On 01/12/2015 11:05, Roland Perry wrote:
In message
-sept
ember.org, at 10:36:49 on Tue, 1 Dec 2015, Recliner
remarked:

I'd like to see the figures in a peer-reviewed publication

http://www.iimahd.ernet.in/assets/sn...f/2002-11-01Go
utamDutta.pdf

Isn't that the same one I mentioned way up-thread?

Yes, but Clive must have missed it.

I did miss it, so now much obliged to both of you. This is described as
a working paper and so probably not peer reviewed, or at least not yet.
But it does look like competent research and makes interesting
reading, with some touches of light humour. People here will appreciate
in section 2 "these escalators ... are designed to last for a long
period of time".

Some of their conclusions are interesting:

* Passengers will not stand on both sides of an escalator simply because
they are asked to.

I think Londoners should take justifiable pride in not doing what they
are told; I suspect those in say Germany or Japan would be much more
likely to obey the instructions of officials.

* When passengers do stand on both sides capacity is high but this is
only because the majority of passengers do not treat the left hand side
as a standing side

(From the text it is clear that this is because a few people comply with
the TfL instructions and refuse to walk, so others bunch up behind them,
thus occupying almost every step, whereas normally on a standing side
there is at most one person per two steps).

Their final conclusion is that:

* To impose such a selective policy would be even more difficult than
persuading passengers to stand on all escalators and the benefit gained
would be minimal.

I don't know whether TfL management have read this working paper, but if
so their policy at Holborn does seem to be rather contrary to scientific
advice.


--
Clive Page

On 2015-12-01, Clive Page wrote:
On 01/12/2015 09:38, Robin wrote:
As a libertarian are you arguing that your choice to walk should trump
the choice of others to stand side-by-side?

Well of course. What's the point of being a libertarian if you can't be
selfish.

That was, of course, a somewhat light-hearted comment.

If you are arguing there should be no rule at all then I agree that
might work in some places. But my expereince of travelling across
London with people who find escalators difficult, and really want a
companion alongside them, is that a fair few passengers are prepared to
pursue vigorously their "right to walk".

This is a difficult issue, I agree. But at many stations there are now
perfectly good lifts which are much more suitable for those with luggage
or walking difficulties.

The lifts are generally much more suitable for those with luggage or
in wheelchairs. They are often not suitable for those with walking
difficulties because using them requires walking further than not
using them, often to the extent that stairs are better than walking to
the lifts.

Is the reason that people are so unwilling to
use lifts that nobody knows they are there? I admit they are often
tucked away and badly signposted.

Both true.

Or could it be that they like getting
to their destination as quickly as possible and lifts are sometimes
slower? If the latter, then they may see the point of allowing those
of us still tolerably fit to walk up an escalator on the left-hand side.

A dubious argument anyway, since the entire point of changing the
escalator rules is to get an entire crowd to or from the platforms as
quickly as possible. This is a safety issue and the slowing down of a
minority is not relevant.

Eric
--
ms fnd in a lbry

On Tue, 1 Dec 2015 16:34:36 -0000 (UTC)
Recliner wrote:
wrote:
On Tue, 01 Dec 2015 07:52:39 -0600
wrote:
As my mother found when age required her to give up driving at age 89, she
could rely on online shopping and hire cars (arthritis made the step up to
London-type cabs too difficult).

Thats fine so long as you don't have much of a life and are happy to stay at
home most of the time. Also minicabs cost a fortune. If she'd used more than
a few of those a week that would be her state pension gone.

Probably cheaper than running your own car for the same purposes, however.

A BMW or merc more than likely. But some little runabout in the lowest tax band
with good mpg and one-careful-owner insurance probably not.

--
Spud

I know some elderly people who cannot step up onto a bus
and who use minicabs instead.

Spud's supposition is correct except that I doubt if the
anti-motor car bigots believe everyone else is the same as
they are. I don't think they care either way.

The irony is that without motorists paying vast amounts of
money into the Exchequer each year, public transport on a
large scale would not be possible. If motorists did give up
their cars, there would be a huge increase in demand for
public transport and the subsidy from the taxpayer at exactly
the moment revenue collapsed.

When the anti-motor car brigade talk about "a sustainable
transport policy" they should ponder for a few moments on
what is financially sustainable.

Eric wrote:
On 2015-12-01, Clive Page wrote:

Is the reason that people are so unwilling to
use lifts that nobody knows they are there? I admit they are often
tucked away and badly signposted.


