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Travel faster by standing still - on escalators




A simulation of the way people travel on escalators reveals the surprising result: people travel faster by standing still. The London Underground (the Tube) has 1.3 million customers a year. The first escalator was introduced at Earls Court Station in 1911, in which the rule was for customers to stand still on the right hand side and walk up on the left hand side (passing the standing customers). Transport for London conducted a three-week study at Holborn Station in November-December 2015 to review the way people travel on escalators. Was there a more efficient system (The Telegraph, March 18, 2016)?

The Holborn study asked people on one escalator to continue standing on the right and walking to overtake on the left. On another escalator they asked people to stand on both left and right sides (standing still, without walking).

The results showed that standing still on both left and right sides of the escalator reduced congestion by 30%. During peak times, the study showed that standing-only escalators could carry up to 30% more customers. The standing-walking escalator carried about 2,500 people an hour and the standing-only escalator carried around 3,250 people per hour. Off-peak times, there was little difference.

Holborn Station was used as the pilot test site because it is one of the busiest stations on the Tube, with more than 56 million customers each year. The test conducted on December 4, 2015, showed that a peak of 11,000 people were at Holborn Station between 8:30 and 9:30 in the morning. Its escalators are over 23 metres tall. People will generally walk if escalators are less than 18.5 metres tall, and prefer to stand still if escalators are taller than 18.5 metres.

The pilot study was researched for six months and the trials at Holborn Station were conducted over three weeks. Before the November trial, the Holborn escalators carried about 80 people per minute, with more people standing than walking. During the trials, the standing-walking escalator carried, on average, 81 people per minute. The standing-only escalator carried 113 people per minute (exceeding their expectation of 110 per minute). So it seems that people travel faster by standing still.




http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/road-and-rail-transport/12194976/London-Underground-Do-standing-only-escalators-work-on-the-Tube.html


MARTINA NICOLLS is the author of:- The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).


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