Average tube journey length and amount of time tube 'super-users' spend on the tube
Dear Transport for London,
Having searched the 'whatdotheyknow' website and your own website I could not find the answers to my following questions. I am curious to know the answers for any representative day or week on which you have data or can easily calculate results without breaching the cost limit. I am most interested in the tube and would be happy for you to omit the overground and DLR data if this would be cost prohibitive:
1) Of the approximately 3.5 to 4.5 million unique Oyster card users per day, how many customers use the tube[, overground and DLR]?
2) Of these tube[, overground & DLR] customers, what is the mean and median journey time?
3) In terms of tube[, overground & DLR] journey duration, I am interested in your 'super-users.' Of the 0.01% of customers on any representative day/week/month with the longest tube[, overground and DLR] journey duration, what is the mean and median journey time?
Yours faithfully,
Mr T. Tornari
Dear Mr Tornari
Our ref: FOI-1778-1415
Thank you for your email received on 28 January 2015 asking for
information about Oyster users.
Your request will be processed in accordance with the requirements of the
Freedom of Information Act and our information access policy.
A response will be provided to you by 25 February 2015. We publish a
substantial range of information on our website on subjects including
operational performance, contracts, expenditure, journey data, governance
and our financial performance. This includes data which is frequently
asked for in FOI requests or other public queries. Please check
[1]http://www.tfl.gov.uk/corporate/transpar... to see if this helps you.
In the meantime, if you would like to discuss this matter further, please
do not hesitate to contact me.
Yours sincerely
Graham Hurt
FOI Case Officer
FOI Case Management Team
General Counsel
Transport for London
References
Visible links
1. http://www.tfl.gov.uk/corporate/transpar...
2. http://www.tfl.gov.uk/corporate/about-tfl/
Link: [1]File-List
Link: [2]themeData
Link: [3]colorSchemeMapping
Dear Mr Tornari
Our ref: FOI-1778-1415
Thank you for your email received on 28 January 2015 asking for
information about Oyster users.
Your request has been considered under the requirements of the Freedom of
Information Act 2000 and our information access policy. I can confirm that
we do hold some of the information you require.
1) Of the approximately 3.5 to 4.5 million unique Oyster card users per
day, how many customers use the tube [, overground and DLR]?
To answer this question we have looked at data from April 2014, which we
had analysed previously. On a typical day that month, there were 2.1
million cards seen across all rail modes (LU, Overground, DLR & National
Rail). This compares to 3.5 million cards that were seen on all modes. So,
59% of all cards used on a typical day were seen on our rail modes.
Because of the way that the transport network is structured and the way
that people interchange between Tube, Overground and NR, it is very
difficult to break down on a ‘card’ basis the proportion of journeys
within the rail network. This is particularly challenging as we have a
number of stations, such as Stratford, where a ticket gateline is shared
between London Underground, London Overground and National Rail services.
But we have done other analysis that looks at Oyster journeys on a period
by period basis, which is useful for understanding the usage patterns
between Tube, Overground, and National Rail. This may be of interest to
you.
Attached is a table showing Oyster Journeys from Period 1 to Period 9 of
the current 2014-15 financial year. We have calculated this figure from
the total number of journeys with a completed Oyster exit at a station,
plus the number of bus boardings and tram boardings. Note that these
figures do not include journeys which have an uncompleted exit. So an
unstarted journey with an exit at Oxford Circus would be included in this
total. A journey starting at Oxford Circus but without a recorded exit
would not be. This detail is shown in 4 week periods from 1 April each
year, as this is the TfL reporting convention for financial and
operational information.
2) Of these tube[, overground & DLR] customers, what is the mean and
median journey time?
We do not hold information in this way. However you may be interested in
some of the journey pattern information shown in the ‘Travel in London’
reports available on our website:
[4]https://www.tfl.gov.uk/corporate/publica...
Although we do not hold the specific information you have requested, we
were, however, able to calculate the mean journey time of every station
combination on our network (there are approx. 250k combinations). This
mean is 47 minutes. This statistic takes every station pair (e.g.,
Stanmore to Stratford, or Covent Garden to Leicester Square) and
calculates journey times based on Oyster times. This 47 minutes does not
take into account the numbers of customers doing these journeys, so for
example we are only counting some of our most popular journey pairs (e.g.,
Oxford Circus to Brixton) once in this calculation.
3) In terms of tube[, overground & DLR] journey duration, I am interested
in your 'super-users.' Of the 0.01% of customers on any representative
day/week/month with the longest tube[, overground and DLR] journey
duration, what is the mean and median journey time?
We do not hold any information on this.
If this is not the information you are looking for, or if you are unable
to access it for some reason, please do not hesitate to contact me.
If you are not satisfied with this response please see the attached
information sheet for details of your right to appeal.
Yours sincerely
Graham Hurt
FOI Case Officer
FOI Case Management Team
General Counsel
Transport for London
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