IMHO Eric's made some good points. But I will confess the above's a fair
cop in as much as it's never occured to me to use the lifts at Holborn
when helping a friend up and down the escalators there
--
Robin
reply to address is (meant to be) valid

Robin9 wrote:

;152184 Wrote:
In article , d () wrote:
-
On Tue, 1 Dec 2015 09:13:28 +0100
Robin9 wrote:-
Roland Perry;152175 Wrote: -
Not many pedestrians on the M25.-

That won't deter the anti-motor car fanatics!-

Their ultimate goal is quite obviously to get rid of the private car
altogether. They seem to think that because they're fit and healthy
and
live only a few hundred metres from a tube station in their organic
fair
trade right-on ghetto in London and never go anywhere outside the M25
unless they're in an aircraft, then everyone else must be in a
similar situation. I guess if you're old or infirm and live in an
area that poor or no PT so rely on your car to go anywhere, you can
just go **** off and die.-

As my mother found when age required her to give up driving at age 89,
she
could rely on online shopping and hire cars (arthritis made the step up
to
London-type cabs too difficult).

She could have used the tube longer if her nearest tube station, East
Putney, wasn't one of the least accessible on the system (no other means
of
accessing platforms but long steep staircases).

--
Colin Rosenstiel

I know some elderly people who cannot step up onto a bus
and who use minicabs instead.

Spud's supposition is correct except that I doubt if the
anti-motor car bigots believe everyone else is the same as
they are. I don't think they care either way.

The irony is that without motorists paying vast amounts of
money into the Exchequer each year, public transport on a
large scale would not be possible. If motorists did give up
their cars, there would be a huge increase in demand for
public transport and the subsidy from the taxpayer at exactly
the moment revenue collapsed.

When the anti-motor car brigade talk about "a sustainable
transport policy" they should ponder for a few moments on
what is financially sustainable.

Yes, good points.

Perhaps rather like the NHS depends on smokers' taxes and shorter lives. If
they all stopped smoking, and had a longer old age, it would really squeeze
the NHS finances.

On 01/12/2015 16:47, Eric wrote:
A dubious argument anyway, since the entire point of changing the
escalator rules is to get an entire crowd to or from the platforms as
quickly as possible. This is a safety issue and the slowing down of a
minority is not relevant.

Yes that was the point. But although it might seem to be the right
thing to do in theory it seems that it doesn't actually work in practice.

There is a little more on this in Ian Visits blog:

http://www.ianvisits.co.uk/blog/2015...the-escalator/

--
Clive Page

On 2015-12-02, Clive Page wrote:
On 01/12/2015 16:47, Eric wrote:
A dubious argument anyway, since the entire point of changing the
escalator rules is to get an entire crowd to or from the platforms as
quickly as possible. This is a safety issue and the slowing down of a
minority is not relevant.

Yes that was the point. But although it might seem to be the right
thing to do in theory it seems that it doesn't actually work in practice.

There is a little more on this in Ian Visits blog:

http://www.ianvisits.co.uk/blog/2015...the-escalator/


No more really, since it is mostly the 2002 paper that has already been
mentioned more than once in this thread (which doesn't actually prove
anything in my opinion).

Eric
--
ms fnd in a lbry

Eric wrote:
On 2015-12-02, Clive Page wrote:
On 01/12/2015 16:47, Eric wrote:
A dubious argument anyway, since the entire point of changing the
escalator rules is to get an entire crowd to or from the platforms as
quickly as possible. This is a safety issue and the slowing down of a
minority is not relevant.

Yes that was the point. But although it might seem to be the right
thing to do in theory it seems that it doesn't actually work in practice.

There is a little more on this in Ian Visits blog:

http://www.ianvisits.co.uk/blog/2015...the-escalator/


No more really, since it is mostly the 2002 paper that has already been
mentioned more than once in this thread (which doesn't actually prove
anything in my opinion).

I think what it proves is that it would be really hard to implement such a
policy in the few cases where it would be worthwhile: long up escalators in
the peaks. In all other cases, it's better to have a walking side and a
standing side.

Given that many London Tube users aren't fluent in English, most regular
Tube users are well-trained to walk on the left and stand on the right, and
many aren't listening to routine announcements, it would be nigh on
impossible to switch behaviours on a few escalators for a couple of hours
each day.

On 2015\12\02 17:02, Recliner wrote:
Eric wrote:
On 2015-12-02, Clive Page wrote:
On 01/12/2015 16:47, Eric wrote:
A dubious argument anyway, since the entire point of changing the
escalator rules is to get an entire crowd to or from the platforms as
quickly as possible. This is a safety issue and the slowing down of a
minority is not relevant.

Yes that was the point. But although it might seem to be the right
thing to do in theory it seems that it doesn't actually work in practice.

There is a little more on this in Ian Visits blog:

http://www.ianvisits.co.uk/blog/2015...the-escalator/


No more really, since it is mostly the 2002 paper that has already been
mentioned more than once in this thread (which doesn't actually prove
anything in my opinion).

I think what it proves is that it would be really hard to implement such a
policy in the few cases where it would be worthwhile: long up escalators in
the peaks. In all other cases, it's better to have a walking side and a
standing side.

Given that many London Tube users aren't fluent in English, most regular
Tube users are well-trained to walk on the left and stand on the right, and
many aren't listening to routine announcements, it would be nigh on
impossible to switch behaviours on a few escalators for a couple of hours
each day.


Make the steps a metre high and two metres long.