
Why London Underground stopped people walking up the escalators - vanilla-almond
http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/jan/16/the-tube-at-a-standstill-why-tfl-stopped-people-walking-up-the-escalators
======
tenfingers
... or, you could ask everybody to walk, thereby "quadrupling" the effective
capacity.

I've been in UK many times, and being able to effectively walk up _all_
escalators due to the diligence of the people always impressed me. Coming from
a country that doesn't have such respect for basic rules, it feels just wrong
despite the gain of average efficiency.

~~~
stronglikedan
> you could ask everybody to walk

That assumes that everyone is capable of walking on an escalator. I, for one,
am not. I get vertigo, and am on the brink of a panic attack for the entire
duration of my ride. I can barely step on one, let alone walk, particularly
when going down.

I do look for an elevator whenever possible, but there are times when one is
not available and I have to work myself up to the task. I have to grip the
handrail with both hands, and focus on a point on the steps themselves.

I'm sure there other issues that people have - like being able to walk but not
climb - that would prevent them from being able to walk. Therefore, it's best
to have the option to stand on one side and walk on the other.

~~~
fiatjaf
The current proposal (stand on both sides) assumes everybody is capable of
standing on an escalator. I, for one, am not. I get vertigo, I get mad, I get
sad. My body doesn't handle being stuck deep below the surface for very long
times, so I must walk up. I usually don't do very long underground trips
because of that condition.

~~~
kazinator
I love the vertigo feeling in long escalators. When I go up, I tilt my head
back and stare at the ceiling somewhat above the line of sight to the top. I
almost have the sensation that the tube is vertical and I could free-fall
backwards at any moment.

~~~
golergka
How the hell do you perceive it as something good and enjoyable instead of a
valid reason to get a panic attack?

~~~
sce
I've never done that but it sounds neat.

Anyway, I'm guessing the answer to your question is: control. You know that
you can at any moment tilt your head forward and lose the vertigo sensation.
So you are safe and in control and you also _feel_ safe and in control. That
makes the experience enjoyable (I assume).

~~~
golergka
Ah. See, I have this vertigo too, but it's always on. And I stumbled on
escalators a couple of time already, so that increasing my vertigo with 30-50
meters below me doesn't feel like a particularly good idea.

------
gus_massa
In Argentina we have a more complex protocol:

* Outside peak hours: stand on the right part of the escalator and leave the left part for walking.

* At peak hours: stand in both sides of the escalator.

* At extremely peak hours: If most of the flux goes upwards, stop the downward escalator and walk on it (this is actually illegal)

~~~
Fargren
I've never seen someone stopping the escalator, but I have seen the stairs
standing still with astounding frequency. I thought it was poor maintenance,
but it never occurred to me it was flow optimization.

~~~
ino
I've seen escalators that at night stop (like go to sleep) if nobody is
walking and start (wake up) when someone walks towards them.

------
JoshTriplett
One thing the article doesn't analyze at all: standing on both sides improves
total throughput, but how does it affect the individual latency for people
walking up the left side? If the answer is "it's faster for them too", then
tell people that and they'll be more inclined to go along with it. And if the
answer is "it's slower for them", then no wonder they don't want to go along
with it.

~~~
narag
Also the "faster for everyone" as a goal ignores that people that will go
faster with this system is people that were in no big rush to begin with (so
they took the right side), while people that wanted to go faster now can't.

You take away something that some people wanted to give the rest something
nobody asked for.

~~~
MaysonL
Consider those rushing left-side walkers: with left-side walking in effect, at
peak times, they may have to wait a few minutes at the bottom of the escalator
to get on, while their walking will save them 30 seconds on the trip up. Not
worth it. 16,220 per hour, versus 12,745.

------
mattmcknight
The math is the article is a little sketchy. "But a 2002 study of escalator
capacity on the Underground found that on machines such as those at Holborn,
with a vertical height of 24 metres, only 40% would even contemplate it. By
encouraging their preference, TfL effectively halves the capacity of the
escalator in question, and creates significantly more crowding below, slowing
everyone down. " It doesn't make sense that this would "halve the capacity"
unless no one was walking. It seems that with a 40% stated preference for
walking, it would be only a 10% loss of capacity due to preference
differences. The description should really also include a description of how
fast walking is compared to standing. Elevators move at around 0.3 m/s, people
walk at about 4x that pace, so even doubling the spacing requirements would
shave a fair bit off of that.

