it was in in the 1990s but the rest of the country hasn’t escaped. The Northern / Transpennine Express franchise awards and what eventually gets funded will be an interesting test of where the next government’s priorities lie. It’s a funny old world we inhabit when it comes to public transport matters.

301. W W< Yes, spot on

     One of the main differences is the disappearance of labour intensive jobs such as guards and platform staff. One party who shall remain nameless, always blamed the unions for the problems. That excuse is no longer available to them. There was always a reluctance to spend money, but that also meant that there was a reluctance to invest any too. COUNTLESS opportunities have been missed because of it. Your one example of the MP who suggested the Streatham – Croydon line would ALWAYS have been politely listened to, – then filed away for ever. I can think of a few others, and most are now irretrievably lost.

302. Forgive me if this is a stupid question, but does this line:
     Crossrail 1 HEX merger & serve LHR T5
     mean that there’s an aspiration for TfL to take over the Heathrow Express?

303. @ Sakhr – I have never seen any statement that TfL aspires to take over / supplant the Heathrow Express. Given that Heathrow Express is not a franchised TOC and is a profitable operation there is no basis on which TfL could replace the service. The introduction of Crossrail services *may* mean some people transfer to the slower Crossrail service if it gives them a more convenient services by removing the need to change trains at Paddington (and possibly elsewhere).

     Some politicians have asked whether Crossrail will serve T5 directly. At present it will not do so because the number of paths / destinations are fixed. I also understand that Heathrow Airport (who own and run Heathrow Express) have running rights for HEX until at least 2023 because of the need to earn revenue to pay off the costs of building the rail link into Heathrow. Those rights cannot be supplanted by Crossrail – I believe there is either legislation or an agreement that covers this. I can’t see there is any great merit for Heathrow Airport to loosen their grip on access to Heathrow and Crossrail passengers for T5 will have to change trains at T123. AIUI the fares to be charged on Crossrail to Heathrow can’t be the same as for the tube – they will have to be higher (as Heathrow Connect is) to pay for the access charges to use the HAL tunnels. A long time ago some kind person provided a link on the LR blog to an agreement about the fares issues for Crossrail to Heathrow but I’ve never been able to find it again despite many searches for it. Happy to be corrected if anyone knows more / can point to definitive sources.

304. The London and SE RUS of 2011 first proposed Crossrail taking over HEx, with a total of 10 tph to Heathrow, when the HEx track access contract ends in 2023.

     How much traffic transfers from HEx to Crossrail will presumably guide Heathrow’s view on whether to give up or fight to extend their track access…

305. @ Sakhr/WW
     Paul is correct about the LRS RUS reference. Also, in the London 2050 Transport Supporting Paper, the f0llowing statement is made on page 140, in the scheme tables: “Crossrail 1 – HEx merger and serves T5: 2030, 5m pax, £20 million to upgrade relief lines. Assume 5 extra rolling stock required, £65m. Improves connectivity of Crossrail network and access to Heathrow. Could enable 6tph semi-fast service to T5, 50 per cent more on this route. Case based on maximising benefits of the Crossrail infrastructure.” It is a priority 1 scheme.

     Presumably the 10 tph would be the suggested 6 tph semi-fast plus the existing Crossrail proposal for 4 tph to T4. The benefits are not restricted to Crossrail. Removal of 4 tph Express at peak times from the fast lines would enable those slots to be used more beneficially by longer distance InterCity and outer suburban trains. Preserving Express slots only benefits the 5m airport passengers then travelling via Express – a reduction of effective line capacity in the same way that Gatwick Express is not the best capacity use of BML. In the offpeak there are other complications in running a modified HEx via the relief lines, because of the requirement for freight train slots through Acton and west. The LSE RUS considered an option for the offpeak still to run on the fast lines.

306. TfL have published an approval paper for the next stage of the procurement process for extra tube stock on Northern and Jubilee Lines. It sets out numbers and options for additional stock and talks about Northern Line Upgrade 2.

     https://tfl.gov.uk/cdn/static/cms/documents/fpc-20150730-part-1-item12-jnl.pdf

307. TfL have launched a consultation on proposals to expand capacity at Camden Town station. A link to a presentation showing some of the detail is on the main consultation page.

     https://consultations.tfl.gov.uk/tube/camden-town-station-upgrade

308. I reckon that the Camden upgrade is in the JFDI category!

309. I still don’t understand why consultation needs to take 2 to 3 years. It is does not take that long to collate some questionnaires.

310. JFDI – A common IT and software term meaning just get it done

311. @ Rational Plan – I’m not sure what legislation triggered the consultation requirement but there is clearly a need (or several) to demonstrate that specific interest groups / minorities / issues are fully and properly identified and shared with the public and for the public to have the opportunity to respond. A scheme like Silvertown is of sufficient scale that it may well iterate as the design develops and the impacts from construction and the final scheme may well change. Therefore each stage has to be consulted upon to try to avoid later challenges (legal or otherwise).

     With Camden Town there is an unfortunate history and LU will be determined not to end up in a similar situation again. I imagine a great deal of work has gone on in the background before anything has emerged for the public to look at. I think the design has certainly changed since LU last made a presentation to Camden Council on Camden Town and Holborn. I agree it seems tiresome to go through so many stages but it is usually very sensible to invest time and effort to get all the planning and design right so as to avoid nightmares later on.

312. Hmm, I still think it could be done so much quicker. I am suspicious and suspect some form of consultancy bloat. Plus it takes so long between each round of consultation, Up to year for each round, where often there are minimal changes each stage. It’s not so so much the gathering of information at each stage, but the many many months it all seems to sit within each department.

     I’m sure it could be done much more quickly and cheaply.

313. @Rational Plan

     Do you have any facts to back up your suspicions?

     As WW stated, there is an incredible amount of work done behind the scenes before, during, and after the consultations, not to mention the informal discussions with impacted and possibly impacted parties. Changing one variable due to consultation results involves contacting every affected agency and company to determine the best way forward. Given the complexity, magnitude and history of this issue, they are doing their best to proceed slowly and carefully, building consensus with affected groups. No group or agency likes to be rushed, and it takes time for groups and agencies to digest changes and debate them internally, then to feedback their concerns to TfL. Then TfL develops a revised plan that attempts to address the stated concerns.

314. Rational Plan,

     Consultation includes negotiations with landowners and other interested parties such as utility providers. This takes time.

     The last page of the documents mentioned that further design is necessary. An underground station involves an awful lot of detailed design work which must be done before submitting a Transport and Works Act (TWA) application in case it impacts on that. Rushing the design and getting it wrong means a project nearly always takes longer than getting it right in the first place.

     The TWA application is due in 2017 to possibly only 18 months away. You can’t really unilaterally speed up what happens after that. So I would say they are not exactly dawdling.

     I don’t think it could have been started much sooner because the team that does this was working on Bank. Moreover they wanted to see how that progressed and what issues there might be before committing publicly to Camden Town. After all, getting two bites of the cherry is not something you always get and if the scheme was rejected again it would be pretty devastating for LU and TfL. I am sure they are anxious to avoid a repeat of SSR resignalling . As the original Lady Bracknell would say: “to have the scheme rejected twice looks like carelessness”.

315. Rational Plan
     Err…
     “Consultation” can mean many things.
     Round here, it can ( not always) mean – “Here are our plans, we’ll consult you, note your screams of protest & then do it anyway”
     Do you/we really want to do that? Or, maybe, change the plans (if not scrap them) because someone has better ideas ….

316. This scheme does seem to satisfy the requirements of the previous public inquiry. Demolition of Hawley Infant School was not an option at the time.

     I am a little disappointed that there is no proposed CPI underground, but that would have been very expensive. We do see more cross-passages, however.

317. @WW
     ” I agree it seems tiresome to go through so many stages but it is usually very sensible to invest time and effort to get all the planning and design right so as to avoid nightmares later on.”

     Indeed – a new road bypassing my home town has been put back nearly two years because the planning inspector was not content with the sightlines on one cycle path, resulting in the whole project having to be resubmitted and a new inquiry held. Of course the delay puts the whole project at risk because any government funding was based on the original timescale and will now have to be re-applied for.

