Recliner wrote:

Notably the platforms themselves looked very empty unless they had a
train
in them and the system had declared its destination. There didn't seem to
be
any cases of people awaiting a train on the platform itself, either due
to
altered patterns or the info system adopting a "don't tell until the
driver
is in the outward cab" approach. Great for incoming passengers who don't
have to fight their way off the train itself but it just adds to the
scrum
to get to a train with only a few minutes' warning.

I think one reason for the latter is that the current low-level bay
platforms are quite narrow, so they don't want departing pax filling them
too soon. It can be a real scrum when a packed 12-car train arrives, and
there are departing pax waiting on the platform.

I can't say I took a tape measure with me but I didn't the platforms were
especially narrow apart from around the steps up to the bridge. At the
mainline terminuses I'm most used to at peak hours, Waterloo and Liverpool
Street, you often get people waiting on the platform itself and you can get
a turnaround. And London Bridge evening arrivals are not noticeably packed.

Clearly no solution is optimum but my instinct is that if people could await
trains on the platforms themselves then they'd be more likely to catch them,
reducing scrums as everyone tries to get through in a short space of time
and overcrowding on the concourse as people who missed their train now have
to wait for the next one and fight to be in the best position to get out.
That concourse is simply not working at present and other solutions are
wilder like only operating shuttles to and from, say, East Croydon.

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