According to the stats on the 'Corporate' section of the TfL website
(http://tinyurl.com/3y56uo), King's Cross St Pancras tube station
handled 52.51 million passengers in 2006. This sounds like a lot, but
just for comparison it handled 71.503 million passengers in 2005 (and
77.564 million in 2004, which is its outright peak).

At first the 2006 figures took me by surprise, especially because very
few tube stations suffered from a fall in patronage from 2005 to 2006,
and the fall in patronage at KXSP was virtually the equivalent of wiping
Brixton tube station off the map. Having spoken to TfL agents recently
it turns out that until recently the patronage figures for KXSP were
artifically inflated - apparently you were recorded twice if you made a
deep-level - sub-surface interchange at KXSP, until of course
paid-side interchange routes were opened in October 2006.

Goodness knows how 'low' the recorded patronage at KXSP will be this year.

Sky Rider (Sky Rider ) gurgled happily, sounding
much like they were saying:

it turns out that until recently the patronage figures for KXSP were
artifically inflated - apparently you were recorded twice if you made a
deep-level - sub-surface interchange at KXSP, until of course
paid-side interchange routes were opened in October 2006.

That seems a VERY big decline, even considering that.

After all, correcting that double-count is only halving the number of
passengers who interchanged at KXSP for two to three of the twelve months
of the year - yet that's a drop of about 25% year-on-year. It plain don't
make sense, unless half of the total annual passenger throughput changed
trains there from October to December...?

I suspect a simple answer - I wonder how many people simply decided to
use other stations or avoid the area whilst the redevelopment chaos was
going on?

On Fri, 23 Nov 2007 14:35:12 GMT, Sky Rider
wrote:

Goodness knows how 'low' the recorded patronage at KXSP will be this year.

Could the significant improvements to the bus network (together with
the massively differential fares) have redirected some passengers onto
that, away from the chronically overcrowded and unpleasant Tube?

Neil

--
Neil Williams
Put my first name before the at to reply.

On 23 Nov 2007 14:43:36 GMT, Adrian wrote:

it turns out that until recently the patronage figures for KXSP were
artifically inflated - apparently you were recorded twice if you made a
deep-level - sub-surface interchange at KXSP, until of course
paid-side interchange routes were opened in October 2006.

That seems a VERY big decline, even considering that.

After all, correcting that double-count is only halving the number of
passengers who interchanged at KXSP for two to three of the twelve months
of the year - yet that's a drop of about 25% year-on-year. It plain don't
make sense, unless half of the total annual passenger throughput changed
trains there from October to December...?

I suspect a simple answer - I wonder how many people simply decided to
use other stations or avoid the area whilst the redevelopment chaos was
going on?

Or had no choice? There were lots of weekends with the Picc
non-stopping at KXSP, SSL closures between Baker Street and Liverpool
Street, etc.

Plus Network Rail deciding there would be no service on WAGN/FCC-GN at
weekends can't have helped. (Most people with a car would use that
over a replacement bus to KX.)

In article , sky.rider1
@ntlworld.com says...
According to the stats on the 'Corporate' section of the TfL website
(http://tinyurl.com/3y56uo), King's Cross St Pancras tube station
handled 52.51 million passengers in 2006. This sounds like a lot, but
just for comparison it handled 71.503 million passengers in 2005 (and
77.564 million in 2004, which is its outright peak).

At first the 2006 figures took me by surprise

There was also the Thameslink blockade for the first half of 2005 - so
many users who otherwise use the Thameslink lines within central London
had to get on the tube at Kings Cross.

Richardr wrote:
In article , sky.rider1
@ntlworld.com says...
According to the stats on the 'Corporate' section of the TfL website
(http://tinyurl.com/3y56uo), King's Cross St Pancras tube station
handled 52.51 million passengers in 2006. This sounds like a lot, but
just for comparison it handled 71.503 million passengers in 2005 (and
77.564 million in 2004, which is its outright peak).

At first the 2006 figures took me by surprise

There was also the Thameslink blockade for the first half of 2005 - so
many users who otherwise use the Thameslink lines within central London
had to get on the tube at Kings Cross.

True, but the blockade was in operation between 11/9/04 and 15/5/05
inclusive, which means that more than half of it took place in 2005,
although the terrorist attacks on 7/7/05 had a significant adverse
effect on patronage during 2005.

That said, KXSP handled 69.761 million passengers in 2003, so the
Thameslink blockade was certainly not the main cause of the 18.993
million difference between 2005 and 2006.