318. timbeau,

     And of course you risk losing out. But it sends a clear message to get it right before submitting. Normally specific inadequacies can be addressed without having to resubmit the whole scheme (e.g. Thameslink) so it is surprising here unless it resulted in a complete overhaul of the entire scheme.

     If you want to see what happens when you try and second guess planning decisions and don’t do things thoroughly and in the correct order then read what happened at Plumpton.

319. Ian J,

     Demolition of Hawley Infant School was not an option at the time

     To be really picky, surely it was? Obviously it is easier to do now because the school is being relocated anyway (but I do wonder if Camden Council were thinking of the tube station when coming to this decision).

     Hindsight being a wonderful thing, maybe we could have had this back in 2004. So long as a school isn’t moved too far I would have thought it would have been an ideal institution that could be bribed be persuaded of the advantages of moving with new purpose-designed buildings and a more appropriate site. Another advantages of moving an infants school is that existing parents probably won’t care as it will be so far in the future and future parents may not even be parents yet.

     I bet this was completely overlooked. There is a precedent as Drew Primary School in Silvertown was relocated to enable the DLR to be built.

320. @PoP
     Off topic I know, but the Plumpton level crossing saga that you mentioned looks to be part of NR’s headlong rush to eliminate all level crossings as “inherently dangerous”, following the Elsenham tragedy, without considering that in may cases the former users of the crossing will be exposed to greater danger somewhere else (but of course not NR’s problem). Google “Mexico Inn Long Rock” for a particularly egregious example.

     The bypass I cited is reported here.
     http://thelincolnite.co.uk/2014/07/lincoln-eastern-bypass-rejected-public-inquiry/
     The original plan was rejected in mid-2014.
     “The outstanding concern from DfT is regarding the safety of cyclists using the replacement bridge proposed, due to the distance and visibility of the cycleway where it joins Hawthorn Road, which would need improvements.”

     The second inquiry into those improvements has now been held, but has yet to report. Until then, the whole project is on hold.

     But the outcome with any planning system, and Camden Town is a typical example of this, is that the developers can always try again if they lose. The objectors don’t have that luxury.

321. @PoP; Timbeau – re:Plumpton
     Reading the Risk Assessment at
     http://padocs.lewes.gov.uk/AniteIM.WebSearch/Results.aspx?grdResultsP=4
     NR’s statement in PoP’s link
     “independent risk assessments conducted for Network Rail over the last few years had identified that the level crossing posed a high safety risk”
     seems disingenuous to say the least.

     Returning to Camden Town. In view of (should the go-ahead be given to the latest plans) the time line (work starting 2019, completion 2024) and the necessity of closures of Camden Town at some points during the works, might it not be prudent to re-open South Kentish Town (at least before the Camden Town upgrade begins and for the duration of the works) and examine the need for any improvements at Mornington Crescent and Chalk Farm, despite TfLs comments in 2011? –
     http://www.camdennewjournal.com/news/2011/may/kentish-town-south-tube-station-set-reopen

322. @JohnUK
     “might it not be prudent to re-open South Kentish Town (at least before the Camden Town upgrade begins ”
     I very much doubt that a station that has been closed for over 90 years can be brought up to modern standards within four years. For comparison, Lea Bridge is taking three years from approval to reopening, and that is a surface station – and has only been closed for thirty years.

323. @timbeau – 13 October 2015 at 13:28

     Hmmm…. Victoria LT Upgrade is taking five years for Northern Ticket Hall, and a further three for the Southern Ticket Hall extension: a vastly bigger project than either re-opening South Kentish Town or re-building Lea Bridge.

     Perhaps “where there’s a will there’s a way”?

324. John U K

     Well you would need to submit a Transport and Works Act Order which will probably result in a public inquiry so not much chance of getting it done before Camden Town!

     You can’t just “reopen”. You need to install lifts or escalators etc. It would need to be disabled accessible. Even stopping a train on a 24tph frequency in both direction means you probably need an extra train. This is the short version.

     More to the point if you look at the consultation document it would appear that nothing is being done that would disrupt existing travel – the same as on the Victoria line at Victoria. So why would you need to even consider such a thing?

325. timbeau,

     But the outcome with any planning system, and Camden Town is a typical example of this, is that the developers can always try again if they lose. The objectors don’t have that luxury.

     A further thought.

     That is true and is also true for referendums/referenda and a lot of other decisions. However I don’t think it is as one sided as all that.

     If a scheme is fundamentally flawed you have to start again. If it has minor flaw then that flaw has to be rectified and is potentially also subject to the same scrutiny as the original scheme. This seems only reasonable. An alternative is that an inspector can approve with conditions to ensure unsatisfactory features are removed.

     If a similar scheme is put forward to a rejected scheme then the rejected scheme is taken into consideration and the similar scheme will be likely to also be rejected unless something substantial, such as planning guidelines, has changed in the meantime. So it is not simply a case of developers keep putting in the same or similar schemes until one gets through.

     Surely Camden Town tube station is a classic example where the objectors win? The original scheme was rejected. A completely different scheme has been put forward that will probably satisfy the objectors of the original scheme. As far as I can tell there is nothing in the current scheme that would be hindered by the reasons the original scheme was rejected. Arguably, this is the planning process at its best to ultimately produce the most satisfactory result possible for all parties.

326. @PoP

     I went back through my research on Camden, so a couple of points.

     I bet [the possibility of moving Hawley Infant School] was completely overlooked.

     I am sure you are right. Note this from the inspector’s report and come to your own conclusion:

     The proposals would potentially threaten the existence of Hawley School which is an
     oasis in Camden Town. Whilst the effects of building works are normally dealt with
     by condition, this scheme is a different proposition. The excavation and disposal of
     300,000 cubic tonnes of spoil would create persistent noise at the school for several
     years and is likely to jeopardise the schooling of two or three cohorts of children. The
     building would also restrict light to the school and playground. The viability of the
     school could be threatened if parents choose not to send their children there. Whilst agreement could be reached on working hours, pile driving at weekends and holidays,
     things could change. Contractors might not be so flexible. If delays transpire there
     could be pressure to extend working hours. This has happened at the Kings Cross
     development but has been resisted. A lesser scheme would lead to issues surrounding
     Hawley School falling away.

     It has to be noted that the previous scheme was very much about developing the land above the triangle of land between the current station and Buck Street, which was where the objections came from.

     A completely different scheme has been put forward that will probably satisfy the objectors of the original scheme.

     I hope so, but, contrary to what I said before, I’m not sure. Given the size of work sites we’ve seen for the building of Crossrail, I’m not sure that Hawley Infant School would provide a sufficiently large work site – leading inevitably to the temporary loss of the market if I am right. The inspector wasn’t opposed to that, but I can’t see the market traders being happy about having to move to a temporary site for years.

     The one point I should have made earlier was that the original scheme – quite incredibly – made no improvements to the passages between the northbound and the southbound tunnels. That would have meant that work underground would have been needed for separation of traffic – as it is now.

     For those who haven’t seen it, the background is on my blog. I came to a different conclusion, but it still may help people to understand why the issue wasn’t solved after the last proposal.

327. Just to note that I’ll have a proper Camden Town piece up in a couple of hours. So if we could avoid continuing discussion of it here for now that would be good. Saves comments getting repeated!

