Travelling on the London tube increases aggression

Millions of passengers who use the tube on a daily basis have had enough of the sardine-like conditions and are adopting a dog-eat-dog attitude during their daily commute, according to a report released yesterday.

The stiff upper lip of the underground user has become a snarl as overcrowding forces tourists and commuters to disregard egalitarian principles in a fight for seats and standing space, say London Assembly members.

The tube carries 3.5 million commuters each day and sometimes shoehorns four travellers into a square metre of carriage space during peak ours, with the Northern and Central lines worst affected.

The London assembly report entitled Too Close for Comfort, features tales from the commuting frontline on one of the world’s busiest public transport systems.

One participant in the research described the Jekyll and Hyde effect of being pushed into the fight for space, saying he’s a different animal in the tube to normal life.

Other participants drown out their frustration by turning on their iPod and going into an automatic pilot routine, and worst of all, the behavioural norm that has been hard-wired into generation of Londoners, such as giving up your seat for those who need it, appears to be rapidly fading away.

The report claims that people were going after a seat regardless of who else might need it, ignoring pregnant women and people carrying babies.

Members of the Assembly urged Transport for London to give passengers more information about crowding levels on trains, including a traffic light system that could recommend a bus journey or walk instead.

Chair of the assembly’s transport committee, Caroline Pidgeon, said passengers were very resilient and they do put up with a lot, but on some lines it is so overcrowded that they have become incredibly focused while dashing for that seat and it changes how they behave compared with normal life.

A spokesman for TfL said the tube had been investing billions of pounds on upgrades that would boost capacity by nearly a third, meaning more trains, ability to carry more passengers, with faster journeys and larger stations.