please empty your brain below
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I suspect you are not entirely serious, but is there anywhere in the world that has such wide escalators as standard?
Andrew | 16.04.15 - 7:11 a.m. | #
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If you're interested in a more serious statistical study of escalator use, comparing walking with standing, you might like to read the research paper "Estimation of Capacity of Escalators in London Underground" by Davis and Dutta (2002)
diamond geezer | Homepage | 16.04.15 - 7:16 a.m. | #
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How about a minor (say 5%) increase in escalator speed at peak times to increase capacity as so many end up with two lanes of standing due to 'sheer weight of traffic'.
Training sessions could be arranged for the less agile at closed stations - eg Charing Cross.
Also let's ban the 'walking wardrobes on wheels' (formerly known as suitcases) that many visitors now trawl round London and its public transport during their stay. What on earth do they keep in such large containers?
Roger | 16.04.15 - 7:39 a.m. | #
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Waterhouse | 16.04.15 - 7:43 a.m. | #
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Roger. The escalators on tfl stations already run faster than most others, such as in shops. Try coming up from the Jubilee platform at Canary Wharf (tfl controlled) then take the escalator from the concourse to the shopping mall. The second one is at shop speed and feels glacial compared to the tfl standard.
IslandDweller | 16.04.15 - 7:45 a.m. | #
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Was this content originally intended to have been posted 16 days ago, perhaps.. ?
Frank F | 16.04.15 - 7:59 a.m. | #
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I think many would walk more slowly up the middle of an escalator with no handrail!
And be careful who you dismiss as lazy for not walking. I used to bound up every chance I could. Since losing half my lungs a few years ago I can't, though you wouldn't be able to tell any disability by looking at me.
jm | 16.04.15 - 8:14 a.m. | #
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As with others, I can't see a "middle lane" working well, because of the need to hold on to a handrail. And replacing a bank of three escalators with a bank of two wider ones would be a serious mistake operationally. Currently a 3-escalator setup allows for two in one direction and one in the other, with tidal flow operating so that at times the middle escalator works down, other times up. Furthermore, third escalators mean that if one breaks (and it happens several times per day across the network) there is still at least one escalator able to take passengers in either way.
TheNewNo2 | 16.04.15 - 8:38 a.m. | #
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training won't necessarily work for all of the "less agile". Till a few years ago I walked up and down all escalators, asking people to move if necessary. Now, with restricted mobility, I can't manage deep treads like escalators or on buses, though I can do ordinary stairs if there's a handrail. Recently I got off at St Pauls, and noted that the down escalator wasn't working, so knew I'd have to walk to Bank on the way back home.
amber | 16.04.15 - 8:46 a.m. | #
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And while we're at it, let's revisit this convention of standing on the right and overtakig on the left. It's the opposite order to the rule of the road (in Britain). Everybody knows that we drive slowly on the left and overtake on the right.
Why does the Underground have to remain so contrary ?
And why doesn't somebody invent a paint or vinly that can be applied to step treads(that won't completely wear out), showing standing feet one side and walking legs the other ?
Petras409 | 16.04.15 - 9:18 a.m. | #
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Or we could just get a bit more patience. Leave the house at 07:32 instead of 07:38. What did you plan to do with those six minutes anyway?
Malcolm | 16.04.15 - 9:22 a.m. | #
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Why oh why did the Edwardians not envisage that parents would increasingly be buying buggies that are the size of small tanks? Why!?
Andrew Bowden | Homepage | 16.04.15 - 9:22 a.m. | #
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I can understand your frustration . Really, I can. The kids thing though:
"Children frequently end up on the left beside their parents, for hand-holding reasons, which'd be perfectly sensible if only there weren't a rule against it" could be because aside from the LU, parents are told to hold their kids' hands on every other escalator in the world.
6000 | Homepage | 16.04.15 - 9:28 a.m. | #
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Petras409, I've always assumed we stand on the right because the majority of people are right handed and have more stability holding on the right.
James Armitage | Homepage | 16.04.15 - 9:32 a.m. | #
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Being in possession of a freedom pass shows my age but I am not automatically drawn to the right side. When there is a train to catch and the next isn't for a half an hour then it's the left side for me,armed with a bag and a few "scuse me'"s! Of course when there's a station with a staircase between the escalators then the answer's easy. Walk up! Wider escalators for wider people? Did they get that way by always standing?