328. North Greenwich Underground and Bus Station to be rebuilt as part of the ‘Peninsula regeneration’

     “The development will create 13,000 new homes and more than 12,000 new jobs. The decision, subject to agreement by the Mayor of London, gives the go-ahead for:
     13,000 new homes, bringing a total of nearly 16,000 new homes, of which almost 4,000 are affordable, to the Peninsula
     the demolition and complete rebuild of the North Greenwich tube and bus station allowing for more bus capacity
     a new 40,000-square-metre film studio creating 1,500 new jobs
     60,000 square metres of new business space
     24,000 square metres of new retail/food/drink space
     one or potentially two new hotels
     two new schools (one primary, one ‘through school’)
     a new 20,000-square-metre visitor attraction
     a new ferry jetty terminal
     a new 5-kilometre running track around the whole site
     new healthcare facility
     the expansion of Ravensbourne.”

     http://www.royalgreenwich.gov.uk/news/article/531/londons_biggest_development_at_greenwich_peninsula_approved

329. This is the point at which they need to consider running a DLR line through the area and across to Canary Wharf!

330. @Deltic – thanks for heads up. Reading the planning papers that went before councillors shows that the transport aspects are in a shocking state (IMO, of course). Putting to one side the typos and dreadful punctuation in the official papers it seems that TfL haven’t agreed or signed off any of the transport demand / impact modelling. They appear to disbelieve the developer’s assessment that impacts on the Jubilee Line will be negligible [1] although bus services will be very heavily used but no one’s sure why. The bus station design isn’t agreed and there’s a load of uncertainty about how bus services will be improved. There are also issues with the highway aspects plus a need to protect the Blackwall Tunnel’s infrastructure and the potential Silvertown crossing. Quite how such a mess was signed off on the basis of “it’ll be sorted out later” I know not. I dare say our resident readers who work in local authorities will say this is all entirely normal but it looks poor from where I’m sitting.

     Bizarrely Greenwich Council are sitting on £1.7m which is S106 money for better bus services. Err hello – hand it over to TfL so chronically overloaded services can actually be improved or new links started from areas that have been demanding them for years!

     [1] this from a scheme of 26,000 new homes and 13,000 new jobs. Impact negligible? – sure!

331. New LU presentation on the project to procure extra trains for the Jubilee and Northern Lines. From the Feb 2016 Rail and Underground Panel meeting.

332. New LU presentation on New Tube for London signalling and train control procurement process.

333. Fascinating to see the Northern line train order is at threat from budget cuts – I’m sure the residents of Clapham and Kentish Town will be delighted to hear they can possibly look forward to decades more of not being able to board a train.

334. @WW: Thanks for that.

     Threatening the Northern Line order is quite an effective way for LUL Rail and Underground to exert pressure on TfL’s budget planning process, and for TfL to put pressure on the new Mayor (indeed, on the election campaign). But would any train builder be interested in building just 10 trains for the Jubilee? Not much prospect of follow up business with the New Tube for London round the corner.

     Meanwhile the Piccadilly Line signalling presentation introduces a new piece of jargon. The signalling will “provide flexibility in the deployment of specific systems to support GoA4 operations” – GoA4 being Grade of Automation 4, AKA UTO (Unattended Train Operation), or as the Evening Standard would put it, “DRIVERLESS TRAINS”.

335. Meanwhile could you please not comment further on the two latest Underground and Rail Panel updates and I will try and do a quick article on it in the next day or so.

336. Does TFL pay Corporation Tax?

337. @Tiger Tanaka – not if they are continuing to make trading losses. (LRT had accumulated enough by the timeof their transmogrification to endow TfL for many years).

338. The National Infrastructure Commission reports on London’s transport schemes have been published. The main headline seems to be “Crossrail 2 is wonderful and should be the priority scheme”.

     https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/transport-for-a-world-city-a-national-infrastructure-commission-report

     There is a lot to get through so I have just skimmed the main recommendations which are largely centred on making CR2 happen. Given Lord Adonis’s known political preferences no one will be astonished at the recommendations and they’re clearly framed within the current Mayor / Government’s parameters.

     With the usual note of caution that applies to a “skim read” I am fearful that concentrating on CR2 simply skews TfL’s investment priorities and that essential tube upgrades may slip down the list. Interestingly the report also suggests possibly delaying the New Southgate branch of CR2 and also reviewing the number of Central London stations in order to reduce costs / improve affordability. I assume this is because there is not the same development / funding contribution potential as on the WAML branch. I can’t see Haringey Council being delighted by a potential delay to the New S’Gate branch.

339. Re WW,

     Delaying New Southgate would make sense from a cash flow point of view if TfL is responsible for raising part of the money from annual contributions.
     CR2 is about 1.5+ times the size of work as CR1 so delaying New Southgate slightly would make the scheme more manageable and have the the advantage of providing employment to the workforce for longer and reduce the scale of construction equipment requirements given HS2 will also be going on.

340. Operationally, having only one branch in the north increases the possibility of a single point of failure – a freight train breakdown in the Lea Valley could shut down half of SW London’s rail services.
     Thameslink has this problem (to be fixed, thirty years late, by the Canal Tunnels and Wilberforce Junction)

     And where will the turnback be for the trains which would have gone to New Southgate? – equivalent to Paddington on CR1.

341. Nice to see support for Crossrail 2, though the big (or only) surprise of the report is the NIC hitting peak crayon in one throwaway paragraph:

     “Options here include the possible addition of an eastern branch to Crossrail 2, and an extension of the Docklands Light Railway westwards from Bank to Euston. A southward extension of the Moorgate City Line to Cannon Street and Waterloo or connection between the Lea Valley, Stratford, the Isle of Dogs and Brighton Main line could also address the infrastructure gaps (both possible ‘third Crossrail’ schemes).”

     [General Note – Please remove the line feeds when copy and pasting texts, for better readability. Thanks. LBM]

342. WAGN,

     It is worrying when they do that and it tends to diminish the status of the rest of the report.

     An eastern branch to Crossrail 2 in addition to what is currently planned merely dilutes what you have.

     DLR to Euston is probably possible but dismissed in the past as not the best way of spending money – lots of infrastructure cost but you can still only run 3-car trains.

     A southward extension of “the Moorgate City line” to Cannon Street makes a northern extension of the Waterloo & City look quite sensible – a small matter of a giant Crossrail station in the way at precisely the wrong level I believe.

     The Brighton line extension to Canary Wharf etc might be sensible but it is early days.

343. @WAGN – yes. it just shows up the amateurism of the NIC – even before the CrossRail station, the Met’s 1913 Act to link the Drain and the Northern City required a double S-bend (in three dimensions!) with 1 in 20 gradients. You would think the NIC might just have done some basic research before shooting their mouth off. Something else for the WPB…

344. @ Graham H – oh ho ho ho. Still they did employ someone from Google whose expertise is Artificial Intelligence on the Commission so that’s alright then!

345. Re Graham and WW,

     I’m being more charitable:
     The golden rule of project appraisal:
     “always benchmark your preferred scheme against a bonkers strawman,”
     that way it is guaranteed to look good!!!

346. @Graham H

     You’ve stumped me once again with WPB. War Propaganda Bureau? Workers Party of Belgium?

347. @ngh – yes – what in my day in the Department was called the three card trick. What fun we had setting fire to the strawmen before turning to the main course…

348. Even if there wasn’t a Crossrail station in the way, wouldn’t the same caveat about short trains apply to turning the Northern City Line into a crossrail? The current platforms are only 6 cars long as I understand it.

349. “Waste Paper Basket.”
     Illustrating once again that we are “two great nations separated by a common language” – to quote Oscar Wilde, or was it Bernard Shaw?

     Apparently across the Pond you would call it a wastebasket, which judging by the contents of mine (mainly teabags and dead ink cartridges rather than paper) is rather more accurate.

350. @John Elliott
     “wouldn’t the same caveat about short trains apply to turning the Northern City Line into a crossrail”
     If you have a budget that can move a Crossrail station out of the way (not to mention the Lord Mayor’s residence and the River Thames), extending the platforms at Essex Road etc is small change!
     Adonis is, in any case a mythical character, isn’t he?
     http://www.greekmythology.com/Other_Gods/Minor_Gods/Adonis/adonis.html
     He may therefore have supernatural powers.

351. @ LBM – Waste Paper Bin or “File 13” or “Circular Filing Cabinet” (the latter two being terms I’ve used or heard being used).

     @ Ngh – you’re too kind to people. 😉

     @ Graham H 1629 – you are making me chuckle again.

352. @LBM – I quite like the idea of the Workers Party of Belgium although given the politics of the place, there would be entirely separate and mutually hostile Flemish and Walloon entities (not to mention the Christian and socialist versions of each, too). [Just for amusement, a friend reported from lunching the Chairman of SNCB that amongst the unions, he thought the worst were the Christian ones]. Do you have these delights in Canada?

