"77002" wrote:

On Feb 10, 8:47 am, Roland Perry wrote:

In message ,
at 00:02:31 on Fri, 10 Feb 2012, Arthur Figgis
remarked:

"It is a fact is it not that relatively few Londoners use London
transport in any way. Most people don’t use London transport with
any
sense of regularity."
/quote

What do we reckon of the claim?

If "most" is to have the classic meaning, we'd be thinking of the
whether or not more than 50% use it 'regularly', which I'd suggest
means
something like 'at least once a week' rather than 'only every 29th
February without fail'.

The "relatively few... in any way" is a much harder test, because
then
you might be looking at showing that perhaps two thirds of Londoners
hadn't used a bus or tube at all in the last year (leaving the one
third
who had). Of course, London is a big place and out in the suburbs
there
might be a lot of people who only walk or drive.

Having looked at the report MizerT pointed us at, I wonder if it's
missing a large number of walking trips (despite having walking as
quite
a large number). For example, is going to the corner shop for a
sandwich
at lunchtime included?

The methodology says "A trip is a one-way movement from one place to
another to achieve a specific purpose (eg to go from home to work)",
so
perhaps it wouldn't.

To some extent this reflects the issues raised by transfering the
boroughs south of the Thames from Surrey to London (1889 London County
Council and its successors).

With a few exceptions like the Northern Line to Morden and two
District Line Branches, the Southern Electric System (as was) does the
same job as LUL North of the Thames. Both are Rail, both are public
transportation. The statistics fail to reflect this reality.

I will just point out, for those reading this on uk.r and m.t.u-t, that
this discussion of statistics has leaked over from uk.transport.london -
the fullest iteration of said discussion, including a link to a report
of London transport stats and some thoughts on definitions and meanings
of phrases used, as well as links that source the above quote, can be
found on said newsgroup.

FWIW, in contrast to the (cross)poster above, I would disagree that the
"statistics fail to reflect this reality" - the stats in the 'Travel in
London' report in question include National Rail travel as one of the
modes of travel, and furthermore the report does consider public
transport in London holistically (i.e. including NR). What is unclear is
what the London Assembly Member responsible for the quote actually
intended when he used the phrase "London transport" - but other parts of
his statement aren't exactly models of clarity either (points already
made in the utl discussion).