I think this result is a due to it only being tried on one of three up
escalators. By the assumption that there are 6 lanes, devoting 1/3 to walkers
and 2/3 to standers can lead to greater efficiency if that more closely
matches the actual preference distribution. By maintaining choice, and
matching the available options to those desired by passengers one can optimize
the results for both those who prefer speed and those who prefer not expending
energy.

~~~
justincormack
However people stand on adjacent steps, but allow much more space around
walkers, which is where most of the capacity loss is.

~~~
a3_nm
This depends on the ratio between elevator speed and (elevator speed + walking
speed), compared to the density ratio between standers and walkers. I'm not
sure what the outcome would be but it may be the case indeed that walker
throughput would be less that stander throughput no matter what.

------
thwarted
Considering that an escalator is one of the few real-life powerups available
outside of a video game, not walking up it is tantamount to wasting it, both
traveling up and down. Like getting Haste and then just standing there, or
being able to Deal Double Damage and not hitting the trigger.

I usually camp at the bottom, waiting for the crowd to disperse, then grab the
powerup and use it efficiently.

~~~
Houshalter
There's nothing wrong with running up the escalator. The issue is people
crowding to the right to make room for the people doing it, which decreases
the capacity for everyone else.

~~~
Grishnakh
Only if the number of people running is small. If there's a large enough
number of people running up the escalator, then the capacity will be increased
over everyone standing. It's quite simple.

According to the article, the problem they had was that on really long
escalators, not many people bothered to run, so the capacity was indeed too
low.

The solution is simple: cattle prods for people on the left who run too slow.
That'll get them up it faster. Seriously, what a bunch of lazy people. I can
understand elderly or obese people not running up the escalator (which is why
the right needs to be reserved for them), but the rest of you have no excuse.

~~~
smacktoward
In defense of those "lazy people," there are escalators and then there are
_escalators._

Here in Washington, DC, for instance, our Metro system has several escalators
that are 200 feet or more in length
([http://greatergreaterwashington.org/post/23038/what-are-
the-...](http://greatergreaterwashington.org/post/23038/what-are-
the-10-longest-metro-escalators/)). The longest one, in the station in
suburban Wheaton, Maryland, is 230 feet long and climbs 115 feet vertically
over that length. (Photo:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wheaton_station#/media/File:Wh...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wheaton_station#/media/File:Wheaton_escalator_from_bottom_right.jpg))
Long, steep escalators like that make a challenging climb even for the young
and fit.

~~~
Terr_
I used to live in Hong Kong, it has a network (mostly linear) that (in total)
goes a half of a mile sideways and 443 feet up.

Granted, the individual spans are less than that, but if you can rest on a
landing between spans, you can also just... well, ride the step you're on.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central–Mid-
Levels_escalator_a...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central–Mid-
Levels_escalator_and_walkway_system)

------
markdown
> had gone to Hong Kong on holiday. Lau noticed that passengers on that city’s
> Mass Transit Railway (MTR) were standing calmly on both sides of the
> escalator and, it seemed, travelling more efficiently and safely as a
> result.

Is this new? When I visited Hong Kong in 2011, you had to stand on the right
and walk on the left. In fact, this was one of the things that caused a great
deal of anger towards "mainlanders" – tourists from mainland China – who
ignored such social conventions.

EDIT: I just googled it and apparently the "no walking on the escalators" rule
in Hong Kong is only a few months old:

[http://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/education-
community/artic...](http://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/education-
community/article/1853813/stop-walking-escalators-hong-kong-divided-
over?page=all)

~~~
lvturner
No one obeys the stand only rule, at least not anywhere on Hong Kong island
that I've seen - so much so that it startled me to read it in the article.

------
vanilla-almond
Here is a photo of the escalators in Holborn station, as mentioned in the
article

[https://www.flickr.com/photos/topaas/16557435918/](https://www.flickr.com/photos/topaas/16557435918/)

~~~
envy2
I walked up and down those many times as a student at the LSE. It would've
driven me mad if I'd had to stand; very, very few things annoy me as much as
being stuck behind people (or traffic) moving unnecessarily slowly.

