Skip to content
CityAM
Main navigation
  • News
    • News
      • Latest Business News
      • Economics
      • Politics
      • Tech
      • Banking
      • FTSE 100 Live
      • Retail
      • Insurance
      • Legal
      • Property
      • Transport
      • Markets
    • From our partners
      • AON
      • Bayes Business School
      • Canada BIDs
      • Central London Alliance CIC
      • Destination City
      • Halkin
      • Olympia
      • Inside Saudi
      • Tottenham Hotspur Stadium
      • Santander X
      • YEAR SIX Dividend
    • Featured

      The next person to shop your store may not be a person at all

      AI shopping agents are rewriting the rules of online retail across North America

      Submit a story

      Tell us your story.

      Submit
  • Opinion
  • Sport
    • Latest Sports News
      • Sport
      • Sport Business
    • From our partners
      • The Morning Briefing: SBS x CityAM
      • Aramco Team Series
      • LIV Golf
    • Featured

      Cohere's Aidan Gomez bets the house on 'sovereign AI' with Aleph Alpha merger valuing the group at $20bn

      Cohere CEO Aidan Gomez on stage discussing the Toronto AI lab's strategy

      Submit a story

      Tell us your story.

      Submit
  • Life&Style
    • Life&Style
      • Life&Style
      • Toast the City Awards
      • The Magazine
      • Travel
      • Culture
      • Motoring
      • Wellness
      • The RED BULLETiN
      • Do it with Shared Ownership
      • Media Speak Hub
    • Featured

      Moonvalley's Naeem Talukdar is selling Hollywood the one thing rival AI video tools cannot: legal cover

      Moonvalley's Marey AI video model produces Hollywood-grade footage trained on licensed data

      Submit a story

      Tell us your story.

      Submit
  • Investec
  • Events
  • Latest Paper
Thursday 07 November 2019 1:01 pm  |  Updated:  Friday 15 November 2019 9:53 am

Revealed: These are London’s most overcrowded Tube lines

By: Stefan Boscia

Add as a preferred source on Google
Tube
Transport for London (TfL) announced its "Deep Tube upgrade programme" last year, which will see new models on some of these lines, however the first trains won't be seen until 2024.

London’s Tube lines are running at overcapacity during morning rush hour, new figures have revealed.

Statistics from mayor of London Sadiq Khan show that morning peak hour capacity on the London Underground is more than 100 per cent, with the Northern, Central and Jubilee lines the most crowded.

Read more: TfL adds more trains to Victoria line at peak times

The Northern line is running at 130 per cent of capacity during peak times, while the Central and Jubilee lines are at 116 and 115 per cent respectively.

The figures revealed that evening peak hour capacity is 84 per cent.

The figures come just days after TfL announced it would increase passenger capacity on the Victoria Line by 275,000 passengers each weekday.

Which are London’s busiest morning Tube Lines?

PositionTube LineMorning peak hour capacity
1Northern Line130 per cent
2Central Line116 per cent
3Jubilee Line115 per cent
4Victoria Line105 per cent
5Metropolitan Line97 per cent
6Bakerloo Line95 per cent
7Piccadilly Line91 per cent
8Hammersmith & City and Circle Lines88 per cent
9District Line85 per cent

Conservative London Assembly member Tony Devenish blamed Transport for London’s (TfL) revenue losses on the overcrowding.

TfL is expected to make a £742m loss in 2019-20 on the back of Khan’s fare freeze and expensive bus subsidies.

Devenish said: “By depriving TfL of much-need revenue through his flawed partial fares freeze…the mayor has severely restricted the amount of money available for much-needed infrastructure upgrades.”

Read more

TfL decommissions Oxford Circus air conditioning despite sweltering heat

Nationwide found that 60 per cent of Londoners use trains or the Tube every week.

Khan announced a four-year TfL fare freeze for individual journeys as a part of his campaign for mayor in 2016.

The freeze was in contrast to Boris Johnson’s time as mayor of London when prices rose by 42 per cent over eight years.

A spokesperson for Khan said the policy made public transport “more affordable for millions of Londoners”.

They added: “He is also investing record amounts in modernising and increasing capacity on London’s Tube network.”

Read more: London mayor race: Rory Stewart falls behind rivals

“This includes the huge transformation of Bank station, the Northern Line Extension, major new signalling on the Circle, District, Hammersmith & City and Metropolitan lines, and investing in major upgrades to stations such as Finsbury Park.”

Independent mayoral candidate Rory Stewart has indicated he would likely raise TfL fares if elected and Conservative candidate Shaun Bailey has also said a fare rise would be a “done deal” under him.

Stewart told CityAM on Tuesday it “cannot make sense to be running a system that’s losing this much money every year”.

“Under Boris Johnson, TfL was generating a lot of money for the city a lot of time, but for various reasons – not all his fault – TfL under [Khan] has been losing money,” he said.

TfL and Khan were contacted for comment.

Read more

Tube strikes called off in last-minute U-turn

No 10 has called on Sadiq Khan to take action to end tube strikes.

Share this article

  • Facebook
  • X
  • LinkedIn
  • WhatsApp
  • Email

Similarly tagged content:

Sections

  • News

Categories

  • Transport & Infrastructure

Related Topics

  • London business

Trending Articles

  • As it happened: FTSE 100 relief rally runs out of steam as BP and Shell weigh; Oil hits three-month low

  • London Tech Week sums up everything wrong with UK tech

  • Rolls-Royce shares surge as SMR unit bags multi-billion pound Swedish nuclear contract

  • KPMG’s Summer Friday half-day rollback signals deeper woes for Big Four giants

  • Inflation expectations at record high in interest rates signal

More from CityAM

  • ZayZoon, the Calgary fintech born on a fishing boat, posts 1,487% growth as earned wage access goes mainstream

    ZayZoon co-founder Tate Hackert built the Calgary fintech around earned wage access
  • Botpress raises $25m as Quebec's Sylvain Perron pitches his startup as the 'infrastructure layer' for AI agents

    Botpress product UI: the Quebec startup pitches itself as the infrastructure layer for enterprise AI agents
  • Why are so many people abandoning sex toys on the Tube?

    Opinion
    Abandoned doll on London Tube seat holding CityAM newspaper, capturing urban life and public transport atmosphere
  • FluidAI wins US FDA clearance for its surgical monitor as Waterloo's Youssef Helwa targets 100,000 operations

    FluidAI's Origin surgical monitor wins FDA clearance for use in US hospitals
  • Airspan and Wireless Services Announce Deployment of MobileAccess 6000 Digital DAS at Charlotte Douglas International Airport

    Business Wire
  • Mishcon de Reya to roll out new ‘bonus boost’ for associates

    Legal
    Stacks of various currency bills symbolizing financial news and economic trends on a business website
  • Nanoloy Unveils RoboX

    Business Wire
  • The City is paying the price for Britain’s energy failure

    Opinion
    UK energy power lines spanning a rural landscape, highlighting infrastructure and sustainability efforts in the energy sec...
  • Terms & Conditions
  • Privacy Policy
  • Cookie Policy
  • News
  • Markets & Economics
  • Politics
  • Opinion
  • Life&Style
  • Personal Finance

Follow us for breaking news and latest updates

  • Facebook
  • X
  • Instagram
  • LinkedIn
Copyright 2026 CityAM Limited