Memorandum by Capital Transport Campaign
(OPT 23)
OVERCROWDING ON PUBLIC TRANSPORT
Our evidence considers overcrowding on public
transport from the perspective of the travelling public, and our
concern is with modes of public transport serving people who live
or work in the Greater London area.
1. THE UNDERGROUND
On a number of occasions, we have reported on
information given to the House of Commons in parliamentary written
answers about the extent of overcrowding on the Underground, including
the theoretical design capacity of various kinds of Underground
carriages and the levels of crowding at peak times on all twelve
Underground lines. We summarise our assessment of this information
here.
Maximum capacity of Underground rolling stock:
Hansard 2-2-01, 147896, gave the maximum capacity
by rolling stock for each Underground line. According to these
figures. a single District line carriage can contain 232 people;
this is the largest capacity of any Underground line. Under these
circumstances there would be 48 people seated, and 184 standing.
The largest proportion of standing passengers at maximum capacity
would be reached on the Circle, and the Hammersmith and City Line,
with 32 seated passengers and 180 standing passengers. To the
best of our knowledge, the Department for Transport uses as its
"planning standard"one person standing for each sitting
in peak periods. Their top level of crowding, "very crowded",
is when there are five or more people standing for every four
seated, or 125% or more than planning standard. If a carriage
on the Circle or the Hammersmith and City Line were loaded to
maximum capacity, the level of crowding would be 563% of the Department
of Transport's planning standard.
The deputy director of the London Transport
Users' Committee, publicly expressed some scepticism about the
claimed theoretical design capacity of Underground carriages,
in the BBC consumer programme, Watchdog (shown 26-3-02), as follows:
"Never mind the statistics. At busy times
on the busiest parts of the lines, you can't get any more people
on the trains: only by stacking them horizontally from floor to
ceiling, not in any manner that people are actually going to travel
in trains, whether sitting down or standing up. At the busiest
times, trains are pretty heavily loaded throughout the network.
At the busiest times on the busiest lines you can't get any more
people on."
Levels of crowding at peak periods:
Two sets of figures have recently been published
in Hansard about the levels of crowding on the Underground at
peak periods, in relation to the theoretical design capacity of
Underground carriages. The first set of figures were published
in Hansard 22 March 2001, 282W-284W, and the second set of figures,
described as "corrected" figures for peak-time passenger
numbers on the twelve most crowded sections of each Underground
line, were published in Hansard 5 December 2001, 378W-380W. These
two sets of figures refer to passenger counts done in 2000.
The overcrowding figures given by the transport
minister, John Spellar MP in December 2001 were a drastic revision
of the earlier figures. According to the earlier figures, provided
by transport minister Keith Hill MP, on six out of the twelve
lines, the service operated at 95% or more of its design capacity
in the busiest section on the busiest peak quarter hour. On two
lines, the Jubilee Line and the Northern Line, the service operated
carrying passengers in excess of its design capacity: 12% more
(or 19 standing passengers) between Clapham North and Stockwell.
In December 2001, Mr. Spellar told the House
of Commons that "regrettably, some of the information given
in answer to that earlier PQ [ 22 March 2001 282W-184W] was inaccurate",
and provided "corrected figures" which, he said, "show
the Underground is not as crowded as the previous answer appeared
to show." These corrected figures made very substantial revisions
to the figures given earlier. The March figures yield a total
of 65,969 passengers; the December figures give a total of 38,255
passengers. Passenger numbers on the Metropolitan Line, between
Finchley Road and Baker Street from 08:30 to 08:45 a.m. were cut
by two-thirds. On the other lines, the decrease in the number
of passengers ranged from 31% to 54%. On the Northern and the
Jubilee lines, where the number of passengers exceeded the design
capacity in the March figures, the design capacity over the busiest
quarter of an hour also increased: by 18% on the Jubilee line
and by 33% on the Northern line.
The passenger-carrying capacity of the Underground
is crucial to the Government's plans for its public-private-partnership.
The figures given in December 2001 appear to suggest that there
is spare capacity on the Underground, which is at odds both with
the daily experience of the travelling public and the view of
a representative of the official passenger body, cited above.
Plans to increase the capacity of the Underground, under successive
versions of the PPP, have withered away; however, passenger numbers
are expected to increase substantially, within the first 7½
year period of the PPP and beyond. Under these circumstances,
the Underground may have to change from a turn-up-and-go system
at peak times to a turn-up-and-wait service, if it is to operate
safely.
Overcrowding in Underground stations was recognised
as one of the three main threats to safety on the Underground
in the Fennell report into the King's Cross Fire. Passenger numbers
in Underground carriages cannot be considered in isolation from
passenger numbers on platforms and in other parts of stations.
