Notes 04.10.2011 21:42:33 WEBLOGIN PREFERRED MEANS OF CONTACT: EMAIL Unfortunately, there is an accident waiting to happen at Holborn Underground Station in the evening rush hour Coming down the escalators from street level tonight going to the central Line, I and several others narrowly missed a large crowd of commuters at the bottom of the escalator queuing up at the entrance to the Piccadilly Line. If someone had hesitated getting off the escalator, I dread to think of the results. Whilst I appreciate the station is very busy at rush hour, it seems to me that commuters are not held in the ticket office area long enough. The announcement that this is done ‘for commuters safety’ is untrue is there is a potential for a pile up further down the escalator. I await your views/feedback on this important issue that I have highlighted. Our ref: 1009598375 Date: 10.10.2011 Dear Thank you for contacting us about your experiences at Holborn station. I am sorry that you were affected by the overcrowding and I understand your frustration about this. We know that travelling on the Tube is difficult during peak times and we have no interest in deliberately increasing stress. Like all our stations, Holborn has far more customers than it was originally designed for and overcrowding is an unfortunate reality at the station. Sadly, expanding capacity on an existing station site is not a viable option. Holborn is a deep level station and to create more room would represent an impossible engineering challenge. Thus, we have had to create strategies to cope with the potential for overcrowding. At any station, if the platforms are very full, customers have to be held back from entering until the platforms are clear. Other stations where a temporary station closure is a regular occurrence during the evening peak include Victoria and Oxford Circus. Whilst I appreciate your concerns about the potential for a major incident at the station, I can assure you that the safety of our customers is our priority at all times and all crowd control measures such as closing some of the ticket gates or restricting access to the platform are risk assessed and are in accordance with our Congestion Control Emergency Plans. In addition to this all our contingency plans for the station during this escalator work have been approved by the London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority (LFEPA) and The Office of Rail Regulation. I hope this helps and your future Tube journeys are trouble free. Please contact me again if you need any help in the future. Yours sincerely, Clive Nwonka Customer Service Advisor Customer Service Centre Notes 16.10.2011 11:24:51 WEBLOGIN PREFERRED MEANS OF CONTACT: EMAIL Is it normal for there to be a gap of at least 14 minutes between the last two trains on a Saturday? This led to what I regard as dangerous overcrowding on the platform and in the train, particularly when there are many drunks travelling on the tube. Our ref: 1009659551 Date: 22.10.2011 Dear Thank you for your feedback form about the problems you had travelling on the last eastbound Central line train on the night of 15 October. I'm sorry that this happened and can imagine your frustration. Because of a defective train at Ruislip depot, the last train was 15 minutes late departing. Under our Customer Charter you are entitled to a refund of the journey you make if the cause of the delay is within our control. If you could respond to this email with your postal address I'd be happy to send you a cash voucher for £2.50. Once again I'm sorry for the inconvenience caused to you that night and hope your future journeys are trouble free. I look forward to hearing from you shortly. Yours sincerely, Niall O'Mahony Customer Service Advisor Customer Service Centre Dear Mr O' Mahony, Many thanks for getting back to me. My address is Best regards, Notes 17.10.2011 11:24:35 WEBLOGIN PREFERRED MEANS OF CONTACT: EMAIL On Saturday, I changed from the Piccadilly Line to the Central Line at 18:00. At the bottom of the Piccadilly line escalator, a member of staff had just closed off the middle escalator, so everyone was crowding on to the righthand up escalator. When I was nearly at the top, I saw that people were having great difficulty stepping off the escalator because of the crowd at the top. Fortunately, I was near the 'stop' button and stopped the escalator. It then took several minutes to move from there to the bottom of the upper escalators as there was a big tailback of passengers going to the Central Line. If I had not stopped the escalator and no other passenger had, there would have been a very dangerous situation and I believe people would have been crushed. There are CCTV cameras there. Were these not being monitored? If they were, why did you not contact the member who 1 minute previously had been at the bottom of the Picaddilly Line escalators to tell him to stop the escalator, I don't think you should rely on a passenger to do this. Our ref: 1009662831 Date: 03.12.2011 Dear Thank you for your email about your experience at Holborn station on 15 October. Please accept my apologies for the extreme delay in responding to your comments. I’m sorry to hear of the difficulties you experienced that evening at the station and I do appreciate your concern. The last few years has seen the number of customers being carried increase substantially. While we have increased the frequency of services on most lines over the last few years to the point where we are now running at peak capacity on most lines, demand continues to grow beyond record levels with up to 3 million customers using the service each weekday. I have to admit to being a little concerned by your admission of stopping the escalator you were travelling on. Whilst I appreciate the perceived risk, this in itself could cause a serious safety risk to customers and I would ask that you not do this in future. Please be assured that your safety is our top priority at all times; the station is constantly monitored by staff in our control room and if it is felt that there is any risk to customers well established procedures are in place to deal with this. Yours sincerely, Peri Kennedy Customer Service Advisor Customer Service Centre Thank you for your reply. However, I am surprised that you don't want anyone to stop an escalator even when there is a serious safety risk if it continues. When I arrived at the top of the escalator, the people already there were at a standstill. It took several minutes for me to move out of the area and if the escalator had continued, perhaps a hundred more people would have been deposited in the area in that time; this would have led to severe crushing. Did you look at CCTV footage in this case? Did your control room staff really think this was a safe situation? Our ref: 1009662831 Date: 12.12.2011 Dear Thank you for your further email. I'm sorry if my earlier comments appeared to dismiss your concerns; they were not intended to do so by any means. I'm afraid that due to the amount of time passed we weren't able to view the CCTV images with regard to your comments, however I can assure you that the area is under constant surveillance by control room staff. Staff are very familiar with the issues facing customers and the challenges involved in moving people safely through this very busy station and take their commitments to safety very seriously. Your comments have been passed to the senior manager responsible for Holborn station, she has asked me to pass on her assurances that staff are monitored to ensure that they are following correct procedure at all times. I hope the above provides some reassurance and if I can be of assistance in future, please contact me again. Yours sincerely, Peri Kennedy Customer Service Advisor Customer Service Centre Notes 07.12.2011 10:17:43 WEBLOGIN PREFERRED MEANS OF CONTACT: EMAIL I emailed my complaint to [email protected] on 28.11.11 and had no reply/acknowledgement. Dear Sir/Madam, I would like to make a formal complaint about utterly irresponsible and dangerous management of the running of Holborn tube station, changing from the Central Line to the Piccadilly Line towards Caledonian road. On Saturday 26th November 2011 at approximately 6:00pm my daughter and I were travelling from Nottinghill to Caledonian Road. Changing from the Central Line at Holborn going down on the escalator towards the Piccadilly line it was very crowded. Announcements were made over the speakers for passengers to use both sides of the escalator. Half way down on the escalator it became obvious that people at the bottom were not moving away quickly enough, causing people on the escalater struggling to step off and move on. People were starting to stumble as obviously more and more people were trying to step off the still moving escalator. This was a utterly sickening, disturbing and panicking prospect, as there was nowhere to go, being half way down on the escalator. My daughter tried to climb up onto the side but could not jump high enough, I pulled her backwards, reversing up the escalator as far as possible until we hit the bottom and got trapped between stationary people at the bottom and people coming down behind us.