The number of rush hour commuters into the City has doubled over the past year, although they’re still down on pre-pandemic levels.
Based on anonymous connection data captured by the O2 mobile network in the weeks surrounding July 19th, 2022, the report showed commuter highs have almost doubled year-on-year, however, peak levels are still 27% off where they were pre-pandemic. The latest wave of anonymised data intelligence from the mobile network suggests that commuting trends are stabilising as office workers and employers establish more long-term ways of working, with Wednesdays and Thursdays now the most popular days in the City.
In fact, on Wednesdays and Thursdays, commuter traffic into the City is pretty much back to pre-pandemic levels.
This actually poses a long-term problem for public transport. If travel was down by 25% across the whole week, then cutting capacity all week long is an option. However, if you need to run a network that has big surges in commuter traffic on just two days a week, it’s much harder to cut services as the capital investment costs can’t shrink without cutting the services on the two busy days as well.
Fortunately for people heading home on Thurdays, the trend for ‘Thirsty Thursdays’ continues to grow in popularity, with crowd volumes in the City at 7pm 68% higher than a year ago.
Thursday has replaced Friday in the pubs and bars of London.
Elsewhere in London, peak crowd numbers have increased by a more modest 41% in the hospitality hub of Soho since lockdown restrictions were lifted last year.
Mónica Mercado Páez, Head of AI and Data at Virgin Media O2 Business said: “It’s interesting to see that year-on-year, crowd trends in socialising and retail hotspots have stayed fairly consistent, but peaks in some busy commuter areas have almost doubled. From mapping out how Londoners are using office space and local businesses, to the scheduling of transport services, looking at data like this will help employers and city planners alike continue to evolve to best meet the needs of their people.”
Data insights from O2 Motion never allow identification or mapping of individuals and operate within strict privacy guidelines. O2 Motion is based on connection data between a device and the phone mast only. It does not collect GPS data and the service isn’t used for ‘contact tracing’.
If we were to use the Monday / Tuesday spare capacity over the weekend, instead of having this obsession with shutting everything down on Saturdays and Sundays, we might be able to improve the revenue stream. Of course, I’d fully expect RMT to grumble about working Sundays but now is the time to adapt or die.
Remember though Jamie Stallwood that Rail Workers have always worked Sundays. Depends on what grades you are and under what terms and conditions apply to your grade too. I’d like to see all the office workers out there work weekends and 48 average hour weeks and not sit on there arse.