On Sun, 29 Nov 2015 13:00:51 +0100, Eric wrote:

On 2015-11-29, Clive Page wrote:
I'm surprised nobody else has noted here what I saw last week in (I
think) the Evening Standard: that TfL are about to tell passengers at
Holborn not to walk up the escalators.

They have done this on an ad-hoc basis in the past, I can remember it
being done at Victoria when it was very crowded.

They claim that the
passenger-carrying capacity is greater when people stand on both left
and right. There was no mention of a penalty for those trying to walk
up the left hand side, but as we all know, it only takes one person to
block that side by standing on it for the whole system to degrade to
standing on both sides.

Degrade? Not proven.

I really doubt the capacity arguments: it may be true that you get more
people on the standing side than on the walking side as walking needs a
bit more inter-person space, but on the other hand the number of people
per second is greater. I wonder if they have really done any measurements?

I would imagine they have, and they need to to be able to overcome the
inevitable objections to "stand on both sides".

I wouldn't object, I believe the capacity argument, and I always have.
When I first came to London 26 years ago, I was appalled at the convention
of standing on one side only. Think about it. Every time a step arrives
at the end of the escalator, 0 or 1 or 2 people get off. For maximum
capacity, it needs to be 2. On the right-hand side currently, there can
(with minor exceptions) be one person per step. On the left-hand side,
because, as you say, walking needs a bit more inter-person space, there
will never be one person for every step, so full capacity is never
being used.

But if people walk will they not spend less time on the escalator,
leaving more capacity for others? A 70mph road must be able to carry
more traffic each hour than a 30mph road.

There is another issue, which I think is equally important. Since
people are supposed to stand only on the right, all those who can't
or won't walk (especially up) end up queuing for the right hand side,
and the queue causes congestion. If they could queue for both sides,
the queue could also be two wide and therefore much shorter.

I can see your logic at peak periods but if passengers are permitted
to stand on both sides you could end up with those wanting to save a
bit of time (or build up their exercise steps) by walking during quiet
times unable to do so, as happens often in shops.

A much more productive move, in my opinion, would be to run their
escalators a bit faster: those in Moscow, Kiev, and other former soviet
cities, go about 50% faster in my experience. It comes as a slight
surprise to the visitor, but people seem to cope.

True.

Eric