353. @Graham H

     We do indeed have such delights in Canada, incorporating British, French and American political traditions. Now I shall censure myself lest I lead people astray. LBM

354. What a depressing read, in intellectual terms, is the NIC report. They clearly started with Crossrail 2 as the answer and then sought to justify it. Great for TfL as a mechanism to make progress on Crossrail 2 but it really undermines the credibility and purpose of the NIC. It also means that all their recommendations in the future just become political issues again – a bit like the Davies Commission recommendation on Heathrow.

355. @LBM
     WPB aka Wagger Pagger Bagger
     https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/wagger-pagger-bagger

356. For all the earnest condescension on this thread, the more interesting part of the report is about funding. Specifically, the recommendations that:

     – Crossrail 2 should get central government funding but London should pay more than half, and the additional housing should be agreed upfront before the bill is submitted to Parliament – ie. the GLA can’t get government money on the promise of building more housing and then wriggle out of it later. “Significant changes to planning policy” are anticipated, and it specifically stresses the need to get local authorities outside London to agree on new housing, and notes that 10% of the new housing expected will be built on land released from the Green Belt. The key thing is that all this has to be agreed in the next year or so. That is pretty severe pressure being applied on the GLA and surrounding local authorities.

     – New East London river crossings and the Bakerloo extension shouldn’t get central government funding – the GLA should pursue “alternative financing” that “build[s] on the precedents from the Silvertown Crossing and Northern line extension” – ie. it’s developer contributions/fares revenue or nothing for the Bakerloo, and toll revenue or nothing for East London bridges.

     – “More work should also be done on the costs and benefits of individual central London stations” is code for “is Chelsea really worth it?”: they note “Although this station would provide improved access to an area which has not previously had good Underground connections compared to other inner London areas, a stop on the Kings Road does not provide the strategic interchange or crowding relief provided by other stations”

     – An Eastern branch to Hackney would be instead of, not as well as, the New Southgate branch – “If construction of the north-western branch is delayed, this would also provide the opportunity to consider the case for an eastern branch from Hackney as an alternative.”

     The paragraph WAGN quoted that has caused such derision is not actually in the NIC report at all – it is in the supporting document Review of the case for Large scale Transport Investment in London: A Report for the National Infrastructure Commission. Critical word here is “for”: it is not the NIC saying it, it is their consultants Steer Davies Greave et al.

     Moral of the story: do read reports before filing them in the circular filing cabinet. You might learn something.

357. @Ian J – well let’s turn our fire on SDG then…

358. @ Ian J – I am still working my way through the reports so the usual caveats apply. Taking your comment about the “tied in” housing before CR2 funding is agreed then there’s not a cat in hell’s chance of that happening within a year. Look at the ongoing mess / risk of collapse of the Meridian Water scheme. I also cannot see how 10% of the Green Belt being built is going to happen either. Cue massive local campaigns against a blade of grass being built on. The Tory Mayoral Candidate has also explicitly ruled out building on the Green Belt so he’s at odds with the report before we start. And as for authorities outside London being required to agree to something to help London well dream on unless they get some bunce themselves. It looks here that there’s more than one agenda being peddled – planning reform, mass private sector involvement etc etc. I thought this was supposed to be about *transport*? And yes I know the world has changed blah blah blah but really.

     And leaping to your final point about whose report is this then it is surely down to the NIC to make it crystal clear whose report is whose? I am surprised that SDG are so badly briefed / unaware that their rampant box of crayons come up with ideas that are physically impossible to achieve never mind finding the money for them. Further I am surprised that no one in the NIC saw fit to apply some judicious editing.

     One thing that I do find interesting is the 2031 crowding map (towards the end of the Transport for a World City report). It shows horrendous conditions on the Jubilee Line and on CR1 / Central Line in East London. Oddly CR1 doesn’t appear to be that crowded west of Ealing Broadway and certainly not east of there. Will commuters still get off Crossrail / FGW trains at E Bdwy to take the tube? Seems strange. There is also a palpable lack of crowding in South / South East London on main line services although Tramlink appears to be a future crowding disaster zone on the New Addington line. In terms of new infrastructure the map has the Croxley link, NL Extension and Crossrail 1 but not the GOBLIN to Barking Riverside. I assume this is because there are no powers (yet) to build the latter link. While C2C is shown as crowded I expect the colours would be rather different if the Barking Riverside extension was extant.

359. @WW:there’s not a cat in hell’s chance of that happening within a year

     Not if it were left to local councils, but there is a chance of Development Corporations begin set up within a year (at which point the councils’ opinions become irrelevant).

     10% of the Green Belt being built

     10% of the housing on Green Belt sites is not the same thing as 10% of the Green Belt being built on.

     as for authorities outside London being required to agree to something to help London well dream on unless they get some bunce themselves

     They get the freed up capacity on the main lines. No agreement = no more capacity = lots of irate commuters in Hertford, Basingstoke, etc etc. The local councils weren’t expecting to get something for nothing, were they?

     The Tory Mayoral Candidate has also explicitly ruled out building on the Green Belt

     It would be an interesting question to all Mayoral candidates: “would you still back Crossrail 2 if it meant building on bits of Green Belt”?

     I thought this was supposed to be about *transport*?

     The NIC’s agenda is about far more than transport, though – it is really about encouraging economic growth and dealing with a rising population. Transport is just a means to an end for that.

     My reading of the report is that it forms the basis of a deal that Osborne could offer the new Mayor and local councils. It’s not a million miles away from the various “city deals” he has done with Northern cities. It would include difficult medicine for various people to take, but, to paraphrase another hardnosed politician in another country, never stand between a local politician and a bucketful of money.

     it is surely down to the NIC to make it crystal clear whose report is whose

     The cover and title of the report makes it pretty clear. I’m not sure what else they can do. Unless the deliberate plan was to distract people with a single paragraph of rampant crayonism (not unlike bits of TfL’s 2050 report).

     In any case, it would not be physically impossible to achieve what they propose, it would just require a starting to dig down a long way north of Moorgate and surfacing somewhere south of the river (this is not to say such a tunnel would be desirable or an invitation to others to start designing it… It’s a conceptual report about the big picture.)

360. @Ian J – Setting up a development corporation within a year would require primary legislation to be passed and implemented first – done within a year? No.

     Is extra rail capacity something that local authorities would trade against building in the green belt? No – and I write as someone who who is in constant touch with local county and district councillors on planning issues (particularlyon the green belt). In fact, not even the “bribe” of keeping part of any additional business rate income as part of such a deal has moved them. Down here in Surrey, extra rail capacity is – and this will shock more sensitive souls – well down the list of priorities.

     It is naive to think that the “short title” of the cover of a report absolves the sponsors from any responsibility for the contents – try telling that to a PhD student,for example. Or a journalist. At the very least, the whole incident suggests that NIC don’t have any professional staff capable of handling consultants.

361. @Graham H
     The 1980 Local Government, Planning and Land Act allows the Secretary of State to establish new urban development corporations using secondary legislation, so it would be possible, technically, to establish a new UDC within a year. It would, though, be a pretty fraught business, with risks of opposition on several fronts unless neatly squared off in advance (as most new UDCs achieve).

362. @quinlet – it was the preparation element that I had in mind. I would also be very cautious that the 1980 Act can be interpreted as a universal laisser passer for all manner of UDCs in all manner of circumstances; it’s very noticeable that where corporations have actually been established over the heads of local authorities, there has been a separate piece of primary legislation because… …. the risks of JRing are enormous,and the modalities to be sorted – finance, extent, detailed remits, and so on – need to be clear in advance of deposit. And you still have to get the Order through Parliament.

363. @WW – “the 2031 crowding map … shows horrendous conditions on the Jubilee Line and on CR1 / Central Line in East London” – while the map shows over-crowding, the map shows other lines as being far worse, including most of the Northern Line and Victoria Line. I find the colour coding is confusing – purple being more crowded than black is counter-intuitive.

364. Re WW,

     I had also noticed the lack of crowding in south london which doesn’t match present reality let alone in 15 years time.

     There are lots of direction arrows on the map which seem to indicate the direction the colour coded crowding level relates to, having some of the arrows pointing out of London for the am peak means crowding is hidden.

