London Banter - View Single Post - So much for the Oyster Revolution in London

Tim Woodall · January 13th 07, 10:23 AM posted to uk.transport.london

On 13 Jan 2007 02:58:47 -0800,
wrote:

solar penguin wrote:

If TfL just reduced the cash fares to a reasonable level, no-one would
need to bother with this stupid Oyster business in the first place!

Er... yes. That's the point, isn't it? Boarding times will be quicker
if tickets are mostly Oyster.

IMO (and I don't use the tube much), the limiting factor is the speed
people can get through the station and the number of people who can
leave a platform for each arrival of a train.

Euston has obviously been set up to reduce the flow through the input
gates at peak times. Even the trivial change of making the output gates
input gates and the input gates output gates would probably allow 2x as
many people into the station per unit time but I don't think they could
then physically get down the escalators as fast as they were arriving
at the top.

Victoria (can't remember if it was a Saturday or Sunday evening when I
was there last) had someone "locking" and "unlocking" the input gates
and then only letting a few people in at a time because the flow through
the gates was faster than down the escalator. (and there were crowds
building up on the platform because people were arriving at the platform
faster than the trains could take them away)

Tim.

--
God said, "div D = rho, div B = 0, curl E = - @B/@t, curl H = J + @D/@t,"
and there was light.

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