While obviously not everyone will be able to walk, we should be encouraging
more people to do so and certainly not slowing down those who are able and
willing just to make more room for the lazy. I find it hard to imagine that
the percentage of people who are physically incapable rather than just
unwilling to climb an escalator is large enough to cause meaningful
congestion.

~~~
Silhouette
_It would 've driven me mad if I'd had to stand; very, very few things annoy
me as much as being stuck behind people (or traffic) moving unnecessarily
slowly._

Isn't this exactly the point, though? At peak times, there are significant
crowds around the entrances to escalators at busy Underground stations, and
those crowds hold _everyone_ up regardless of their preference for standing or
walking. The idea here is to avoid the crowds forming a bottleneck in the
first place, or at least to reduce the delay if there are still too many
people to sustain full throughput.

------
lmm
Too much modern public transport is slowing people down for the sake of
throughput. Using the escalator this way adds capacity, but it makes journey
times longer, much like the endless passages that have replaced cross-platform
interchange on newer lines, or the decision to _not_ connect Crossrail to
Oxford Circus and force people to walk up, along the street and down instead.

If the escalators are at capacity then the right thing is to build more. But
that costs money, so instead we get "cheats" like this.

~~~
madeofpalk
> Using the escalator this way adds capacity, but it makes journey times
> longer.

In the article they mention that on these long escalators, the majority of
people would only stand anyway, so their time on the escalator is the same.
For the minority that do walk up, even though their time on the escalator is
slightly longer, because the bottleneck was significantly reduced they're not
waiting before the escalator for as long which makes up for it.

If you're increasing throughput, it means you're getting more people out of
the station in the same amount of time, so their journey is quicker.

> If the escalators are at capacity then the right thing is to build more.

But in the article they demonstrate with diagrams that they're not at capacity
because everyone is leaving the right sigh free for people to walk, but no one
actually does.

> But that costs money, so instead we get "cheats" like this.

I'm not familiar with the geography of London's stations but I would imagine
building more escslators is hard. Lack of space and added disruption while
they build them.

This is a great optimisation. I would imagine the cost-to-benefit ration would
be heavily in favour of utilising the existing escalators capacity more
efficiently, rather than building new ones.

~~~
Theodores
You are wrong about the bottleneck at the bottom, generally you can usually
proceed up the left and walk the escalator without being delayed by the
bottleneck queue of people wanting to stand on the escalator. Those folks are
generally to the right leaving a relatively clear path on the left.

So it is slow now for those of us that normally go at speed through the warren
tunnels such as Holborn. There will be no fast overtaking lane on the
escalators.

~~~
Grishnakh
>You are wrong about the bottleneck at the bottom, generally you can usually
proceed up the left and walk the escalator without being delayed by the
bottleneck queue of people wanting to stand on the escalator. Those folks are
generally to the right leaving a relatively clear path on the left.

Yeah, that's nothing at all like America. Over here, people will just get on
and stand in the middle of the escalator and hog as much room as they can.

------
pmalynin
Okay, in my city (Edmonton) we have the province's biggest University, that is
mostly served by the LRT, and the university station in underground and hence
has escalators. During peak morning hours, every single person walks up the
escalator stairs and it is considered rude to stand in the morning. When the
escalator is down everyone complains, because we need to 2x the walking now.
Actually the fact that escalator is broken (i.e one is turned off and the
other is closed for maintenance) has created a sort of inside joke, to the
point where the escalator has its website to say if its working
[http://uofaescalator.com/](http://uofaescalator.com/)

------
erostrate
"With the constant (and unsustainable) attention of staff, and three weeks of
practice, they eventually became a little more docile [...] It’s like child
psychology [...] So if you can’t tell them what to do every two minutes, how
on earth do you get them to comply? [...] The handrail and tread of the
escalator will be a different colour, and firmly planted pairs of feet will
decorate the left of the steps."

I wonder if they have tried to simply explain to commuters why it makes sense
to stand on both sides. Treating people like intelligent and responsible
adults often works much better than treating them like intellectually disabled
children.

~~~
madeofpalk
Seems like a difficult thing to do in such a small trial. Because it's just
one escalator (out of 7) in one station, their only point of contact is
someone at the bottom of the escalator to shout "stand still".

They hinted at in the article about if they were to expand the trial, they
would be able to sell the public on the benefits of it, presumably through a
larger campaign.

~~~
a3_nm
Hand out leaflets? People could read them while they stand on the elevator. :)

~~~
madeofpalk
Sounds like a great idea for a larger trial!

------
cm2187
This is complete b/s. I (too) often take the tube at peak hour, the left line
is usually full, even in long escalators like the connection between the DLR
and the central line at Bank. The idea that you have an empty left line and a
packed right line is just not true.

------
driverdan
What an unnecessarily long article. Scroll down to the second photo to see
what it's about and skip the text.

------
dennisgorelik
I am surprised that in London right side of escalator was reserved for non-
walking travelers.

British drive on the left side of the road, so more natural tradition would be
to stay on the left side of escalator and run on the right.

