Select Committee on Crossrail Bill Minutes of Evidence


Examination of Witnesses (Questions 860 - 879)

  860. Sir Peter Soulsby: I do not think at any point he has said there are cheap or easy alternatives. He has said that there are problems with the existing proposal and that alternatives ought to be examined.

  861. Ms Lieven: I just want to put three cheap and easy alternatives if I may, Mr Weiss. First of all, as we have seen from pedroute modelling, you can increase the number of gates in ticket hall B which very substantially reduces the problem. pedroute modelling shows increasing the gates to 20 and very little congestion in the ticket hall: cheap, simple, easy.
  (Mr Weiss) If the space exists.

  862. The second one is you can tolerate a degree of congestion at a gateline. We all live with a degree of congestion at gatelines across the LUL network. It is not a major inconvenience to have to wait for 20 seconds to go through a gateline, is it?
  (Mr Weiss) No, but it is a concession, it is a compromise to the standards, and it is a lesser output than one would expect from a very expensive, highly disruptive scheme, six to seven years of disruption, to have something not quite up to what it could be.

  863. I want to put a third cheap and easy solution to you, and for this purpose can we bring up the last of the axonometrics. I think this is exhibit 20, with Crossrail on your higher base plus 35%.[23] This is the worst case that we have modelled in pedroute terms. We have focused on ticket halls A and B so far but there is, of course, a third LUL ticket hall at Liverpool Street, and that is ticket hall C, which Mr Bennett is now marking up. That is a ticket hall that serves the Central line.

  (Mr Weiss) Yes.

  864. All the pedroute models we have shown show that there is very substantial spare capacity in that ticket hall, is there not?
  (Mr Weiss) Yes.

  865. I think it has got 16 gates. I am not expecting you to know off by heart the number of gates but it is a big, modern ticket hall, is it not?
  (Mr Weiss) I know. It has 16 gates.

  866. Before we get to signing from the Underground, can we agree that it is extremely poorly signed or shown at the Network Rail concourse level. Unless you know it is there it does not exactly leap out at you, does it?
  (Mr Weiss) It is a difficult one and I could go into it if you wish me to go further. It is about two-way flow and the width of passageways. I think when I last gave evidence I alluded to the fact that some of the scenarios to try and redirect people via other ticket halls were—I used the expression—robbing Peter to pay Paul, to pass an issue away from concourse B on to concourse C.

  867. Looking at this pedroute model, that does show that there is no congestion in ticket hall C and it also shows that there is no congestion in the two passageways serving ticket hall C, does it not?
  (Mr Weiss) Under those specific conditions. Let us go back to the levels of service. You did show on your document—I cannot remember the number—that Victoria station was yellow and we have yellow on this diagram and considerable swathes of green, particularly in ticket hall B. If you look at the index at the top-left, that green is only one level of service below the yellow which you said clearly highlighted requiring such drastic action at Victoria.

  868. It is very, very plain from exhibit 20, is it not, that there is scope for a much greater level of use of ticket hall C?
  (Mr Weiss) Yes, I agree with that.

  869. One could achieve a much greater level of use by things such as improved signing, improved layout of the concourse and, if absolutely necessary, station measures directing people to use that ticket hall, could one not?
  (Mr Weiss) Possibly. I am not avoiding the question here. Those passageways in the mornings have surges. The figures are in table 1 anyway. Those passageways have surges of people leaving the Central line going up the two escalators from either ends of the train, walking along the passageways and going up to the steps. With increased use of the mainline I would consider it particularly uncomfortable for somebody to try and walk against that flow in any large number. Whilst the signing might be there, I would suggest that people would find it considerably more acceptable, comfortable, the chance of somebody bumping into somebody much less, by going, as they do at the moment to use the mainline platform, to walk straight ahead to ticket hall B. To go in the face of large numbers of people walking up steps in particular I think is a discouragement.

  870. Just two points finally on this. First of all, in terms of surges, of course these passageways you are concerned with are at concourse level so the surge, if there is a surge, has been constrained by the escalators as we went through before, has it not? These passages are not places where people are charging off a train and going straight down the passages, are they?
  (Mr Weiss) These are passageways which are considerably narrower than concourse C. If you look at the shape of concourse C with its 16 gates you have got people coming up the escalators at the bottom left and top right as you are orientated, from the Central line, and they then go through a wide 16 gate concourse area which then narrows as it turns back on itself to the bottom of the picture and then narrows again to passageways. They might not be collectively surging but when you concentrate people into narrower and narrower passageways they tend to fill up.

  871. You describe them as narrower and narrower passageways, Mr Weiss, but what this exhibit 20 shows is that even on the enhanced base plus 35%, so something like over 50% of what is happening at the moment, there is no indication on these plans of any problem in those passageways whatsoever, is there?
  (Mr Weiss) On that base over a quarter of an hour period that is what it shows.

  872. Ms Lieven: Thank you very much. Those are my questions, Sir.

  873. Sir Peter Soulsby: Thank you very much.

  874. Mr Laurence: Sir, could you just give a moment please, Sir, in these constrained conditions.

  875. Sir Peter Soulsby: Yes, of course, Mr Laurence.


Re-examined by Mr Laurence

  876. Mr Laurence: Mr Weiss, there are just a few matters I would like to question you about in re-examination if I may. You will intend no discourtesy to me, I am sure, if you face the Committee and I will try to speak sufficiently clearly to ensure that you do not have to watch my lips, as it were, to follow. The station's operations room, Ms Lieven put to you, we could assume will definitely be removed.

  (Mr Weiss) I am content with that.

  877. You agreed with that. Can you just assist the Committee as to whether you have been told of whether there is, in fact, a firm agreement between the Promoter and presumably London Underground Limited in relation to where the substitute station's operations room would go?
  (Mr Weiss) I have absolutely no knowledge of that, nor has any suggestion of that been put to me by the Promoter.

  878. Are you able to assist the Committee yourself, and if not I will ask Mr Spencer about this, as to where a reasonable position for that station's operations room might be if it were to be removed?
  (Mr Weiss) Speaking as a user and amateur, and I am sure Mr Spencer will give a more structured argument, the whole point about a station's operations room is it has to be within sight and proximity of the very areas it is looking out to—it is no good somewhere down the end of a corridor at the end of a fibre optic cable—so that they can react to problems. We go back to point M, which is where the Crossrail connection is made to the ticket hall, and point P, which is the top of the escalator from the Central line, and to know whether to stop that escalator you have really got to have somebody looking at it to see whether somebody has fallen over. To answer your question, an operations room would be somewhere in the vicinity. You are in a basement below an operating station with a Grade I listed building on one side and a bus station on the other. I am not at all sure where that might be provided without significant adjustment—we are talking major construction here—to that ticket hall.

  879. If it did turn out to be the case that there really were very considerable problems about moving that station's operations room, is that one of the matters which the Committee would necessarily have to consider should it accept our case on capacity when it came to considering what the best option to solve the problem would be?
  (Mr Weiss) Without question.


23   Crossrail Ref: P2, with Crossrail (Base +35%) + new gateline equipment 0845-0900 (LONDLB-2604-020). Back


 
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