Jack Taylor wrote:
Steve M wrote:
Not true. There are only a few quieter stations anywhere else on the
network, and certainly none as close to Central London as Olympia.
There are around 400 entries and 400 exits during the AM peak (0700
to 1000) which, if divided between the 12 or so trains which run
during this period, give around 30 per train, or 5 per carriage. Off
peak, the numbers are lower.

Sorry - but that doesn't square with my observations on many afternoons, on
non-exhibition days, when there is a constant stream of (mainly) business
passengers feeding into both LUL and Overground services. I'd estimate at
least double those figures from about 15:30 onwards. I can't speak for the
morning peak, as I've never used it that early, apart from on Saturdays,
when I've experienced the kind of numbers that you suggest.



Fair enough, but those are the official 2006 figures (which now seem to
be available to the public on the TfL website). Perhaps during the off
peak, all the trains between 1000 and 1500 are empty, with everyone
piling on between 1500 and 1600? Saturday numbers show as 921 across
the whole traffic day.

Cheers

Steve M

On Fri, 14 Mar 2008 00:11:09 +0000, Steve M
wrote:

Jack Taylor wrote:
Steve M wrote:
Not true. There are only a few quieter stations anywhere else on the
network, and certainly none as close to Central London as Olympia.
There are around 400 entries and 400 exits during the AM peak (0700
to 1000) which, if divided between the 12 or so trains which run
during this period, give around 30 per train, or 5 per carriage. Off
peak, the numbers are lower.

Sorry - but that doesn't square with my observations on many afternoons, on
non-exhibition days, when there is a constant stream of (mainly) business
passengers feeding into both LUL and Overground services. I'd estimate at
least double those figures from about 15:30 onwards. I can't speak for the
morning peak, as I've never used it that early, apart from on Saturdays,
when I've experienced the kind of numbers that you suggest.



Fair enough, but those are the official 2006 figures (which now seem to
be available to the public on the TfL website). Perhaps during the off
peak, all the trains between 1000 and 1500 are empty, with everyone
piling on between 1500 and 1600? Saturday numbers show as 921 across
the whole traffic day.

How accurately do the entry/exit figures reflect passenger numbers?
Presumably anyone interchanging between Silverlink (as it was then)
and LUL with a season ticket/through ticket wouldn't get recorded...

I was surprised to see that the usage references for Kensington Olympia refer to 2006. Since then the London Overground has been added linking Clapham to Watford and particularly North West London to South West London. All this hard work has added a greater audience for the trains running to and from and through Kensington Olympia. With the plans for redevelopment of Earls Court, I think we can anticipate a greater usage of Olympia and greater demand for train services. I also think that is people were sure the service wouldn't be cut arbitrarily - which it is - there would be an even larger local audience for it

The proposal news item from LU/TfL announcing their plans to remove the week day service from December 2011 provides the distances to and from other local stations to Olympia - so you will be able to estimate how long it is to walk.

As a regular user of the Kensignton Olympia District Line service I know that I will miss the week day service tremendously and particularly late at night, in the winter, when it is raining and when I am carry shopping or luggage. So pretty much all the time. Good luck with the walking, let me know which feels like the safest route.

On Fri, Mar 14, 2008 at 12:11:09AM +0000, Steve M wrote:

Fair enough, but those are the official 2006 figures (which now seem to
be available to the public on the TfL website).

Measured how? By tickets sold at that station? Barrier entries/exits?
Both those will be too low - the latter especially, because at least
when I've gone there for an exhibition they've just opened the gates and
let everyone flood in and out unimpeded.

--
David Cantrell | http://www.cantrell.org.uk/david

Languages for which ISO-Latin-$n is not necessary, #1 in a series:

Latin

On 14 Mar, 11:25, David Cantrell wrote:

On Fri, Mar 14, 2008 at 12:11:09AM +0000, Steve M wrote:
Fair enough, but those are the official 2006 figures (which now seem to
be available to the public on the TfL website).

