Wapping Station - Entry and Exit

My FOI request to TfL on Wapping Station has provided a good variety of information that I find quite interesting and informative. I'll be writing a short series of posts on some of the data received.

The chart below was provided to me by TfL in response to a question on entry and exit to and from Wapping Station. Apparently information on paper tickets isn't captured (or at least not as accurately).

My observations on the data:

• During weekdays, 0830-0900 is the busiest time with about 300 people an hour using the station (assuming the data is in 15 minute blocks) and assuming a train every 4 minutes in each direction, this would equal approximately 10 people getting on or off each train
• At the weekends,  the load on the station peaks between 1300 and 2000, with a relatively constant flow of around 160 people per hour
• Weekend use of the station outside of weekday peak times, is actually higher than during the week, suggesting that Wapping in the week isn't seeing much movement.
• People stay out later on Fridays and Saturdays but get home on Sundays to catch Downton Abbey

A few thoughts - these are entries and exits, so I imagine that for people leaving Wapping, the morning peak would be slightly earlier, as people arriving for work in Wapping for 9am, will skew the peak later.



Average volume of Oyster card entry and exit at Wapping Station

On the information provided on annual entries and exits (note the big gap due to closure of the station and a change in methodology in 2010), I observe:

• Overall use of Wapping Station has increased by 97 per cent from 2003 to 2011.
• There was a 30 per cent leap between 2007 and 2011
• The greatest year-on-year increase was from 2004 to 2005 when there was a 33% increase in usage of the station.
• There has been a trend for more people to leave Wapping (an entry to the station) than for people to return to Wapping and exit the station. The relative difference has fallen by 14.9 percentage points, from 15.4 per cent to 0.5 per cent.

	Annual Entries	Annual Exits	Combined	Variance (entries over exits)
2003	551,886	478,033	1,029,919	15.4%
2004	552,975	506,672	1,059,647	9.1%
2005	742,751	669,032	1,411,783	11.0%
2006	798,348	758,330	1,556,678	5.3%
2007	799,315	761,536	1,560,851	5.0%
2011	1,019,835	1,014,513	2,034,348	0.5%

This last observation I find particularly interesting and I'd be curious if a similar pattern is evident across the network and whether the same trend is evident. It's impossible to guess what the driver is. The reasons I can think of that would lead to such a trend are either, people having a walk along the river, getting bored and going home, or, that people leave Wapping for work, or going out and then return via bus or taxi in the evening. Perhaps even more interesting would be to know why the gap has shrunk - are the people of Wapping cutting back on black cabs, or is the prospect of a 'Dine in for £10' getting people rushing back home?

Coming soon...

• Ticket sales
• Lift reliability