It's no secret that many of us are used to our routines and usually spend our daily commutes with eyes focused on the ground. Thankfully, the 'Overheard On The Underground' Facebook page offers us a fresh look into the London tube system and showcases everything we might have missed out on. Over 16.4K people seem to enjoy the content they share, whether it’s pictures of hilarious messages on notice boards, questionable ads on billboards, or people proudly embracing their truly vivid colors. After all, the metro is certainly a tense environment. Think of all the pressure that accumulates the moment you enter the station: people running around, rushing to their platforms at lightning speed, and shouting at whoever gets in their way.
With so many people stuck in a small confined space, some folks are bound to stand out like a sore thumb, and we certainly love watching them. Apparently, The London Underground welcomes around 1.35 billion passengers every year, Statista reports. The busiest station on the network is King’s Cross St. Pancras, where over 90 million entries and exits were recorded annually over the past few years.
The London Tube was established as the Metropolitan Railway which began operating in 1863, being the world’s first train service operating underground. It was built as a way to reduce street congestion, and while there was plenty of interest in this novel method of transport, it wasn’t the most comfortable way to get around. The original trains were driven by steam, so the heavy air and intense smell would engulf the tunnels, making it unhealthy for the passengers and the staff.
A few decades later, electric trains followed, with The City and South London being the first. Because the tunnels were tubular, here’s where the term "tube" emerged and eventually became used as a nickname for The London Underground. In the 1930s, a public organization called London Transport took over. They would run the entire underground system and continue to do so every day. They began making huge expansions with new line stations that served and sometimes even created new suburbs. In 2021, London boasted the longest metro network in Europe with over 460 kilometers in length.
However, the passengers themselves are less satisfied with the London metro than transport users elsewhere, naming safety, cleanliness, and passenger behavior as the main issues they face daily. Transport Focus and London TravelWatch surveyed commuters for three weeks in 2020 to learn more about their attitudes to the public transport system. They found that 70 percent of London Underground passengers were satisfied with the cleanliness of services compared to 76 percent of train passengers outside of London.
Moreover, just over half of Londoners were pleased with the behavior of other passengers, and 76 percent were content with the ease of finding the information on when the services were running. However, train passengers outside of the capital revealed greater satisfaction on nearly all of these points. "These results again show significant differences between London and the rest of the country." Arthur Leathley, London TravelWatch Chair, said.
"It is good that people feel they can get travel information easily, but the results also highlight the need for TfL to make sure bus and Tube passengers feel safe and reassure them about the work they are doing to keep services clean," Leathley continued. "We will continue to work with TfL to highlight the improvements that passengers want to see. The survey work we are doing with Transport Focus has provided us with some useful data and as more people start traveling, it will become even more valuable."