     Hence no apparent crowding at Streatham Hill as the arrow is pointing out but current users stuggle to board going in…

     This is repeated across SN SE and TL but to lesser extent on SW.

     The map isn’t worth the ink used to print it!

365. @ngh
     The arrows also seem to suggest that the peak flow is to, rather than from, Chessington, and from Kingston to Teddington , and the “wrong way” round the Wimbledon Loop. Observation would suggest the opposite.

366. Re timbeau,

     Indeed those were my SW oddities.

     CR1 appears to disappear between Ealing and Paddington hence no over crowding.

     3pax / m^2 standing leaving Brixton towards Victoria which suddenly disappears. The arrows go out on most SE lines towards Dartford and Hayes.

     Peak traffic heading towards Tattenham Corner, Caterham, Uckfield, East Grinstead, Brighton???

     It is almost as if the are trying to hide all crowding not on the CR2 route…

367. Before Mayoral election = London Standard headline that Crossrail 2 gets green light

     After Mayoral election = messy reality that CR2 funding isn’t in place.

     Cynic, moi? C’est non.

368. Re Kate

     And finances all based on at least RPI fare rises…

     😉

369. @ ML – try being red/green colour blind and interpreting that map. It is far from easy which is why I was rather cautious with what I said as I struggle to read it properly. One day someone will understand that poor use of colour / lack of an alternative presentation hinders understanding for a minority of the population. I’m pleased others have found some nonsenses of their own on the map. Means I wasn’t completely losing it. 😉

     @ Ian J – well I’m deeply cynical about the Chancellor’s “City Deals” and I don’t think there is the same clamour in the South East for something similar in conjunction with London. Given many (all?) bordering counties are Tory run there isn’t the same political dimension for the Chancellor either. He has no Labour politicians to “fatally compromise” by lumbering them with responsibilities and insufficient funding. I also can’t see those bordering counties wanting to cede any political control to London or a London centric quango. Look at the anguish and wasted years to get to a “partnership” over rail franchises and we’ve yet to see any results flow from that.

370. I’m particularly interested in the New Southgate comments.

     As I understand it, the initial enthusiasm for New Southgate as a Northern terminus was to access some railway land slightly North of New Southgate which is currently occupied by builders yards and similar (labelled “Oakleigh Road South Railway Yard”) for depot purposes.

     What the difficulties it would create I’ve no idea, but having got to New Southgate I wonder if New Barnet would be a better terminus for some trains. Alternatively travellers take a train from there and change at New Southgate

     New Barnet has a large ex-gasworks site which was going to become an Asda with housing above and could become just housing, the North London Business Park (very near the depot site) is also likely to become housing.

     Clearly, compared with the Lea Valley, there is less opportunity for large housing schemes in the area to help fund Crossrail 2, however the ability of a New Southgate branch to free up capacity on the Piccadilly Line further in to London should have value.

     The high cost of stations vs tunnelling is interesting. It suggests that fewer underground stations and changes to local bus routes merit consideration.

371. @ Mark H – As I predicted the Leader of Haringey Council duly appeared on television strongly suggesting that a delay to the New Southgate branch was “short sighted”. The battle lines are therefore drawn around protecting that branch and avoiding any delay. There are other issues about what service level you can practically operate with only the WAML (even when four tracked). As you also point out there will be issues about the benefit / cost ratio for the scheme if there is not the same scale of relief to the Piccadilly Line in N London.

     I am doubtful about any northwards extension from New Southgate because it would involve more tunnelling alongside the existing tunnels that exist in the area. Looking closely at Google Earth there would most likely to be land acquisition / residential demolition issues in Oakleigh Park and parts of Barnet. That will go down like a lead balloon locally and politically and would cost a lot for little extra benefit. It’s worth bearing in mind that a large scale redevelopment of New Southgate, including decking over the A406, is also planned. On the subject of redevelopment let’s hope that people design any new depots properly so that if an over site development is needed there is a proper structure in place to take a deck and associated building. I read recently that an impasse between Crossrail, HS2 and others is threatening to kill off a large element of the Old Oak Common redevelopment because no one wants to fund the cost of the amended foundations and structure to allow over site development there. What a mess.

372. @Walthamstow Writer, yes further track beyond the planned depot site would require a tunnel (and also a tunnel just under houses which would be highly unpopular).

     I’m not clear what the plans are for CR2 south of New Southgate.

     I’m not sure why decking over the North Circular would be needed.

     For reasons unknown to me (but possibly related to another former gas works site) there are actually two bridges at that point, the one used by the railway and another more arched bridge.

     I assumed the arched bridge would allow for the crossrail alignment “as is”.

373. Or, why not route Crossrail over the already existing ECML to Welwyn, coming out the ground at Finsbury Park? FS to AP is or is going to be six tracks anyway so there is plenty of room for Hertford Loop services to Moorgate.

374. Haringey has been trying to assemble a £2bn joint venture with private sector partners for the regeneration of Wood Green, to include 5000 extra homes. Hence the alarm at possible loss of the branch.

     It seems that they have drawn interest on the strength of CR2 and promises of an updated Picc line are not likely to hold the same attractions for investors.

375. @Mark H
     Decking over parts of the A406 is not needed for Crossrail 2 but is a separate proposal as part of TfL’s roads modernisation plan to reduce the severance caused by the North Circular Road. It’s probably a good idea but would need to be paid for by development of the land on the deck, mainly for housing, but just how attractive it would be to buy a house on top of a major road I’m not quite sure.

376. I have now read the main report from the NIC. I am now more convinced than ever that CR2 is the wrong answer and all the proposed new powers and quangos to “secure” the extra housing is a step too far. If the NIC can now suggest the New Southgate branch is not really terribly good value for money and that it and an eastern branch can be compared with each other I have to ask what the last 2, or is it 3?, rounds of consultation have been about. What a mess. I note also the retreat from claiming much relief to the Piccadilly Line. I’d therefore say the New Southgate branch is pretty much doomed because £4bn is far too great a saving for HMT to ignore.

     The other striking matter is the “peak tube” (hey back on topic!) element of the report. If things turn out as predicted then we must really reach a point in the next 30 years where the tube becomes inoperable or unusuable for a lot of people seeking to travel at peak times. CR2 can never fix that issue so what happens then? There is no answer to that in the report that I can see . There also seems to be an unstated assumption that CR2 only relieves the tube network and has no generative impact in and of itself on tube demand. I don’t find that remotely credible but I accept that the detailed modelling is not in the public domain.

377. @WW…..Nor do I find the idea that CR2 as it is currently planned will provide any sort of relief to the Tube (especially the Victoria line).

     And agreed that explicitly linking the line with housing development in the Green Belt (however desperately needed) is just putting a very scarlet rag in front of a very angry bull*.

     Someone really does need to put this project out of its misery and start all over again.

     *Incidentally, Graham H, if it is not rail transport, what *are* the priorities of your local councils? If one of them isn’t ‘housing and associated infrastructure’, then God help us all…..

378. I wouldn’t wish to answer for Graham H, but as a fellow inhabitant of the green(ish) world well to the south-west of London I can confirm that rail transport is not much of a priority here in North Hampshire either. The only issue that gets aired is of crowding on peak trains. Such is the level of understanding that that is normally regarded as a ‘failure by SW Trains’, and all that is needed is for them to buy more trains. For development around here ( and it’s an ongoing reality, with only a short pause during the recession), most focus is on more roads; and even buses (the local mainstay of public transport) are ignored.

379. @Anon
     “Nor do I find the idea that CR2 as it is currently planned will provide any sort of relief to the Tube (especially the Victoria line). ”

     Why would it not? The busiest stations on the Vic are Kings Cross, Euston, Oxford Circus, Victoria and Vauxhall: the latter because of the interchange with SWT. Three of these will be served by XR2, and TCR will provide better east/west connections than Oxford Circus (XR1 as well as the Central Line – not to mention a service to Paddington much more direct than the Bakerloo). And of course many SWT passengers who currently change at Vauxhall won’t need to change at all with XR2, and the rest can do so at Clapham Junction.