~~~
robinson-wall
It makes more sense in my head the current way round. The traffic (people that
are moving) is on the left.

------
Houshalter
Escalators are very rare novelties here. I never really understood their
purpose over a regular stairs, but they are so cool on the occasions I see
them.

As a kid I was taught that walking up or down an escalator was rude, could
cause injury, and defeats the purpose of the escalator. I think I was punished
for doing it. When I went to DC, people were asking me to move out of the way
so they could run up the escalators. I thought they were just being rude, but
then I noticed lots of people doing this.

I don't remember there being any signs or anything anywhere explaining this.
It just emerged as part of their culture. Very interesting. I will definitely
try running up an escalator the next time I see one.

~~~
CaptSpify
The purpose is for those with disabilities, elderly, etc. Walking up stairs
can be tough for some people.

~~~
Houshalter
That's what elevators are for. Someone in a wheel chair can't go up an
escalator I don't think. All multi story buildings are required to have
elevators for the disabled, so the escalator is just a fancy extra.

~~~
aianus
I don't know why you're being downvoted, there are elevators with handicap
signs at pretty much all subway stops in Toronto. If you're standing on an
escalator it's because you're lazy not too disabled to walk.

------
usrusr
An interesting example of how too much uniformity can weaken a system. Where i
live, there is a low but "reliable" percentage of riders who are just too rude
to follow the left/right protocol. They are rare enough that during low-
traffic periods, chances are quite low that you will be blocked while taking
the individual latency improvement of walking. However, in periods of high
traffic there will be enough of of them to reliably break the throughput-
limiting lane pattern and congestion propagation will make sure that it stays
that way until the next break in throughput demand.

Never occurred to me that the occasional lane-blocker was an accidental
optimization.

------
oxplot
I think the main issue is the width of the escalators. Given that strangers
don't like to stand next to one another (as per article's claim), two single
width escalators would end up working more efficiently than one double width.

------
Terr_
> In lieu of actual people, a hologram customer service operative will remind
> people to stand on both sides.

Is this some sort of British slang thing, or did somebody make enormous
strides in hologram technology when I wasn't looking?

~~~
kalleboo
They're cardboard cutouts with rear projection.
[https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=UarWbumn240](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=UarWbumn240)

------
ramshanker
Come to Rajeev Chawk station of New Delhi Metro, and you will see 3 rows of
people on escalator: Left, Right & Center too.

Must be almost touching the escalator's "Design Capacity"!

------
slash213
Moscow has one of the busiest subway systems in the world, ranked 4th by
annual ridership. There's a "stand on right, walk on left" rule, but at
congestion hours passengers are advised to stand on both sides to make
transportation more efficient, and it's been like that for decades.

Reading a Guardian article on that feels, uh, really redundant? I guess we
Russians have some experience in dealing with mobs.

------
fiatjaf
"Escalator" is an interesting name. Here in Brazil escalators are called
"rolling stairs" (escada rolante).

~~~
Fargren
In Argentina they are called "mechanical stairways" (escalera mecánica)

------
ycmbntrthrwaway
In Moscow escalators are controlled manually. Each set of escalators has one
operator. During peak hours operators manually instruct people to use both
sides, constantly repeating instruction for new people that keep arriving. As
soon as they stop repeating, people use only the right side as usual.

~~~
csydas
St. Petersburg has one operator for tri-lane escalators, and two for quad+ -
Though maybe I just haven't noticed, it seems to me that people just naturally
being the double bunching when capacity is high - usually the operators here
just complain too much about people running on the escalator or sitting on the
steps.

------
cornholio
Brain fart time: how about a transit system composed entirely of escalators ?
When you board, you take a slow treadmill that runs in parallel to a faster
one, and that in turn to another, gaining 0.3-0.6 meters/second on each
lateral skip. You do the reverse when approaching your destination.

An treadmill running at 10m/s with pairs of people spaced at 0.5m has a
capacity of 40 people/second, or 2400 people per minute, or one large train
every 30 seconds. The average speed is higher and you no longer need to wait
for a train. The only very small problem is the prohibitive cost with existing
tech.

~~~
zrail
Robert Heinlein wrote a short story about this concept named The Roads Must
Roll. He uses it to illustrate class differences.