Jo W | 16.04.15 - 9:38 a.m. | #
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"Only on London's railways is there an expectation that one side of the escalator is for walking, because we're all in one hell of a rush, hence a rule has grown up that most people follow".
Actually, this is the case in Melbourne, too, although in reverse. You should try Adelaide ... people there stop dead at the bottom of escalators and contemplate the nature and scope of the universe ... and wonder why people barge into them.
Re Suitcases ... try travelling OS for a month with a small suitcase, esp. if you are going through two different climate zones!
Antipodean | 16.04.15 - 9:48 a.m. | #
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Ex ticket-office staff are about to be re-trained to stand at the escalators to push hesitant tourists onto the moving step and throw their children, suitcases, buggys, on after them and to shout at them to stand on the right. At the exits they will haul them off again and shout at them to hurry along. They are also being taught to shout the word 'please' as part of a public relations enhancement programme. It is possible that the current narrow escalators will thus be deemed sufficient, thereby saving millions of pounds. Passengers, or even customers, standing at the exit of an escalator contemplating their next move in the universe is an offence punishable by mass trampling but this problem should be solved after the new re-training initiative.
Herbof | 16.04.15 - 10:12 a.m. | #
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Agreed, i too thought of this idea many years ago! The trouble with a '3 lane' escalator though is that
You'd get someone standing on the left AND the right! (a couple?) and in the middle there would still be their luggage or small child. Groups of people would now congregate 2 or 3 wide across one 'step' of the escalator, and I hazard it would make it even worse.
Note - on the escalator you there are signs telling you to go to the right. But in ALL OTHER corridors on the tube nextwork, they encourage you to 'keep left'. Now THAT's confusing ...
(People should be encouraged to stand on the left on escalators, not right, in keeping with how we drive and overtake in this country, yes)
Geofftech | Homepage | 16.04.15 - 10:19 a.m. | #
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The reason for "stand on the right" is complicated and has been discussed many times here. Basically the first escalators required you to enter and exit at the side. The American manufacturers did not do separate left-hand and right-hand models so the sensible rule was "stand on the right".
Like many suggestions (including having a more logical language) the sheer effort of changing the revised rule and the consequences in the changeover period mean that it probably just isn't worth changing and we will probably be stuck with it forever.
DG's suggestion is so utterly daft for so many reasons I am convinced this is a tongue-in-cheek thing. It is however very annoying. I once missed my last main-line train home after a delayed journey from the north because of two dopey people laden with luggage on an otherwise empty escalator on the Underground at King's Cross who didn't not appreciate the urgency of me getting past to catch the tube train that one could hear coming into the station.
Pedantic of Purley | 16.04.15 - 10:37 a.m. | #
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Nah, we don't need wider escalators, we just need to ban Spanish schoolchildren from the tube.
Job done.
Arctic Troll | 16.04.15 - 10:50 a.m. | #
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On a few sets of escalators there is a wide metal strip seperating the two, how about providing mats like a helter skelter and let us whizz down those.
Barry | 16.04.15 - 10:58 a.m. | #
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Actually what the tube needs is escalators. Take the rebuilt Kings Cross St Pancras as an example. Yes there's step free access from the Circle/H&C/Met but they've done it at the expense of escalators. So all those people with heavy luggage bound for Eurostar etc must either go the very slow lift way or lug them up the steps. In some cases like in the Circle/H&C/Met ticket area there is easily room for both.
ap | 16.04.15 - 11:21 a.m. | #
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Escalators can be dangerous. I was on one at Ho Chi Minh airport when a woman with one of those wheelie suitcases fell over at the bottom. Others fell over her. People were carried inexorably into the crush.
I escaped by jumping over the side (about a 10 feet drop).
One person was killed.
Chris | 16.04.15 - 11:41 a.m. | #
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I've a feeling this whole thing is just allegorical.
It's really about roads.
I think DG may finally have had that 'moment of enlightenment' where he's realised that cycling superhighways are great, but what is needed next is to widen the roads to make an "express lane" for motorbikes, so they can through the traffic without being held up by the plodders and the ones with heavy loads!
RogerW | 16.04.15 - 1:19 p.m. | #
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Chris - funnily enough, Network Rail seem to be increasingly putting up signs saying "don't use the escalators with luggage" which people at best ignore, or at worst shout loudly about it being "health and safety gone mad!" and then ignore.