380. Anonymously, timbeau

     Indeed I too am completely baffled by this statement – especially with regard to the Victoria line. The inner bit of CR2 almost is the Victoria relief line. Unless what Anonymously meant was that that the Victoria line will be just as busy as before within months/years (take your pick) of CR2 opening. In which case Anonymously will probably be right but it is hardly an argument against CR2. The objective of new lines is not to empty old lines. The objective is to increase mobility in the capital.

     I will keep repeating what I have long thought (and I think it is a fairly established view) that the Victoria line is the line that “suffers” most from suppressed demand. That is, if you could double the service you would probably find the trains are still full – and, if not, then certainly a lot more than half full. The Jubilee almost certainly has a lot of suppressed demand but how much is transferred to the Bakerloo and other lines and how much represents journeys simply not made I do not know.

381. @PoP/timbeau….My point was related to shorter passenger journeys originating within London that currently use the Victoria line. Yes, a lot of passengers will transfer onto CR2 that currently change onto the Victoria line at Vauxhall, but if you’re using the line from south of there or specifically need to access the stations between Victoria and Euston (don’t forget as well that there is no interchange between CR2 and the Bakerloo/Picadilly lines, not counting what is likely to be a lengthy walk at Euston St. Pancras!), then CR2 is hardly likely to prove more attractive when it will already be packed with commuters from the ‘burbs.

382. @ PoP – I am not disagreeing with the proposition about CR2 being able to relieve the Vic Line (and I know you didn’t refer to me in your reply). What is concerning is the likely loss of the New Southgate branch which means little or no relief in parts of Haringey, the loss of 18 tph at Seven Sisters and no ability to syphon off demand from the Picc / Great Northern thus leaving Finsbury Park and Highbury very overloaded. The bland “oh we’ll have to do something elsewhere on CR2 to compensate for the loss of turnbacks and sidings on the New S’gate branch” statement in the paper shows a rather amateurish view given there’s no hint as to what the alternatives and cost would have to be. If you are going to have to lose a share of those 18tph then what does it do to the business case? What does it do to services in SW London? What short term additional cost / possibly wasted infrastructure would be incurred if N S’gate is delayed / never built.

     And then we move on to the possible eastern branch as an alternative to the New S’gate branch. One of the apparent issues on the latter is the high construction cost per km and lower offsetting benefits. Any eastern branch would have to be in tunnel for a considerable distance *unless* it emerged and took over the North London line through Hackney. We then get into further very difficult territory in the Stratford area about where you could practically route a line and provide platforms. Beyond Stratford you are still talking about being in tunnel unless freight lines / GOBLIN tracks are taken over and a bit of C2C is grabbed to get a link into the North Thames Riverside area which is clearly identified in the report and much discussed here before. Trying to tunnel alongside HS1 is not exactly going to be easy. While you may get more “upside” in terms of housing development on an eastern branch it’s not going to be cheap to build unless the number of stations is minimal which rather defeats the point (IMO).

     The report just seems to be Lord Adonis’s personal agenda around CR2, housing, planning law reform and building lots of Thames tunnels in East London. That’s rather poor in my view and London deserves better.

383. @WW….Yes, Lord Adonis seems to be a master of hubris when it comes to public transport projects (which includes support for BML2 and HS2, amongst other things), doesn’t he? Clearly that short period of time when he was in charge at the DfT (where he did achieve some good things, most of all kicking rail electrification back into play after nearly two decades of stasis) has gone to his head a bit….

384. @ Anonymously – well he’s a politician isn’t he? Even the support for electrification has caused a right old mess. By generating a “whirlwind” and over enthusiasm we now have Network Rail being pilloried for non delivery whereas what has really happened was unrealistic demands from Government being placed on an organisation that had lost the requisite planning and delivery expertise.

     I’ve just been catching up on the status of the GWML, MML, infill and electric spine projects and they’ve all gone backwards in terms of likely delivery times. The great risk here is that they end up vanishing completely because the costs of doing GWML will scare off the Treasury. It’s a re-run of the Edinburgh tram project in terms of its possible negative consequences but on a national basis. It’s a great shame that an essentially good idea may end being binned because ludicrous timescales were effectively imposed and costs have run away because of poor planning and delivery. There are lessons here for everyone given the looming “mad dash” imperatives around delivering more transport capacity and housing in the next Mayoral term!!

385. @Anonymously post of 0424 (do you never sleep?!) – rail and other transport infrastructure is the responsibility of that tier of local government comprising counties and unitaries. Here in Surrey – one of the most pro-rail counties in principle, and one with one of the largest total budgets (around £1.8bn), that total is slowly being eaten up by education and social services. This year, the county faced, along with many others, the prospect of the elimination in central government grant being eliminated in two instead of four years. The coming year’s reduction – for which no advance planning was possible because it was announced only just after Christmas – equated to the whole of the highways, libraries and arts budgets. Of course, there is an element of special pleading here, and the cuts may fall elsewhere (eg it seems that most bus services requiring subsidy will be either cut back or withdrawn altogether), but the accompanying SCC presentations make no reference at all to rail, and all major highway construction – and most highway maintenance – are being abandoned. Rail has simply slipped below their horizon. I have no doubt the position is similar in other SE local authorities.

     Housing is the responsibility of districts and unitaries. Each local authority has been allocated a housing target by ONS (who elected them?) and failure to provide infrastructure of all sorts (social as well as physical) is no ground on which to refuce to plan to allocate enough land to meet the target. “Sustainability”, which is the cry of DCLG has nothing to do with infrastructure, but refers to financial sustainability. This means that housing is being planned for which there will be no schools, clinics, roads (other than estate roads), public transport, sewer capacity , sufficient water supply, or adequate electricity or anything else that you might think a sensible precondition.

386. @ Graham H – This means that housing is being planned for which there will be no schools, clinics, roads (other than estate roads), public transport, sewer capacity , sufficient water supply, or adequate electricity or anything else that you might think a sensible precondition.

     Please tell me the above is a joke? If it’s not then we have truly arrived in “la la land”.

387. @WW – indeed, it is so. For example, in my own LPA, we have to find room for 13500 houses over the next 17 years, and we have been warned by them that the fact that the sewerage system is at its capacity already and that the two A roads into Guildford are already at a VSSM of 0.84 (that’s the metric for congestion) when the total seizure of the road system is 0.85, that the existing primary schools have no more room for additional reception classes (they’ve run out of land), no more doctors surgeries are planned to be opened by the NHS, half the dental practices are closing, and the bus services are to be cut back to what can be provided commercially, are not excuses for saying that we cannot agree to take the extra housing. Guildford (to our north) has run out of non-green belt land and is now studying dumping its additional population in Woking; Woking is studying… [We in this parish are planning to arm a militia to invade Chiddingfold, of course, as a colonial initiative…]

     Lalaland is the next stop after Erewhon on SWT.

388. @ Graham H – (opens mouth) (closes mouth) (opens mouth) (closes mouth). I don’t know what to say. Insanity.

389. @WW….I was worried as well by the ballooning cost and ever-extending timescales. But there is now such a political head of steam behind rail electrification (as we saw with the hoo-ha over the ‘pause’ last year, and the successful lobbying by the Welsh Government and other bodies to ensure the wires reach Swansea), combined with a push for the Northern (Electric) Powerhouse, that it would take another grave economic crisis and/or a very brave government to scale down or axe these projects completely. Remember as well that no diesel-only ICEP have been ordered, and I doubt the dual-mode units are designed in such a way to cope with exclusive diesel-only operation over significant lengths without compromising their reliability (we’re talking about the difference between hundreds versus thousands of miles operation per month in diesel mode, depending on the extent of electrification). We just have to now sit tight, be patient, and hope there are no further major problems…..

     @Graham H…..I thought the housing targets came from DCLG via ONS (I presume you are referring to predictions in population growth for each LA area)? Am personally shocked that ‘sustainability’ has nothing to do with accompanying infrastructure (whether physical e.g. roads, or human e.g. GPs)! How one can fund and drive these through the planning system to accompany and enable much needed housing growth is a complex conundrum which is way beyond the scope of this thread to solve ?……

390. @Anonymously – I’m not sure whether DCLG was the merely the messenger. The basis of the figures is entirely questionable – in our case, why would we suddenly have what is predicted to be about 4 % pa growth after decades of slight decline (unless of course you suddenly built a lot more housing, which is, err, the justification for building that housing…). It’s a lovely case of the statisticians actually being able to prove how right their forecasts were, by fixing the outcome.