~~~
narag
Is it pre or post *The Caves of Steel" by Asimov?

~~~
maxerickson
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Roads_Must_Roll](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Roads_Must_Roll)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Caves_of_Steel](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Caves_of_Steel)

 _The Roads Must Roll_ was published in 1940. _The Caves of Steel_ was
published in 1953.

------
kazinator
Here is an idea.

On long escalators, mark some of the stairs in a particular color at regularly
spaced intervals. Those are the designated "rest stairs".

Someone walking up who changes their mind (temporarly or for the rest of the
ride) just finds a green stair, and moves over to the standing spot to let
those behind pass.

Rest stairs can be spaced reasonably sparsely so as not to cut into capacity
too much or annoy people, and would only be featured on the long escalators
where this is a problem.

Maybe some people give up on the idea of walking up the long escalators in
rush hour because they don't want to hinder someone who is faster.

~~~
Atheros
You can already do this. If you want to rest you step to the right. People
walking continue to pass on the left.

~~~
kazinator
Not if the right side is completely packed with people at a peak time.

------
tfolbrecht
No Western person would be comfortable riding an escalator side by side with a
stranger (aka weirdo in UK speak) for the equivalent of fifty to a hundred
steps of stairs in a hot smelly subway so dirty your snot turns sooty.
Standing on the right to allow others to walk up the left is not a technical
optimization constructed by the impatient of the world. The real optimization
problem is you're dealing with people and not frictionless spheres. X number
of people walking up the left is faster than zero.

~~~
lttlrck
They just came from an underground carriage where they were almost certainly
standing next to multiple strangers in a much more uncomfortable environment.

------
cauterized
The only time I ever see two people standing still on a single escalator stair
is parents with children or romantic partners - people who are comfortable
sharing physical space with one another. Strangers don't share an escalator
stair.

So if you let people stand on the right and walk on the left, you're getting
higher density and throughput, since you now have one person standing per
stair PLUS people walking on the left. It's like turning a 1-lane into a
2-lane street.

------
PhasmaFelis
TL;DR: Because many more travelers stand (on the right) than walk (on the
left); catering to the latter potentially leaves nearly half the escalator's
capacity unused.

------
Yizahi
Walking on an escalator is usually not very efficient thing - you cut
throughput in half and will maybe save 30 to 60 seconds walking down, and only
if you'll actually catch a train in that period. Walking upwards is even less
efficient - saving 10-20 seconds by inconveniencing hundreds of people?
Really?

All this is comparable to people crossing streets on red light and afterwards
walking slower than me crossing on green.

------
Felix21
It's still faster for the person running up the escalator but for that luxury,
we are sacrificing half the capacity of the escalator.

Having another row of people on the left means the overall capacity increases
and everyone moves faster but I always walk up the stairs and this won't
benefit me one bit. Everyone else wins.

Standing when I'm in a rush can never be faster than walking up the escalator.

~~~
rmvt
i figure it's not a luxury. people walk slowly inside the stations. escalator
or no escalator. platforms are ridiculously small. i avoid taking the
underground when i'm commuting to work because it's just hell. walking up the
escalator is the one time i feel i'm actually going places (when i'm
commuting). this would be acceptable if the rest of the journey wasn't just
miserable. now they set out to make the journey 100% miserable. thanks tfl...

why doesn't tfl try and improve the stations instead of coming up with this
crap? i hate to sound like some sort of hillbilly but hey, if everyone walks
up the escalator the throughput is even greater! another one: if you close
down one station for a whole year, why not improve the platforms by making
them bigger? in fact, you close down the station for a year and when you open
it again the works are not even close to being done! fantastic!

/rant

------
ilzmastr
I've never heard "escalump" in DC, but I have heard and used "escalefter" many
times. There was even an ad inside the metro about it one time:

[http://klaprothlaw.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/Tourism-
to...](http://klaprothlaw.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/Tourism-to-U.S..jpg)

~~~
elicash
It was part of the same ad campaign (I remember it):

[http://farm1.static.flickr.com/71/201509778_6f81b468ac.jpg](http://farm1.static.flickr.com/71/201509778_6f81b468ac.jpg)

------
JupiterMoon
With many thing once people get used to a change their behaviour adapts in
ways that the changer did not hope for. I suspect this will end with each
person standing across both sides of the escalator cutting throughput.

