London Underground Tube delays worst on Central, Jubilee and Victoria lines as overcrowding strains network
As Londoners continue to vent their fury over the chaos seen at London Bridge station and Boris Johnson set to meet rail bosses tomorrow, the scale of problems caused by overcrowding has been revealed.
A Freedom of Information request filed by LondonlovesBusiness.com showed that commuters have been delayed close to 900 times since 2010 thanks to overcrowding on the Tube. The figures represent trains delayed by two minutes or more.
Unsurprisingly, the Central Line topped the list for the most delays recording a whopping 158. The Jubilee Line came second place with 148 followed by the Victoria line with 129. On average, the Tube has suffered 169.4 delays a year since 2010.
London Underground responded to the figures in a statement:
London Underground has an average of 24.3 million passenger journeys a week, with 1.2 billion journeys made last year. The system is operating intensively at capacity, so a single interruption can quickly create a domino effect of delays.
Over the past two days, commuters at London Bridge have experienced "dangerously overcrowded" platforms and suffered severe delays to their journeys. The Department of Transport and castigated rail bosses for allowing the chaos to ensue.
Network Rail has promised more staff and information screens at the central London station by the end of the week to deal with overcrowding.
The problems highlight the difficulties faced by London's transport infrastructure – and with London's commuter population set to rise rapidly, the network could face further strain.
Andy Silvester, campaign manager at the Taxpayers' Alliance, told London Loves Business:
Politicians in Westminster and in City Hall must wage war on wasteful spending in other areas so that we’re able to fund important upgrades in the capital and indeed across the country without jeopardising the important work of eliminating the deficit and paying back our debt.
We also need to look at using our existing transport infrastructure better, ensuring that resources like buses, London Overground, the Croydon tram system and our roads work as efficiently as possible to take the pressure off the Tube.