Andrew Bowden | Homepage | 16.04.15 - 1:33 p.m. | #
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@ Chris ...
http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/2014/02/09/review-perth-train-escalator-crush
My comment upon hearing the story was 'bet they were tourists from Adelaide'...
Antipodean | 16.04.15 - 1:55 p.m. | #
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Andrew Bowden: The issue with Network Rail isn't the signs, it's those godawful talking holograms they've put up everywhere, especially at Kings Cross. A sign is great, some woman barking at you to use the "elevator" (I don't know what one of those is, I'm not American) every ten seconds is not.
Arctic Troll | 16.04.15 - 2:03 p.m. | #
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What is all this rush-rush-rush all about?! Are people that can move quickly more important than those that are slower? Is their time more valuable? See this nearly everyday... and it a joke. We all gonna end-up in the same place, bet most people are not in a rush to get there? Like someone else here has hinted at...there may come a time when due to ill health, incident or advanced years that I, you and everyone will be one of the "slower ones".
Grumpy Anon | 16.04.15 - 2:27 p.m. | #
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It would be scary in the middle with no handrail, I think health & safety would never make it possible. What if the escalator stops suddenly and everybody in the middle tumble down? Horrific scene.
Greg | 16.04.15 - 3:21 p.m. | #
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@Herbof
While they're at it they ought to shout at people who will be exiting the station to get their Oysters ready BEFORE they are suddenly faced with the barriers!
It's so frustrating to get to the top to find a dozen people have stopped dead and are rummaging in their bags for them!
Or worse, stand in front of the barrier thus stopping those who've employed some common sense to go through ahead of them!
Cornish Cockney | 16.04.15 - 3:45 p.m. | #
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Cornish Cockney has just identified one of my pet hates! It's like people at the supermarket who look startled when asked to pay.
antipodean - it was mainly Hong Kong Chinese, certainly the woman that died was.
Chris | 16.04.15 - 4:20 p.m. | #
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More frustrating than the Underground escalators are the travolators at Morrisons in Harrow (and they have a similar contraption at Acton, but there there is another entrance at sales floor level).
From the pedestrian entrance below the Roxborough Bridge roundabout you have the choice of a lift to shop level, or stairs to mezzanine/upper car park level, from where there is the travolator (one up, one down) to shop level. The travolators are also used by people pushing trolleys, which have brakes which lock automatically on the travolator!
Then there's the electric shock you get from holding the handrail...
Stephen Bird | 16.04.15 - 4:29 p.m. | #
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At least one German city (it might be Stuttgart, I can't remember) has `Stehen' and `Gehen' stencilled at regular intervals on the right and left of the treads of the escalators. People then really have no excuse for misunderstanding. We just need to find an equally pithy way in English of expressing the two modes of use.
jack hopkins | 16.04.15 - 4:37 p.m. | #
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Ooo-er. I don't see any other tongue-in-cheek replies. Does that mean it wasn't a tongue-in-cheek post?
RogerW | 16.04.15 - 5:20 p.m. | #
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In concert with Antipodean (though at the risk of being a bit well-actually), walk-left-stand-right is common on busier escalators the world over. Vancouver trains, NYC subway, in Toronto people even observe it beyond the transport system in busier parts of the business areas. Though the perception that "only places this busy/in a rush do this, yokels from the provinces get in our way" is also common everywhere.
Jarek | 16.04.15 - 5:29 p.m. | #
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Not sure people would just stand more sloppily. The spatial awareness of your average London transport user has to be pretty low, going by the number of times some idiots knapsack has smacked me in the face.
But since you brought up the subject of escalators, I'm often irritated by the length of time replacement or major service of a Tube escalator takes.
The excuse given is that each is unique due to the demands of fitting them into their unplanned locations. But what prevents them from constructing TWO when they have the opportunity, and putting the spare in storage for parts or even (relatively) quick replacement when needed? It's like Groundhog Day... all over again.
SteveP | 16.04.15 - 6:04 p.m. | #
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"If it works so well on Britain's motorways..."
If only it did. This country's drivers are frequently moronic and still persist in hugging the centre lane of a three-lane motorway, effectively reducing it to two lanes. Grrrrrrrrr!
Tim | 16.04.15 - 6:51 p.m. | #
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The Washington DC METRO system has the same 'Stand on the Right and Walk on the Left' rule. And as this rule is violated by some unthinking locals and most unknowing tourists, METRO has had to erect signs near the escalators with the rule plainly stated.