------
jjp
I assume the biggest improvement is removing the merging problem when people
queuing on the left merge at the last minute and people on the right aren't
being completely passive to the queue jumping.

------
faitswulff
Why not make the escalators smaller so they only fit one person at a time?
Then they could have two lanes where they used to have one and standers would
naturally block walkers.

~~~
hammock
That would work if everyone was the same width. Which they are not

~~~
faitswulff
I don't think your line of thinking makes sense. Escalators already account
for varying widths of people. But on average, two people of varying widths can
fit on an escalator. Just make the escalators more narrow so that, on average,
only one person fits on the escalator.

~~~
hammock
Have you ever been on a singlewide escalator? They have both single and double
in my city. Rider comfort does not scale down linearly. It's the same story on
roads, a two lane highway is going to be much wider than half the width of a
four lane highway.

~~~
faitswulff
Ah, so you're saying that two singlewide escalators wouldn't fit where a
doublewide escalator exists, now? That's a different and more compelling
argument, but they could still do it. Also, this article is about putting
rider preferences second. I would include rider comfort as one of those
preferences.

------
codeulike
_“From my point of view,” says TfL’s head of transport planning Geoff Hobbs,
“the ideal train would look like a bread bin”_

lol I can see that being taken out of context.

------
droithomme
The article and its experts assume that "efficiency" is more important than
culture and regimen without proving that is true.

~~~
VLM
Its also interesting to see the cultural turmoil people are willing to put up
with just to avoid the implied worse alternative of flexible working hours or
working from home occasionally.

A quick "easy" but apparently utterly culturally unacceptable way to increase
capacity by some 240% would be to work from home one day per week on average
(or a half day every other week, or two days every other person, etc) and flex
working hours such that the "rush hour" is twice as long.

This would interfere with primate dominance rituals such as enjoying lower
social class suffering, so instead we'll get something that merely
redistributes suffering.

------
kazinator
The solution is to actually have a full escalator, with an uninterrupted row
of people on the left who are walking. That's what I see in Vancouver, and
cities in Japan. The escalator is fully occupied, _and_ one side of it is used
for walking.

It's surprising to hear that Londoners are just keeping one side clear, with
few "takers" to climb up. Are they unfit or something? Respectful, though.

~~~
Grishnakh
How long are those escalators in Vancouver and Japan? According to the
article, what they saw in the London escalators was that on the really long
ones, not many people wanted to walk, but on the shorter ones they did.

------
IshKebab
I wonder why they don't make the escalators three people wide. There is
certainly space for it.

~~~
jedberg
It's dangerous because the person in the middle can't hold a handrail.

------
interfixus
I run up stairs. Hence have little patience but plenty of scorn for people who
can't be bothered with a bit of locomotion on the escalator. Come on, I'm 56,
you're half my age, move it!

London Transport might have attempted a campaign along those lines. Lowest
common denominator can be tiresome at times.

------
legulere
Is there a reason why all escalators are 2 people wide?

~~~
MagnumOpus
It is the maximum that is safe (3 wide has a person in the middle with no
handrail and if anyone fell, they would become a bowling ball).

It is much more efficient than 1 person wide - two double-wide escalators
offer more capacity than the 3 single-wides that fit in the same space, and
likely consume less energy and cost less to maintain.

------
bluejekyll
And there goes my little exercise I get in the morning.

~~~
keithpeter
Get off one stop early and walk a bit? (Assuming this isn't a joke).

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donatj
I feel like I can't be alone in not wanting to stand next to someone I don't
know on an escalator and finding the idea uncomfortable?

~~~
e12e
Are you comfortable standing next to someone you don't know on the subway? If
not, you probably wouldn't be down there in rush hour in the first place...

------
dreamfactory2
It seems to me that the throughput on the left side is faster - and therefore
even if it were more spaced out (not the case in rush hour when it is almost
as crowded as the right side), the fact that people are moving faster and
spending less time on it would make up for any difference.

~~~
edoloughlin
From tfa: _An escalator that carried 12,745 customers between 8.30 and 9.30am
in a normal week, for example, carried 16,220 when it was designated standing
only_