     A propos electrification, whilst the projects will be pushed through, the politicians will demand their pound of flesh, even though they themselves are partly to blame. NR is the nearest and easiest target but ORR cannot be far behind – but that is to anticipate this week’s Shaw review. Whether next month’s NR reorganisation will be seized on by McLoughlin as having done enough, perhaps coupled with the sacking of Carne and his Finance director, we shall see- politically easy and has all the appearance of swift action, despite having been planned for months .

391. I wrote my own analysis of the National Infrastructure Commission report here: http://ukrail.blogspot.co.uk/2016/03/crossrail-2-national-infra-com.html . The second report is much more interesting (a mixture of sensible and more unusual ideas), but as it is by consultants not the commission it is of lesser importance. The main report is a bland backing of the main CR2 proposal minus New Southgate and perhaps Chelsea.

     I’d also note that once you agree to drop the branch, a tunnel portal by the river Lea north of Clapton makes more sense than once near Tottenham Hale, which might allow CR2 to the Chingford branch (potentially offering Victoria line relief from Walthamstow).

392. Graham H…….Finance Director, Patrick Butcher, has left/is about to leave, and his successor has been appointed. The genesis of the electrification cost challenge (using as unemotive words I can find) didn’t happen on Mark Carne’s watch. Whilst there may be some issues with how it is being executed on a day to day basis, the real guilty parties are those who offered and accepted sums of money for jobs that hadn’t been properly planned or costed (previous NR management) and those who should have been able to determine the facts (ORR). However, the lesson from all this (which we should have known anyway) is that the Government is not “an intelligent client”. You might reasonably say that it doesn’t need to be, as it had its own in-house experts (NR).

393. Graham H
     So, therefore even a partial re-opening of Guildford – Christs’ Hospital, say to Cranleigh (?) is not on the cards, & more & more roads + cars, not that there’s anywhere to put said cars.
     I often mention Halstead in this context, re cars towards Cambridge, too – as you say: Utterly Bonkers

394. Re Graham H,

     The NEW FD took over a month ago (Ex Alstom FD before It recent split into rail and power and previously 15 years at Rolls Royce (not cars)).
     The Ex- NR FD (2009-16) went to Go-Ahead…

     Certain astute MPs had been asking questions about continuing hedging losses for quite while (align with ex FD tenure), NR apparently would have been been better off not hedging or exiting at any point…

     Carne is still new enough that plenty of the issues obviously pre date him and the Chairman and FD in whose tenure issues arose have gone and the Ex-CEO (2011-14; he jumped to HS2) when the current issues started to rapidly grow.

     Housing growth – Most council are now a bit more pro-building due to the Chancellor tweaking some of the the Business Rate and Council Tax rules over the last few years pour encourager les mairies.

395. Re Stephen C,

     If you look at the report they are suggesting taking over C2C’s Barking – Grays route as the ultimate eastern branch destination rather than Chingford with its potential to enable plenty of riverside growth though I suspect the crayons had come out by that stage!

396. @100andthirty/ngh – life is unfair and even if the faults predate your watch, you cannot avoid the flak – that’s politics for you. [You are entirely right that the faults here actually lay with those who demanded major projects and those who gave assurances that they could deliver them, but the guilty senior men have long hidden away/kept a low profile/retired]. BTW, I’m not sure that DfT regard NR as their professional advisers on railway matters in the way that BRB was. It’s only very recently that NR became a nationalised industry and DfT already has a well-developed – if wholly ineffective (and often positively harmful) – machinery of advisers such as the RDG. Professional advice from NR is not part of NR’s duties (it doesn’t have any statutory duties) and there is no legislation that could be the basis for that – as we have discussed on this site many times before.

     A propos housing targets, do not get me wrong; I am not advocating NIMBYism and very few local authorities would take such a wholly negative stance. The two linked difficulties are the basis on which the housing targets have been allocated and the counter-intuitive definition of “sustainable” which excludes infrastructure. Subsidiary issues not considered (or not cited) by ONS in their target practice include changes to the mix of population at local levels in terms of age, wealth, and economic activity, or the causes for rising demand for certain public services (eg healthcare, transport) even with a static population.

397. @ngh, Agreed that Barking – Grays is where they are looking at, but dropping New Southgate requires a depot, and the industrial areas around Lea Bridge station look possible if the portal was there. Perhaps 10tph to Chingford, 10tph to Lea Valley and 10tph to Grays? Maybe that eastern branch doesn’t have to go via Stratford if it split after Dalston? Taking the Chingford branch could free up paths into Liverpool Street too.

398. 6 tph to Chingford with Crossrail-length trains (9-long car trains roughly equivalent to 10 x 20 metres, plus extra space with fully-open inter-carriage connections – 1,500 pax per train, higher if 11-long cars in due course) would probably do the job!

     It’s not as though the area north of Wood Street is going to tolerate lots of high density housing in a future London, the Chingford area is rather Bromley-esque.

     Scale of Vic Line relief can be mutable to an extent, as CR2 would do most of that job at Tottenham Hale, Hackney (Central/Downs), within Central London and inner South London.

     A la ‘Bakerlewisham’, removal of the extraneous branch (currently 4 tph x 8-car trains) at an inconvenient flat junction could be very beneficial for more inners via Seven Sisters, and more outers via Lea Valley fast lines.

     That in turn might point to more CR2 trains then available for Lea Valley and/or Eastern Thames-side.

399. Tfl’s NR moment?:

     https://www.london.gov.uk/sites/default/files/transport_for_londons_signal_failure.pdf

     No surprises for avid LR readers though!

     Re StephenC & Milton,

     Surely all West Anglia metro services going to 12 car (from 8) would be much cheaper???
     Agree that Tottenham Hale/WAML CR2 option achieves the most efficient possible bit of Vic line relief.

     I suspect some Chingford – Stratford services might go down quite well wit the locals.

     I think the key thing is to realise on justifying the New Southgate Branch is how many journey could start off the CR2 route (very different to Meridian Water etc) and then join at an intermediate station, say change on to CR2 at Seven Sisters/ South Tottenham. Hence this changes the areas for capture of new housing totals.

400. The whole series of exchanges on this site about the effect of dropping the New Southgate branch neatly illustrates what is wrong with CR2 – either the Southgate branch was worthwhile in the first place or some eastern branch was better. It’s beyond belief that the latest proposals have come about as the result of some epiphany or Damascene conversion on the road to Grays. Make it up as you go along… To ask whether the rest of the CR2 planning is more robust would be simply indecent.

401. As WW points out, the report suggests CR2 will provide relief to the Tube because CR2 won’t generate additional traffic. Yet the funding for CR2 requires development contributions IE the generation of additional traffic. That’s clearly a major contradiction and a nonsense.

402. Re Kate And Graham H,

     I suspect the NIC assessment methodology may be different (e.g. very basic) to TfL/NR’s hence they come to very different outcomes and start grasping at brightly coloured straws…
     New Southgate branch is very good to allowing ne housing over wider area by providing relief.

403. I doubt a portal on the marsh lands near Clapton is any sort of winning prospect. It will be opposed by a lot of people who enjoy that open space. There is a reason why the CR2 portal is planned to be in what is currently a scrap yard – it’s likely to win local support who will be pleased to get rid of that facility albeit after a decade of construction effort. I don’t see a takeover of the Chingford Line being in prospect for CR2. There’s clearly little scope for significant housing development given the area is constrained by Epping Forest which I believe is protected. Waltham Forest is not shown as a key development area in the NIC report. Ironically all the large development areas are likely to be severely flooded by the Thames plus any difficulties with flood defences in the Lea Valley!! Odd that the good Lord A hasn’t added “new Thames Barrier” to his infrastructure shopping list.

