Data about UK train station use has been updated for 2011-12, and what's immediately obvious is how much usage of the Overground has jumped since the previous year.
On the old East London line and its extension, which opened May 2010, Dalston Kingsland saw a 78% increase in entries and exits, Whitechapel a 76% increase, Canada Water 75%, Hackney Central 73%. Kensington Olympia saw a 157% jump in usage, which is odd; anything to do with the change in service on the District Line? But Canonbury passengers increased by a whopping 172%; maybe it is just the magic of the Overground. Camden Road shot up 68%, West Hampstead 52%... No wonder they need more carriages. Shoreditch High Street, however, saw numbers drop by 15% – a result of it being moved into zone 1?
Waterloo remains the country's busiest station with 94,045,510 entries and exits, followed by Victoria, Liverpool Street, London Bridge, Charing Cross, Euston and Paddington, but Birmingham New Street has leapfrogged King's Cross to take eighth place. 21,918,116 passengers started or ended journeys at Clapham Junction (almost as many as Stratford), but Clapham Junction has 21,609,997 interchanges over a year, keeping its crown as the busiest/most annoying place to change trains.
Not all stations are getting busier. Cannon Street saw passenger numbers decline 2%, in Finsbury Park they were down 12%, Old Street dropped by 7% and in Elephant and Castle – apparently a station Londoners hate – 3% of passengers have voted with their feet and gone elsewhere.
Photo by Martin Deutsch from the Londonist Flickr pool