~~~
luchs
I don't quite understand how that works. Surely there wasn't a crowd of 3000
people at the bottom of the escalator when people were walking on the left?
Where do the extra people come from?

~~~
mrchicity
Public transit in major cities is a set of complex queuing systems. If a
station is slower getting people out, they will crowd on the platform and
create "back-pressure" on the entire system as the crowd causes incoming
trains to take longer to unload, people will see longer queues to enter the
system so they'll be marginally more likely to take a cab or abandon their
trip.

So some of the 3000 people were literally standing on the platform, but many
of them may have been new customers or time-shifted rides that didn't even
exist before.

All of this seems like a very micro optimization to eek out efficiency in peak
throughput. The bigger macro problem is that transit is centered around sharp
peaks due to inflexible work/life schedules. Moving everyone in London or New
York around is tough enough, but doing it in a few hours each day is a
nightmare and you have to massively overbuild infrastructure.

------
gaius
So in conclusion, present-day Londoners are lazy, and rather than encouraging
people to move more, we should pander to them. Why not give everyone a Coke
and a Big Mac with every Oyster card too? No wonder there is an obesity
crisis.

~~~
palish
Isn't there anything more interesting to say? Resentment isn't too useful.

I watched someone carry a wheelchair down the escalator a few weeks ago. No
one could get past them, since the owner of the wheelchair was clinging to the
person kind enough to escort them.

~~~
gaius
Done that myself a few times. In the present system, those who aren't able to
walk, don't have to, and those that can, ought to be encouraged to, for the
matter of public heath.

~~~
DanBC
Their journey usually involves walking to the station, walking to the
escalator, walking from the escalator to the train, and walking from the train
to work.

That short escalator ride isn't a public health disaster.

The lack of healthy food available to commuters is probably a bigger problem.

~~~
gaius
It's more subtle than that. The difference in attitude between "I walk when
it's unavoidable" and "I walk whenever I can because we spent a billion years
evolving to do it and living in a city is very bad for my overall health and
wellbeing".

~~~
palish
There was a woman who became obese following a transplant of gut flora.

Recall how much the idea of evolution bothers some people. Are you sure this
isn't a similar type of situation?

We seem to have evidence that obesity isn't always a choice.

~~~
gaius
For 50% of the population? I call shenanigans.

------
shabbaa
Tldr?

------
everyone
This sucks. Now people who want to walk up and get a little exercise cant,
just cus they are outnumbered by lazy sedentaries.. :(

------
nkrisc
It wouldn't be quite as large of a problem if people who were physically able
would just quit being lazy and walk up the escalator, even if it is a bit of a
hike. It's not like walking to the top of a skyscraper.

You know what's faster than either walking up stairs or an escalator? Walking
up an escalator.

------
delibes
I used to go through Holborn every morning at 8.50am and I could see them
preparing the experiment a few weeks in advance. They placed people in all the
corridors to count throughput.

However, as I was changing from the Central line to the Piccadilly line in the
morning, like many others I walked through the much quieter 'No Exit' corridor
(against the flow of traffic) to avoid/alleviate the congestion in the actual
designated exit corridor. I'm not sure if I was counted in their stats as a +1
or -1?

Then they closed my local station anyway, so I switched to the overground. 5
mins more, but so much nicer!

~~~
lexicality
Please don't walk against the flow, it inconveniences so many people. :( In
some cases it can half the throughput for a coridoor as people walking in the
right direction have to slow down and merge into another line just so you can
go past.

~~~
tomjakubowski
Sorry, downvoted you by mistake.

------
stretchwithme
I don't think use of the Underground will increase by 60% by 2050. Mass
transit will be a bad memory by then.

When our driverless cars head underground, they will all be going at the same
high speed.

~~~
apsec112
Digging a single tunnel under the length of London (the Crossrail project)
cost ~$25 billion. And that's just one tunnel. London has a population of ~8.5
million, and a single road lane with automated vehicles can handle around
~3,000 cars per hour. Multiply it out, and the cost of tunnelling a road
system large enough to carry the entire city at high speed becomes mind-
bogglingly huge.

~~~
stretchwithme
I said "WHEN our driverless cars head underground". I did not say all the
travel would be underground.

Small single passenger vehicles can also pass each a lot more easily in the
amount of space a train takes up. You could have two levels in the amount of
vertical space a train takes up.

I also don't think a train takes up less of the available space and time than
individual cars would, when has to stop at all the stops. All other trains
must wait too. The flow is constantly interrupted.

Robotic underground construction is also going to be a lot cheaper.

Whatever happens and whatever the mix between walking and vehicle
transportation evolves, people are going to prefer to travel in their own
vehicles over being crammed into cars with strangers and having to navigate
escalators.

This particular system is shaped by the current technological constraints, not
so much by people's desires. When technology advances, it will eventually
change.

