Three months ago it was hailed by Sadiq Khan as a ‘groundbreaking’ scheme.
But the London Mayor’s £24million trial to cut Underground and train fares on Fridays by making them off-peak has had a ‘negligible’ impact on journeys.
The scheme between March 8 and May 31 reduced travel costs for passengers using contactless and Oyster cards in the Greater London area, in an attempt to get more people commuting post-lockdown and boost the hospitality and cultural industries.
But Tube ridership data from Transport for London (TfL) showed the 13-week trial appeared to have resulted in only a 3 per cent increase in usage compared to 2023.
Some 40.6million Underground journeys were made on Fridays during the trial – excluding Good Friday, which is always off-peak all day because it is a bank holiday.
But ridership during the same set of Fridays last year – again excluding Good Friday -was only slightly lower, at 39.4million journeys.
And the 3,330,000 Tube journeys made on the final Friday of the scheme – May 31 – was 54,000 fewer than the 3,384,000 on March 1, the Friday before the trial began.
The ridership data does not reveal the full impact of the scheme because it does not include Elizabeth line, Overground, Docklands Light Railway and National Rail services within the London area – all of which were also included in the trial.
London Mayor Sadiq Khan stands between passengers on the Victoria line on August 20, 2016
Sadiq Khan’s poster to promote the Off-Peak Fridays scheme when it launched in March
But a TfL finance report earlier this month revealed total journeys across all services had increased by 6 per cent compared to 2013. This suggests that the 3 per cent rise on Fridays might have happened without the trial.
ANALYSIS: Off-Peak Fridays trial suggests fall in Tube travel is about behaviour and lifestyle, not money
By NICK TYLER
It is good that Transport for London took the initiative to test the idea of Off-Peak Fridays by doing it, rather than just asking people about it.
It was much more likely to obtain useful results by watching what happened rather than obtaining people’s hypothetical opinions about what they might do if such a thing were to happen.
The result is interesting because it suggests that the reduced numbers are about behaviour and lifestyle rather than money – people realise they can work more flexibly and not travelling into the centre of London, for example, on a Friday is one element of that.
I think there is work to be done to figure out how people want to live – work, leisure, sport, and so on – as a whole living experience.
For many people work was organised spatially and temporally because industry decided it all needed to be done in the same place at the same time – one of the outcomes of the Industrial Revolution in the 18th and 19th centuries – and over the last 100 years we have been entrained in that way.
But technology has been working in a different direction: from the growth of the private car through to the flexibility of time and place offered by laptops, smartphones etc has meant that that physical or temporal tie has been broken.
Covid broke it completely partly because employees and employers both realised that much work – but not all of course – could be done when and where employees wanted to do it.
One result of this is the shift in when and where work happens. Hence the drop in travel on Fridays.
You will find that travel on other days has increased – notably Saturdays and Sundays – but I suspect this is not for work.
So if people can work where and when they choose, then shouldn’t we be looking at the transport system to enable them to do that?
Help the outer London boroughs by enabling them to host flexible working by having a transport system that actually enables people to be in and move around them rather than only really have an opportunity to travel into the centre of the city.
This could reduce the amount of crowding on services into the centre and increase the economies on the periphery.
By making this feasible using public transport, TfL could enhance its revenue, it’s just that the journeys would be different.
I know there are people who think that people not present in some official workplace are not working, but in my experience that is not true.
People choose more freely when they are working, so maybe employers need to start thinking about how to work with how people want to work instead of trying to force them into an unsustainable pattern.
We should make the transport system fit with the people and their lives rather than force people to adapt their lives to the transport.
NICK TYLER is director of the Centre for Transport Studies research centre at University College London
Tube ridership numbers also appeared to have been reduced by National Rail industrial action on two of the relevant Fridays last year.
Keith Prince, City Hall Conservatives’ transport spokesman, said: ‘The mayor’s latest TfL experiment was nothing but an expensive election bribe.
‘Off-peak Fridays will end up costing the taxpayer an estimated £24million, despite having a negligible impact on passenger numbers.’
He suggested that the cost could instead have been spent on funding new zero-emissions buses, improving the service on the beleaguered Central line or buying new rolling stock for Croydon’s tram network.
