Pat Hansberry

General Manager

Northern Line
16th November 2009

London Underground
20 Cranbourn Street
London WC2H 7RQ

Phone 020 7027 1120

Fax 020 7918 2251
Dear Mr Harris, Pat.Hansberry@tube.tfl.gov.uk

Many thanks for your email addressed to Boris Johnson regarding our
future service proposals for the Northern line. As your email relates to
London Underground (LU) the Mayor has asked me to respond.

Historically, the Northern line was one of LU’s worst performing lines. This
was a result of a combination of a number of factors, including tired and
worn-out assets and the complexity of the design of the line and the
associated service patterns, which meant that when failures did occur they
had a high impact.

As you may be aware, as part of our long term strategy for the line,
between 2006 and 2008 we made a series of changes to the timetable.
These were designed to respond to poor performance and to the increase
in demand that was causing trains to routinely run behind schedule.

The changes involved simplifying the off-peak timetable so that all trains
serving the Morden branch ran via the Bank branch through central
London, whilst all trains to and from the Charing Cross branch terminated
at Kennington before heading back north. As part of these changes to
simplify the service, Mill Hill East was served by a shuttle to and from
Finchley Central. Under the changes, trains from the two northern
branches of the line (Edgware and High Barnet) continued to serve both
branches through central London.

Since these changes the performance of the line has been transformed,
improving to the point where it has become one of our best performing
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crowded sections of the line. Customer satisfaction has also risen
considerably with all passengers benefitting from the improvements.
The changes we have made are designed to take us up to the line
upgrade, which is due to be completed at the beginning of 2012. The
upgrade involves completely re-signalling the line and fitting trains and
stations with state of the art equipment that will allow trains to be driven
automatically. As a result trains will be faster and more frequent, with
passengers waiting less time on platforms. It is anticipated that capacity
will be increased by around 20 per cent and journey times will be reduced
by around 18 per cent. Reliability will also be further boosted.

However, even with the completion of the upgrade it is anticipated that

there will continue to be severe pressure on this key north-south route. We
are therefore looking at the next logical step, of re-configuring (or ‘re-
casting’ as it’s referred to in the Mayor’s Draft Transport Strategy) the
service pattern in order to maintain the benefits of the upgrade and to
meet future demand.

Various options have been considered and the option planned is for a
‘partial separation of the line. This proposal could provide a large increase
in capacity for a relatively modest investment, increasing capacity by up
to a third on parts of the line – over and above the amount due to be
delivered by the upgrade.

Under this proposal, services would be separated at Kennington during the

peak in the same way that they currently are in the off-peak. This would
mean that in both the peak and the off-peak all Morden branch services
would go via Bank and all Charing Cross branch trains would terminate
and start at Kennington.

High Barnet and Edgware branch trains would continue to serve both
Charing Cross and Bank branches in the peak direction as they do now,
with customers from stations in Hendon being able to catch direct trains to
both the City and West End in the morning peak and back from the City
and West End in the evening peak. Mill Hill East would continue to be
served by a shuttle service to/from Finchley Central – with through-trains
during the peak.
Re-configuring services in this way would provide the opportunity for up to
a third more capacity on some parts of the line - with 28-32 trains per hour
on all parts of the line during the peaks. Reliability would also be increased
through a decreased impact of late running and delay.

For customers in Hendon this would mean an increased frequency on the

Edgware branch with 28 trains per hour in the peak direction, compared to
24 trains per hour following the upgrade – a 17% increase on top of that
delivered by the upgrade. The combined increase in capacity through
central London would be the equivalent to 40% of the capacity of a new
line across central London. No other proposal delivers this scale of
capacity benefit at such low cost.

The TfL Business Plan allocates funding for this project to be implemented
in 2018 - which includes buying, running and maintaining 20 new trains in
addition to the existing fleet.

I hope this clarifies the situation, however, do let me know if you require
any further information.
Yours sincerely

Pat Hansberry
General Manager
Northern line