Ten years of Tube Travel

How many people travel on the average London Underground train?  If you're a regular commuter I bet you'd be thinking anything between 400 to 900 people.  It's actually 122 people.  That and more facts and figures that you can shake a stick at, are in a 290 page PDF document recently published by TfL - the annual Travel in London report.

Crowded Tube by modenadude

Incidentally the average number of people who travel on a bus is 17 which is up 22% since 2000, whereas passenger numbers on the average Tube only increased by 4%.  Average numbers on the DLR are 79 up 18% from 2000.

Overall, passenger journeys on the London Underground have increased by 10% going from 970 million in 2000 to 1100 million in 2009.  Journeys on the DLR increased by 82% going from 38 million to 69 million in 2009, which reflects the development of the network with increased station numbers & train lengthening. The Tube is still the main mode of transport for people getting into central London each weekday morning.  From the graph below, it'll be interesting to see how much the green cycling section (or a mixture of cycling & Tube) grows over the years.



The report's overview shows key trends for Tube travel:

"There were 13 per cent more person-kilometres travelled by Underground in 2009/10 compared with 2000/01, and 65% more person-kilometres travelled by bus. Between 2008/09 and 2009/10 there was an increase of 1% in bus person-kilometres travelled, and a 2% decrease in person-kilometres travelled by Underground."

So enough of numbers, what about the Tube's performance:

"In 2009/10 overall average journey time (scheduled journey time plus ‘excess’) averaged 44.1 minutes, a level only marginally higher than that of 2008/09 (43.9 minutes) and an improvement (ie reduction) of 0.4 minutes compared with 2007/08.


Excess journey time is the average time added to journeys by delays, crowding and queuing, over and above the nominal scheduled journey time. Excess journey time in 2009/10 averaged 6.4 minutes, an improvement of 0.2 minutes compared to the previous year and of 1.4 minutes compared to 2007/08, and the best performance since the measure was introduced 10 years ago."

If you've got a fair amount (ie loads) of time on your hands, you'll find a lot more graphs, charts and tables on all forms of public transport in London with spotlights on (surprise, surprise, for a report produced under Boris) "The Year of Cycling", the London Olympics and London's low emission zone.  There's also figures on crime and saftety & journey experiences.

Psst TfL - some infographics might be nice for next year to break up the charts. 290 pages is a lot to plough through!