Critics have also pointed out that the scheme saved some commuters heading into Central London just £1.20 a week, with those travelling from Zone Two to Zone One saving 60p each way.
Green Party assembly member Caroline Russell told the Evening Standard that Mr Khan should reinstate free travel for older people before 9am, which was also in place during the trial.
This applied to the 1.2million Londoners with a 60+ Oyster or Freedom Pass.
Nick Tyler, director of the Centre for Transport Studies research centre at University College London, told MailOnline that he welcomed TfL doing a trial ‘rather than just asking people about it’.
He added: ‘It was much more likely to obtain useful results by watching what happened rather than obtaining people’s hypothetical opinions about what they might do if such a thing were to happen.
‘The result is interesting because it suggests that the reduced numbers are about behaviour and lifestyle rather than money – people realise they can work more flexibly and not travelling into the centre of London, for example, on a Friday is one element of that.’
Mr Tyler also said how there is ‘work to be done to figure out how people want to live – work, leisure, sport, and so on – as a whole living experience’.
He explained that work for many people was previously ‘organised spatially and temporally because industry decided it all needed to be done in the same place at the same time’, which was one of the outcomes of the Industrial Revolution.
But he continued: ‘Technology has been working in a different direction: from the growth of the private car through to the flexibility of time and place offered by laptops, smartphones etc has meant that that physical and temporal tie has been broken.
‘Covid broke it completely partly because employees and employers both realised that much work – but not all of course – could be done when and where employees wanted to do it.’
Mr Tyler said one result of this is the ‘shift in when and where work happens’, which has seen a drop in travel on Fridays.
He added: ‘So if people can work where and when they choose, then shouldn’t we be looking at the transport system to enable them to do that?’
Jon Tabbush, senior researcher at the Centre for London think-tank, told the Financial Times that the effects and scale of the trial were limited, but it was a useful experiment and there were ‘political reasons for doing it’.
He added that the reduction in costs was not enough to get people commuting again, but it was ‘good for the whole country for cities to be able to test out these ideas and monitor their results’.
He added that officials should ‘figure out how to make the transport system fit with the people rather than force the people to fit the transport system’.
A TfL spokeswoman said: ‘We continue to analyse the impact of our trial of off-peak pay as you go fares on Tube and rail services on a Friday, which ended on 31 May 2024.
‘This analysis will take into account a number of aspects including assessing changes to both morning peak ridership and overall daily ridership, as well as the impact to businesses across London.’
TfL added that the publicly-available data only shows total ridership, and therefore cannot be used for analysing changing journey habits during the rush-hour periods of 6.30am to 9.30am then 4pm to 7pm – which were the times affected by the trial.
London Mayor Sadiq Khan at Westminster station on the London Underground on January 19
Officials also cited how the trial covered periods around Easter, school holidays and bank holidays – when ridership can often be changeable.
TfL has previously revealed that Tube usage on Fridays is at only 73 per cent of pre-pandemic levels as many people work from home. This is compared to midweek usage at 85 per cent.
Mr Khan told the State of London Debate last week that comprehensive analysis of the trial is expected to be published within the next few months.
He said: ‘The pre-election period has slowed things down a bit, but I’d hope that in the next couple of months, we’ll have the results of the off-peak trial.’
Peak pay-as-you-go fares apply on Tube and rail services in London on weekdays between 6.30am and 9.30am, and between 4pm and 7pm.
Someone commuting by Tube from Zone Six in outer London into Zone One in the centre at peak times currently pays £5.60 per journey. Under the trial, this was cut to £3.60 on Fridays.
London Mayor Sadiq Khan at Westminster station on the London Underground on January 19
Speaking when he launched the trial on March 8, Mr Khan said: ‘Off-peak Fridays are here. I’m delighted that this groundbreaking trial is now up and running and that there will also be special hospitality, business and entertainment deals taking place on Fridays.’
Examples of other London discounts introduced for Fridays included 20 per cent off the bill at Gaucho restaurants, off-peak prices to see musical Wicked and half-price tickets for the Turn It Up exhibition at the Science Museum.