~~~
fredoralive
I don't think you've seen a London Underground deep tube line, you ain't
getting two levels of cars in that space. No overtaking either, as they use
separate tubes for each direction. Even the larger, shallower subsurface lines
are UK loading gauge, which isn't big enough for double decker trains. I doubt
any double decked traffic on existing UK railway land without extensive
expensive rebuilding.

As for "robotic underground construction", it's not like they have a load of
Navvies digging by hand nowadays, a modern tunnel boring machine is pretty
damn robotic, but it still costs a fair chunk of change to tunnel.

------
sandworm101
>>The stand-on-the-left controversy is no exception. Harrison, Stoneman and
their colleagues believe it could make a noticeable impact on congestion at
some of London’s busiest stations, congestion that will only get worse as
train design, frequency and reliability improve, as the trains get faster and
the doors get bigger, and ever more passengers are dumped on the platform at a
time.

THAT is a very british approach. Planners know that a problem is approaching,
a problem created willingly by infrastructure improvements elsewhere. But
rather than address that spillover issue with money/time/new bricks, yet
another code of behavior is to be enforced. The people are to shoulder the
burden yet again. Heaven help the tourist in a hurry who gets an asbo for not
maximizing the carrying capacity of tube escalators. I wait for the day the
escalator stops and everyone stands motionless for fear of being ticketed.

See
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DyL5mAqFJds](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DyL5mAqFJds)
where shoddy architecture is answered by suggesting that things will be ok so
long as only lightweight people enter the building.

And i thought there was an obesity crisis? They've been telling us for years
to keep moving and now here is a government agency telling people to stand
motionless? I say encourage people to burn calories by running the escalators
in reverse!

~~~
conistonwater
In terms of resource use, that is a spectacularly efficient solution. They are
not "shouldering" a burden, they are using existing capacity to a fuller
extent, which is just about the most efficient solution to any problem
anywhere. It's cheap and gets the job done.

Also, frankly, if you're unwilling to follow the local code of conduct, you
deserve an asbo/death sentence/stern tut-tutting and disapproving glares.

~~~
sandworm101
It is efficient only when the escalator is running near capacity, not when the
escalators are less than 1/2 full. I suspect that this experiment will result
in new rules to be applied 24/7 no matter whether they are anywhere near
capacity.

~~~
Silhouette
Why would you expect that? Given how pragmatic most Brits are about rules and
etiquette, at least once social norms have been established and people have
become used to how things work, your assumption seems rather pessimistic.

------
frobozz
Capacity could be improved even more, without fuelling the obesity epidemic
and inconveniencing those of us who prefer to keep moving . All they have to
do is make walking compulsory on both sides.

~~~
nkrisc
I'm an escalator walker myself but not everyone is physically able to walk up
or down a very large set of a stairs. Just because someone can not do that
doesn't mean we ought to design things to exclude them.

~~~
mercurial
Of course not. However, since you have several lanes, what about having
"walking compulsory" and "standing compulsory" escalators? Assuming enough
escalators to get the right distribution, this would ensure maximum throughput
and minimum annoyance at peak hours.

~~~
nkrisc
I think you'd still end up with wasted escalator capacity. If the observations
in the article hold true in this scenario, you'd have a mostly empty "walking"
escalator right next to a packed "standing" escalator.

I think the point is enough people prefer to stand over walking than any
dedicated walking space is likely wasted.

------
sbuttgereit
Would this not be fairly straightforward to simulate? I see statements like:
"and, it seemed, travelling more efficiently and safely as a result." and "His
report prompted Harrison and her colleagues to wonder..." and think... they're
guessing? They're going right to disrupting normal travel patterns of many
people for a trial on nothing more than a hunch? Why not prove to a reasonable
degree that this would actually work beyond the anecdotal feelings of a few
employees before inflicting such a change on the public?

Seems like they are just shifting the cost for finding out from themselves to
the disrupted travellers. Even if over longer periods of time this proves more
efficient, disrupting normal patterns for regular commuters will cause a lot
of stress and disorientation; such stress may be a soft cost, but most
commutes already suck. I guess when you're a government agency, it's hard to
fail your customers in a way that matters to you.

~~~
roel_v
They did simulate. Thing is that you can only tell if simulations are correct
by testing in real life.

(do simulations for a living)

