On 10 Oct, 16:53, Tom Anderson wrote:
On Wed, 10 Oct 2007, Mizter T wrote:

(snip)

Why is the DLR such a mystery to you? It's a local light-rail system and
a very popular one at that.

Absolutely! But where do the people come from? Where are they going? Why
are they going there? I guess what i really don't understand is the
distribution of people and jobs in that part of London, and which people
where have go what jobs where and that sort of thing. And how much of the
traffic is not commuting, and what it in fact is, etc.

tom


That's a fair question. One could get all Daily Mail-esque and put
forward the notion that a number of these passengers during the
daytime aren't going to or from work but are supported by the state in
some way and are spending their days doing other things.

No doubt, I think there's perhaps a grain of truth in that (esp. given
the rates of unemployment in parts of east London) - but it comes from
the slightly outdated perspective where most people worked weekdays
9-5 (or similar).

There's shift work that starts and stops at all times during the day,
people with days off, people working unpredictable hours. There's a
lot of students as well - the Uni of East London has campuses in
Stratford and by the Royal Docks (Cyprus). A friends who worked there
for a while said that many of the youngsters who enrolled did so
simply because it was something to do, and the drop-out rate was very
high.

Plus of course it's not all commuting - as you note. They're been
times when my main use of public transport is has been for any purpose
apart from getting to/from work, when I've been cycling in. Shopping,
leisure etc.

Anyway in many places in London public transport is fairly well used
throughout the day - it's not just the DLR, it's the Underground (not
just central London) and the overground (radial and orbital routes) -
so you can equally well ask what all those people are doing. They're
doing what people do in this modern age - moving around. Lots.