Tom Anderson wrote:
On Sat, 21 May 2005, Dave Arquati wrote:
(snip)
The Victoria line is essentially full at the moment.


Next question, then - how come? It has a pretty decent 28.5 tph, it's
the shortest proper line in the whole network, and all but one of its
stations are on other lines as well!

For northbound trais to be be full at Victoria, Brixton, Stockwell,
Vauxhall and Pimlico would have to be generating as many passengers as
all the Northern line stations from Morden to Kennington put together,
or the Piccadilly line stations from Cockfosters to Caledonian Road. I
don't know those areas terribly well, and i realise that at least some
of them are very densely populated areas, but that seems quite
surprising. Is it because there are few people getting off the line
before central London? I guess a lot of Picc passengers switch to the
Vic at Finsbury Park, and perhaps Northern passengers to the Vic at
Stockwell! Or is the Victoria line picking up a lot of passengers from
the suburban railway network?

Well, according to the London Transport Strategy, in the morning peak,
the Victoria line is currently "very crowded" (i.e. operating in excess
of or near to planned capacity) northbound between Victoria and Green
Park, and southbound between Finsbury Park and King's Cross, and Euston
and Warren Street. Between Stockwell and Victoria it's just "busy"
northbound. The Northern line is "very crowded" northbound from Clapham
Common to Stockwell, after which it becomes "crowded" from there to
Kennington, suggesting a significant number of passengers transfer from
the Northern to the Victoria at Stockwell.

As I'd expect, the "very crowded" section north from Victoria indicates
that the line picks up an extremely high number of passengers from the
rail terminus, and it's on this Victoria - Green Park section that
capacity has been reached. Adding any stations further south would mean
those rail transfer passengers being left behind on the platform.
Unfortunately the diagrams in the Transport Strategy don't go beyond
Finsbury Park - but the Piccadilly southbound is at capacity already at
least between Finsbury Park and KXSP.

Incidentally, 2010 projections have the eastbound Piccadilly line
operating at capacity all the way from Barons Court to Hyde Park Corner
(presumably by which time, some passengers are so fed up they just get
off and get the bus!).


--
Dave Arquati
Imperial College, SW7
www.alwaystouchout.com - Transport projects in London