Measured how? By tickets sold at that station? Barrier entries/exits?
Both those will be too low - the latter especially, because at least
when I've gone there for an exhibition they've just opened the gates and
let everyone flood in and out unimpeded.


Opening the automatic gates at Kensington Olympia would be difficult
because there aren't any there!

On Fri, Mar 14, 2008 at 05:15:37AM -0700, Mizter T wrote:
On 14 Mar, 11:25, David Cantrell wrote:
Measured how? By tickets sold at that station? Barrier entries/exits?
Both those will be too low - the latter especially, because at least
when I've gone there for an exhibition they've just opened the gates and
let everyone flood in and out unimpeded.
Opening the automatic gates at Kensington Olympia would be difficult
because there aren't any there!

Ha! That would explain why I've never seen any in use then :-)

--
David Cantrell | A machine for turning tea into grumpiness

When one has bathed in Christ there is no need to bathe a second time
-- St. Jerome, on why washing is a vile pagan practice
in a letter to Heliodorus, 373 or 374 AD

On 14 Mar, 11:25, David Cantrell wrote:
On Fri, Mar 14, 2008 at 12:11:09AM +0000, Steve M wrote:
Fair enough, but those are the official 2006 figures (which now seem to
be available to the public on the TfL website).

Measured how? *By tickets sold at that station? *Barrier entries/exits?
Both those will be too low - the latter especially, because at least
when I've gone there for an exhibition they've just opened the gates and
let everyone flood in and out unimpeded.

--
David Cantrell |http://www.cantrell.org.uk/david

* Languages for which ISO-Latin-$n is not necessary, #1 in a series:

* * Latin

When I am sent to a station to count passengers, the normal process is
to count the numbers Joining and Alighting (and sometimes On Train
Departure) train by train. If these are the figures used then they
could, in a few cases overstate exits and entries as anyone
interchanging would be counted even though they don't actually leave
the station. In some cases, at London Bridge for example, we sometimes
count transfers between Eastern and Central, or at other locations we
have done specific barrier counts, usually in 5 or 15 minute bands for
the purposes of calculating passenger flows.

Clearly a fully gated station should give you an ongoing idea of
passenger numbes which "manual" checks should confirm. Even at fully
barrier controlled stations, however, a lot of people with strange/non
functioning tickets and special passes will be let through the gate by
staff. Hence the need for a physical count from time to time.

It should be pointed out that this is not an exact science - counting
bobbing heads (or feet and dividing by 2) is not as easy as it might
seem; but we do our best!

MaxB

MaxB wrote:

It should be pointed out that this is not an exact science - counting
bobbing heads (or feet and dividing by 2) is not as easy as it might
seem; but we do our best!


They had an interesting counting thing at Euston a few weeks back. Any
time you entered any station entrance or came off a platform, you were
given a card of a certain colour. When you left the station or entered a
platform, you had to drop the coloured card into a box.

The idea being too see how many of which colour ended up where.

Of course, most people either immediately chucked the cards on the floor
or didn't remember or think to give them up when they left, so I'm not
sure what success rate they had in getting the cards back.

This was the WHOLE of Euston, LUL and NR (and OG, if you like!).

On Fri, Mar 14, 2008 at 08:54:41PM +0000, Dave Newt wrote:

They had an interesting counting thing at Euston a few weeks back. Any
time you entered any station entrance or came off a platform, you were
given a card of a certain colour. When you left the station or entered a
platform, you had to drop the coloured card into a box.

The idea being too see how many of which colour ended up where.

Nifty!

Of course, most people either immediately chucked the cards on the floor
or didn't remember or think to give them up when they left, so I'm not
sure what success rate they had in getting the cards back.

Doesn't matter. They just need to compare the number of (eg) red cards at
location X with the total number of red cards collected. Those that just
get chucked on the floor can be ignored - assuming that the probability
of being thrown on the floor is not dependent on the colour.

--
David Cantrell | top google result for "topless karaoke murders"

There once a a tramp with "enable"
Whose router used proprietary cables.
When he got ****ed on meths,
He thought "screw IOS",
"Let's apt-get install iptables"