Around half a billion more public transport journeys are now taking place compared to five years ago, with all elements of the transport network seeing growing demand.
New figures from TfL show:
- London Underground (LU) - a record of over 1.3 billion passenger journeys;
- Buses - a record of nearly 2.4 billion passenger journeys - over half of all bus journeys made in England;
- Docklands Light Railway (DLR) and the London Overground - on the DLR a record 110 million passenger journeys, nearly 10 million more than the previous year. On the Overground, nearly 140 million passenger journeys up by almost five million.
London's population is set to grow from 8.6m today to around 10m by 2030. To enable this, TfL is delivering one of the world's largest programmes of public transport investment - unlocking jobs and supporting new homes.
The tunnelling stage in the construction of Crossrail, the new railway linking east and west London, is now nearing completion and the new TfL-run line will be fully open in 2019. The Underground is being modernised and extended, with key stations expanded and new trains and signalling providing essential new capacity. Reliability has been radically improved and customers on the upgraded Victoria and Jubilee lines are now travelling on some of the most frequent metro services anywhere in Europe.
Widespread improvements are being made to the bus network, the flexible backbone of the London economy, in order to meet growing demand. Since 2000 there has been a 69 per cent increase in passengers and TfL is investing around £500m to further improve the network, including funding for over 500 extra buses.
Transport Commissioner, Sir Peter Hendy CBE, said: 'Demand for our services continues to grow with London's success and we are committed to a relentless focus on improving the day-to-day reliability and safety of public transport and the road network. In addition, steady and sustained investment in the modernisation of London Underground, our roads and the delivery of Crossrail will provide vital new capacity. At the same time, we have taken 15 per cent out of our cost base as part of our huge savings and efficiency programme.'
Source: TfLGov