The Scoop

Only four regular commuters using Emirates Air Line cable car, TfL admits

Darryl Chamberlain | Wednesday 20 November, 2013 01:00

Just four regular commuters are now using the Emirates Air Line cable car between Greenwich Peninsula and the Royal Docks, down from 16 last autumn, new figures released to The Scoop reveal.

Only four Oyster card holders used mayor Boris Johnson’s £60m link more than five times in the week ending 19 October, triggering a regular users’ discount.

The figures also detail a sharp drop in usage compared with the same week last year, with just 6,266 trips made on Sunday 19 October, the week’s busiest day – compared with over 16,180 on the equivalent Sunday in 2012.

The Scoop used the Freedom of Information Act to obtain a detailed breakdown of usage during the week. Just as we did for the same week in 2012, we asked for hourly usage figures between Saturday 13 and Sunday 19 October.

	Sun 13th	Mon 14th	Tue 15th	Wed 16th	Thu 17th	Fri 18th	Sat 19th
North	1,232	851	1,330	722	1,426	1,055	2,527
South	1,893	1,263	1,837	1,146	2,095	1,913	3,739
TOTAL	3,125	2,114	3,167	1,868	3,521	2,968	6,266

Total cable car passengers, broken down into north and southbound journeys, 13-19 October 2013. Source: TfL

23,029 journeys were recorded that week – well down on the 42,463 a year previously. The sharpest drops were seen at the weekend, indicating the cable car’s novelty as a tourist attraction is fading.

Indeed, the cable car’s second busiest day that week was Thursday, with 3,521 journeys, a figure likely to have been boosted by a teachers’ strike that day. Across the week, 468 students and teachers were carried as part of a schools’ scheme, with the pupils charged £1 and teachers travelling free.

On top of the four regular Oyster commuters, just 18 multi-trip passes – allowing users to pay in advance for 10 journeys across a year – were sold, compared with 41 last year.

Weekday use of the cable car remained roughly the same, at 13,638. But if City Hall is looking for good news from the passenger numbers, then more people are using the cable car in the early morning – albeit from a pitifully low base.

	0700- 0759	0800- 0859	0900- 0959	1000- 1059	1100- 1159	1200- 1259	1300- 1359	1400- 1459	1500- 1559	1600- 1659	1700- 1759	1800- 1859	1900- 1959
Sun 13 Oct	-	9	30	84	156	231	329	313	379	419	489	407	279
Mon 14 Oct	9	15	135	131	166	204	247	204	227	230	213	158	175
Tue 15 Oct	17	28	36	87	297	218	266	289	410	394	479	321	325
Wed 16 Oct	11	22	21	113	121	118	265	148	179	167	206	242	255
Thu 17 Oct	14	36	57	140	290	410	370	414	386	411	411	329	253
Fri 19 Oct	12	24	36	116	190	278	239	327	411	312	329	344	350
Sat 19 Oct	9	11	68	205	381	515	622	623	817	862	819	711	623

Cable car passengers, hour by hour, between Sunday 13 and Saturday 19 October. Source: TfL. See equivalent data for Tube journeys from North Greenwich to nearby DLR stations.

Just nine people used the cable car between 8am and 9am on the Sunday, a low repeated between 7-8am on both the Monday and Saturday. But that’s far more than the three passengers recorded in the Emirates Air Line’s lowest hour last year, and more than the number of passengers making the equivalent journey on the Tube and DLR to or from North Greenwich.

There are also more people using the cable car in its final hour of operation, after 7pm each day, which may be down to TfL placing staff at North Greenwich station each evening promoting it to people heading to shows at the O2.

Travelcards and Freedom Passes are not valid on the cable car, with Oyster card-carrying passengers charged £3.20 each way to use it. TfL has rebuffed calls from London Assembly members to include it in the Travelcard scheme.

TfL said in a statement issued alongside the figures: “Passenger numbers fluctuate due to a wide range of factors from week to week, however overall numbers this year are in line with forecasts.

“Since opening in June 2012 the Emirates Air Line has carried nearly three million people and as a vital new crossing in east London it continues to play a key role in attracting investment to this strategically important part of the capital.”

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