Colesville Garth | 16.04.15 - 7:59 p.m. | #
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A bit late in the day but I am surprised at the number of negative posts. I think 'a middle lane' would be unsafe, you do need something to grab in the event of a sudden stop. On the other hand it does surprise me that narrow escalators continue to be installed. The huge John Lewis store in Reading was refitted a few years back and I am sure that the escalators are a tad narrower than those on the Underground. If there is only room for single person width escalators fine but where space exists then as DG says we should be looking at wider ones. In this JL store it is just possible to squeeze past, no more. Daft.
Julian | 16.04.15 - 10:37 p.m. | #
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I somehow missed this yesterday, but love the thinking all the same.
Once upon a time I took considerable delight in running down the left-hand side, long cane outstretched to warn any dawdlers of overtaking traffic - and to ensure I avoided somersaulting spectacularly at the exit threshold and trampled over triumphantly by everyone I've just rushed past.
But now the tables have turned. As the owner of an escalator trained guide dog I am required by agreed procedures (put in place to permit safe exceptions to the bylaw previously preventing dogs from walking onto and off escalators) to:
1. Walk to the start of the escalator and block the flow of people for five seconds;
2. Step on with my dog, continuing to obstruct the full width (for which, thankfully, I have long arms!) and ignoring increasingly aggressive or confused requests from behind to move out the way; and finally
3. To walk off with my dog, using the all important space I created and subsequently protected to keep his paws moving and reduce the risk of his pads being caught - and torn off.
As you will imagine I am not the Tube's most popular passenger at such times, but the alternative is having the escalator stopped, creating a far bigger nuisance to fellow travellers than waiting behind me for a bit.
Whilst the impatient, and frequently cutting-it-fine, commuter in me loves the idea of motorway style escalators, and indeed wonders whether the same rule might be applied to some of London's busier streets, I'm not sure I relish the idea of attempting to hold back three lanes of people all the way to the end!
Robert Johnson | Homepage | 17.04.15 - 9:13 a.m. | #
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Isn't the basic problem that there are too many people?
Bue Witch | Homepage | 17.04.15 - 1:47 p.m. | #
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Sometimes I also do serious replies...
As a coincidence, I was at the Genesis Cinema earlier tonight (Friday) for an event which was a fundraiser for the completion of the memorial to the 173 victims of the Bethnal Green Tube disaster, which was a wartime tragedy which occurred in March 1943.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bethnal_Green_tube_station
http://www.stairwaytoheavenmemorial.org/
It probably says all that needs to be said about the need for everyone to be within reach of a handrail.
RogerW | 17.04.15 - 10:19 p.m. | #
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As someone pointed out, in Australia we stand to the left and walk on the right, as we are inclined to do on footpaths and as we drive. I've always thought it was odd that London did the opposite.
Andrew | Homepage | 17.04.15 - 11:52 p.m. | #
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in Tokyo the rule on the escalators is Stand on the left. But in Osaka the rule is the opposite. Go figure. There was an April fool piece in the paper about a proposal to get Osaka to swap!
Don't think it will ever happen.
I too agree that a middle lane is never going to catch on. Too scary for most people I would say.
Jon Allen | Homepage | 18.04.15 - 3:57 p.m. | #
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If you remove the blockage on the escalator, then there will be no need to stab (accidentally of course) the blocker in the back with the universal brolly. :-)
Dave | 19.04.15 - 5:24 a.m. | #
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Only just caught up with the post and comments. While I understand the issue DG raised I cannot see wider escalators with 3 lanes of users ever passing a safety risk assessment. The lack of easy to reach handrail in the event of the escalator stopping for those in the central "lane" is the main flaw. I also doubt people would use the facility due to worries about losing balance / being knocked by others etc.
Would you fit users with special indicator caps at the bottom of the escalator so those moving between lanes could show their intentions? ;-)
The simpler answer is simply to fit more escalators into stations and to ease the design of stations so people are not squashed into "corners" or pinchpoints near the bottom of escalators. This causes bunching and queues. Replacing central staircases with escalators needs to be done at those stations which are overloaded. The pace of replacement is far too slow given burgeoning demand. I also agree with the earlier comment that there is too much reliance on staircases for what can be quite long ascents / descents.
PC | 19.04.15 - 11:11 p.m. | #
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Just make the handrail on the left move at the same rate as someone walking briskly.
That'll soon stop people standing on the wrong side !
Gerry1 | 22.04.15 - 11:18 a.m. | #
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