Passenger growth picking up strongly in London: DLR up 15 per cent

The latest figures showing passenger use of tubes, London Overground, DLR and buses across London reveals strong growth verses a year earlier.

TfL will be pleased to finally see two months of bus growth in a row with passenger numbers up three per cent. That hasn’t happened in some time. Tube usage was also up eight per cent on the year before.

The DLR saw growth of 15 per cent on last year. Just this week I looked into growth at one station with new homes being built beside it. Pontoon Docks has seen an increase from 78k journeys a month in April 2017 to 210k in March this year.

Journeys on any branch of the system will show extensive development around many stations.

TfL rail was up almost 25 per cent though they now operate more routes. London Overground completes the sweep with an increase of four per cent – even with problems on the Gospel Oak to Barking line.

While this year didn’t see heavy snowfall as in 2018, these increases continue a theme going back six months on the DLR and tube.

As a private franchise we don’t see Southeastern numbers with such regularity, except for Abbey Wood which TfL took over in advance of Crossrail. The number of journeys has grown massively with last month seeing another 20 per cent increase.

While the growth is welcome to those hoping to see less congestion and car use – and Tfl will be relieved given their financial problems – this does show the pain Crossrail’s delay will bring. It should be alleviating many forms of transport across London. It won’t for two years and many new homes, shops, offices, factories and entertainment venues continue to complete.