If a large proportion of passengers from a heavily loaded Underground
train of six or eight carriages leave the train at a particular
station, the station platform and ways of egress will quickly
become crowded; passengers have told us that numbers of passengers
at a busy station such as Liverpool St. can be extremely slow
moving. Although London Underground claims that a station such
as King's Cross can be fully evacuated in six minutes, the experience
of actual incidents on the Underground, such as the detrainment
of 4,000 passengers at Highbury and Islington station in July
2001 is less encouraging. The report into this incident by the
London Transport Users Committee, which draws heavily on the official
London Underground enquiry, indicates that the management of the
situation quickly became muddled, and could easily have had disastrous
consequences.
2. CROWDING:
THE INDUSTRY
VIEW OF
RAIL AND
TUBE CARRIAGE
CAPACITY
The answer given by the transport minister in
March 2001, Keith Hill MP, reflected the rail industry view that
the "capacity of London Underground carriages is not itself
considered to be a health and safety issue." More recently,
a transport minister, David Jamieson MP, told parliament that
"there are no statutory limits on the numbers of passengers
that can be carried on trains. The Health and Safety Executive
has advised that all rolling stock is designed to operate safely
even when fully loaded." (Hansard, 807W, 9 July 2002).
The chief executive of Rail Safety, Rod Muttram, told the fifth
meeting of the Rail Passengers Council that "statistics show
that in [rail] accidents, crush-loading absorbs impact and reduces
injury." (Minutes, 12-6-02, p 8). This is not a principle
which Capital Transport Campaign would wish to see put into practice
in passenger rail services.
A significant number of passengers are forced
to travel standing on peak-time commuter rail services in the
south-east, sometimes for more than the 20 minutes that is said
to be permissible. In conditions that fall short of crush-loading,
it has been recognised that standing rail passengers are at greater
risk of injury, and are more likely to be more seriously injured
in an accident, than seated passengers. Alan Lettin, the senior
consultant orthopaedic surgeon who treated patients injured in
the Cannon Street accident in January 1991, told the official
enquiry into the accident that "trains with people sitting
down would be much safer." He said that standing passengers
moved "like ears of wheat in the breeze": their lower
bodies remained virtually still, while their upper bodies moved
in a large arc, causing head, neck and chest injuries. (the Guardian,
5-3-1991). These observations apply with equal force to standing
passengers in Underground carriages as well as those standing
in rail carriages. In the design of many Underground carriages,
rails for passengers to grasp are put at a level in the carriages,
which is impossible for any standing passenger who is less than
the average height for a woman (5'4" or l.6m) to grasp. People
who might be described as vertically challenged are consequently
at greater risk of being thrown about, should a Tube or rail carriage
stop suddenly. This consideration also applies to the new carriage
designs proposed by Connex South-East, with fewer seats and more
standing room.
3. OFFICIAL ASSESSMENTS
OF LEVELS
OF CROWDING
ON TUBE
AND RAIL
The scale of the parliamentary corrections to
the numbers of peak-time passengers on the Underground, noted
above, does not induce confidence. We have also criticised the
Strategic Rail Authority for soft-pedalling the extent of overcrowding
on commuter rail services in the south-east.
The regulations set out by OPRAF in its Rail
Passenger Industry Overview, 1995, p 91 stated explicitly
that overcrowding measures refer to groups of trains such as routes,
as well as to train operating companies. The Strategic Rail Authority
has consistently spoken of excessive overcrowding only when the
figures for the train operating companies as a whole have exceeded
the generous "peak loading thresholds". However, if
one route group operated by a TOC exceeds these thresholds, and
another does not, and the result is that the combined figure for
all route groups operated is within the thresholds, then the SRA
has not considered the TOC to be operating an overcrowded service.
The figures for Silverlink in 1999 are a case in point. Silverlink
passengers on both the North London Line and the Watford services
were excessively overcrowded by the SRA criteria; but because
Silverlink's third route group, the Northampton service, had a
low figure for overcrowding, the overall figure for Silverlink
was within the limits which the SRA considered acceptable. We
have sought to raise this point with the SRA, but have yet to
receive a satisfactory answer.
The SRA also assesses overcrowding levels without
regard to whether train companies are operating short formation
services, on the grounds that they fine TOC's for running short
formation services under other regulations. Since the SRA has
recently announced some very substantial fines to TOC's for running
short formation services, the SRA's chosen mode of measurement
can only mean that they seriously underrecord the extent of overcrowding
on passenger services. We think that the extent of rail passenger
overcrowding should be recorded as it is, not as it would be if
the TOC's ran full formation train services. This is a second
important respect in which the SRA chooses to understate the extent
of rail passenger overcrowding in its capacity as a regulatory
body.
The issue of passenger overcrowding on the south-east's
commuter rail services is likely to become worse, rather than
better in the near future, if recent reports of substantial cuts
in the operation of services are correct.
Cynthia Hay
Co-ordinator
December 2002
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