The pandemic hit Transport for London hard, and weekday ridership still lags pre-pandemic levels. But weekends have fully recovered in central London – what does this new pattern mean for the future of the network?
Against many predictions of the death of the office at the start of the pandemic, there has been a return to the office in the past year. Still, more than 3 years since the start of the pandemic, workers aren’t back to the office full time and remote working is a persistent feature of working life. And weekday Tube ridership in central London is about 70 per cent of February 2020 levels, but how this is distributed across the week matters for the success of running Transport for London.
As of April 2023, Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays had the highest ridership to central London stations, as Figure 1 shows.
Source: Transport for London. Note: These include 56 stations classified as City, Shopping, Terminus, or Tourist by TfL.
But weekdays trail their pre-pandemic averages. Thursdays are the closest – at 84 per cent of February 2020 levels, while Mondays and Fridays are the furthest behind at 66 and 70 per cent respectively. Weekends have more than recovered though, reaching 105 to 115 per cent of their February 2020 values, as Figure 2 shows.
Source: Transport for London. Note: These include 56 stations classified as City, Shopping, Terminus, or Tourist by TfL. Pre-Covid average defined as average of February 2020.
The weekends have bounced back much more quickly than weekdays in the city centre. Pre-pandemic, cities were cultural centres of consumption, in addition to production. Large cities in particular offered a unique set of amenities that attract consumers of the arts, restaurants, and retail. Figure 2 suggests that while people have not looked to swiftly return to pre-pandemic working patterns, central London has quickly regained its role as a destination for shopping, tourism and leisure since the pandemic.
But under its funding system and at current fares, TfL has been struggling to keep the network running without government help. The costs required to run the network for a 3-day peak work week are similar to those for a 4- to 5-day work week – but with much less fare revenue. And although weekends have increased in popularity relative to pre-Covid, in absolute numbers the journeys aren’t enough to make up for less commuting through the work week.
As a globally competitive city, London needs to continue to have a world-class transport system to bring workers and visitors alike reliably into the capital. In light of its reliance on fares, TfL faces two choices given current commuting patterns: cut services or change its funding model. Cutting services would be a mistake because it would worsen commutes and hamper growth. Instead, central government needs to grant TfL more powers to become a more resilient transport system which is less reliant on fares.
There are a number of ways for TfL to raise revenue that are not dependent on fares, based on models in other globally competitive cities of Paris, Hong Kong, and Singapore: a payroll tax, developing land around stations, and taxing car use through road pricing. The key to these reforms is fiscal devolution; the Mayor of London and TfL need new tools from central government to bring in revenue beyond raising fares.
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