Michael Bell wrote in message ...
The time wasted on opening and closing the tube doors has
always irritated me.

The train comes to a stop, we wait for the doors to open,
people get in and out, the doors close, and we wait for the train
to start. The Helsinki metro (very modern) gets it right, though the
plastic bucket seats become a pain in the sitting down place by the
end of the not very long line. Why can't London do the same? But I get
the feeling that some stock does open its doors as soon as the train
stops, though progress seems to be intermittent, and that's easier
than the closing phase. I estimate that 5 - 10 seconds per station
could be saved by cutting out these delays. It's not the difference
between night and day, but small improvements add up.

I'm not sure theres too many ways to speed things up in the rush hour but
in the quiet periods it does seem a bit silly to still have that 5 second
bleep before the doors close when its patently obvious no one else is going
to get in or out. They seem to have solved the problem in a novel way in
New York , some of the doors on the cars shut so viciously people make damn
sure they're out of the way when they start to close!

B2003