     I also think that Chingford Line users would not be overly impressed at the prospect at losing their easy and relatively quick link into the City of London. As Ngh says the way to deal with overcrowding is to run longer, higher capacity trains – far, far cheaper than CR2. A little curve round to Stratford would be very much appreciated but we’ve done that one to death and it’s not remotely in prospect. I also understand a lot of the “spare” industrial land near Lea Bridge station is marked for housing development. I would also strongly caution against assuming you can wipe out other businesses near the rail line. I understand the area is designated for light industrial use and there are an awful lot of firms based in and around Argall Way and Orient Way.

404. ngh – probably so. In which case, NIC should report before TfL spends money on consultation and planning, not afterwards.

     Although to me NIC seems to be a quango which would be better abolished.

405. @Kate 🙂 🙂

406. ngh ( & everybody )
     The report on TfL’s “signal failure …
     Paragraph 3.14 is IMHO the “killer:
     3.14 Both internally and externally, there appears to have been a culture on this
     programme whereby TfL’s management was only interested in presenting
     good news. Regardless of how the project was progressing, the importance of
     achieving the 2018 completion date appeared to overpower any professional
     scepticism or suggestion that things were not going to plan.

     Not just “on this programme” & not just “the project”.
     I am of the opinion that this is TfL’s permanent weak spot – they don’t want to hear even mild, helpful exterior criticism, ever, nor do they want to adopt external ideas, until they have been internally “converted” to a “TfL idea”.
     For a direct example, I cite the public refusal, for quite some time, to publicly admit that anything at all had “gorn worng” wit their takeover of the Chingford & Enfield services last Spring, for instance.

     As the report strongly implies it’s a cultural problem.
     And therefore it is going to be very difficult to cure or fix.

407. @ Greg – you are conflating two things. The report refers specifically to the SSR programme. I can tell you from personal experience that other parts of TfL / LU certainly did not hide the truth or not want to hear about problems. People are not stupid – they know what goes on, they know how to analyse the numbers and spot the inconsistencies. Sponsors and project managers were put on the spot and specifically challenged. Woe betide you if you later pulled “bad news” out of the hat for something that had been rotting away for months and don’t expect an easy ride if you needed access to risk or contingency funding which is held centrally and must be specifically requested. I’d also add that being professional means you tell the truth but obviously that’s down to how individuals behave.

     I have shared some of my thoughts about the SSR project in the past and I feel I was sort of right in the conclusions I’d reached based on an albeit limited interraction with the project. Others have done far more detailed work than me and found a catalogue of issues and TfL published that damning report. It is also worth saying that the Assembly politicians have been looking for “a head on a plate” (or preferably several heads) for many many months over SSR resignalling so they are bound, as part of their swansong, given they pack up at the end of this week, to be making a lot of noise.

     My other point is that you are looking at what an organisation does via the media. That is your West Anglia point. Why on earth would TfL confess to a disaster upon taking over a new service where public expectations were so high? You don’t do that. No company does that. The risk is that things run out of control and you look bl**dy stupid later on. The other point is that you also need to find out *what* has gone wrong, *why* it has gone wrong and *how* you can fix it. That makes for a sensible public line to respond to press and customer questions. You do not appear in the media and go “wibble wibble don’t know sorry flip oh heck might be OK sometime soon”. You might not like this. You may feel you were not listened to. However that doesn’t invalidate the normal media strategy that is deployed by large organisations these days. I would also add TfL *have* told people what had gone wrong and what was being done about it. They have also released statistics since the takeover showing the number of short formations, full or part cancellations. That’s rather more than you get from other rail operators.

408. WW
     You may ( or may not) be correct, but either way, that does not address the “cultural problem” referred to.

409. @ Greg – Yes it does because I am saying there is NOT a widespread culture of condoning failure and hiding problems. There clearly was a problem on the SSR project as I have stated several times in the past even if I only saw a small manifestation of it. Media management is not equal to a cultural problem.

410. WW is absolutely right.

     The GLA report was taking a number of comparatively recent reports and papers and drawn some very wide conclusions from them. For example, they say effectively that the cancelled Bombardier contract cost £900m. It didn’t. There’s no doubt that it was an expensive mistake, but the figure quoted of approximately £900m was the cost to complete the job once all the various additional costs on all the aspects of upgrading the lines had been taken into account – only some of it at the door of the failed Bombardier contract.

     The SSR upgrade, that LU inherited from Metronet, had at it’s heart, the S stock and Westinghouse signalling. Metronet had offered and LU had accepted a proposal for the Circle and H&C trains to be 7-car instead of 6-car. It cost a lot more than anyone ever expected to expand the top of the Circle for the 7-car trains and to provide stabling for them – partly because the old signalling system had to be modified to take account of increasing traffic at places such as Farringdon.

     Remember the statement – attributed to Tim O’Toole – about upgrading the Underground “it’s like performing open heart surgery on a Wimbledon tennis player whilst they continue to play”……it really was like that!

411. @ 100andthirty – love the first sentence. 😉 How rarely was anyone so emphatic about me during my career. 😛

     If I can make a small correction. The report was from the London Assembly (LA). The GLA is the Greater London Authority which is something quite different – effectively the executive arm of the Mayoralty. I know it is very common for people to mix the terms but I tend to get a tiny bit irritated by it because there are times when the LA is criticising what the GLA is doing!

412. WW thanks…..distinction understood.

413. Greg, I think most large organisations (public and private alike) suffer in some parts from the thermocline of truth (http://bfwa.com/2013/09/09/1-billion-example-of-the-thermocline-of-truth/).

     The whole of TfL doesn’t, but almost certainly some parts do.

     The common denominator is people. Some think sharing bad news is bad for them, some think failing to is short-sighted nonsense.

     Large organisations have a lot of people, and a lot of projects – so quite a big chance of some people hiding below the thermocline.

414. @Londoner – aletheiocline perhaps?

415. THIS
     Push for CR2 from Michelle Dix & sundry building & business groups.
     We shall have to wait & see, I suppose?

416. @ Greg – apologies for being in “doom laden” mood but Ms Dix would say all of that wouldn’t she? She has to be upbeat and positive when making a presentation to a business meeting. Saying there is a lot of business and political support is no guarantee that Mr Grayling says yes – need we be reminded of South Eastern devolution?

     The way I read it she is actually rather worried that there are three critical hurdles to get over – the timing of the acceptance of the business case, funding and then getting a hybrid bill through Parliament. I understand the CR2 programme is already months late which is compressing all the later stages. A promised public consultation on a confirmed route and stations hasn’t appeared yet. It will not take very much in terms of further delay to cause real problems – note that 2019 deadline for getting the Bill through Parliament before the 2020 election and concern over 2 hybrid bills running in parallel. And as for funding well the vibes there are very bad indeed. If Ms Dix gets the go ahead in May I’ll be genuinely surprised.

417. @WW: Also, parliamentary time is going to be at a premium over the next couple of years due to a large amount of legislation needed following last years referendum. (I won’t mention the word itself, lest we end up with a long political argument on here).

418. Walthamstow Writer @ 17 April 2017 at 13:13

     ” – note that 2019 deadline for getting the Bill through Parliament before the 2020 election and concern over 2 hybrid bills running in parallel.”

     The Bill for Crossrail, now on site, was carried over from one Parliament to another, without much dissent. The Commons Committee stage was very long. The MPs on that Committee did a thorough job and did not fall out on party-political lines.

419. @WW “note that 2019 deadline for getting the Bill through Parliament before the 2020 election”

     less than 24 hours later, that deadline is brought forward by three years. Let’s hope it can get carried over from a second Parliament to a third.

420. @ Alan G – I’m aware of what happened with Crossrail’s bill. I doubt that CR2 would fair as well but it may not be necessary.

     @ Stationless – agreed that parliamentary time will be tight. Another reason why I’m a bit sceptical about CR2’s chances. The minds of MPs will be elsewhere as will the Govt’s.

     @ Timbeau – well a day is a long time in politics! We can be pretty certain no decision on CR2’s business case will take place by end of the May. That timescale is now gone as purdah is imminent and no major announcements will be allowed. If Grayling is replaced then a new SoS will take time to get up to speed and who knows what their view will be on policy matters. Of course the parliamentary timescale will perhaps be more comfortable up to 2022 if the government says yes.

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