Following our recent correspondence about CS9, please can you assist me with traffic data for the Embankment, as follows: Please provide hourly data for vehicle traffic between Parliament Sq and Tower Bridge for the past 10 years. Please can you break out the data by type of vehicle. Please can you state whether bus services along that stretch have been discontinued or reduced since the cycle superhighway was built or if any new services have been added. Where bus services have been changed, please can you say how (eg: 72 departures on route xx a day, reduced to 50 departures) and state the passenger capacity of the relevant vehicle operating on the route.

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TfL Ref: 1406-1920

Thank you for your request received by Transport for London (TfL) on 11 August 2019 asking for information about traffic data for the Embankment.

Your request has been considered in accordance with the requirements of the Freedom of Information Act and our information access policy. I can confirm that we hold some of the information you require. You asked for:

• Hourly data for vehicle traffic between Parliament Square and Tower Bridge for the past 10 years broken down by type of vehicle.

   

   

• State whether bus services along that stretch have been discontinued or reduced since the cycle superhighway was built or if any new services have been added.

Where bus services have been changed, please can you say how (eg: 72 departures on route xx a day, reduced to 50 departures) and state the passenger capacity of the relevant vehicle operating on the route.

Please find attached the data from our two Automatic Traffic Counters (ATCs) located along the route of CS3 which runs from Parliament Square through to Tower Bridge (ATC 181 Embankment and ATC 201 Tower Hill). The data has been provided for these two sites from the date of installation – 1 January 2018 through to the latest data available which is 11 August 2019. The data is in the format of – by direction, by date, by hour. Gaps within the data will be shown when the site was non-operational, this could be down to a software outage issue, damaged to the equipment caused by traffic accidents or when road modernisation has taken place. Unfortunately we are unable to provide vehicle breakdown as this is not collected by the ATCs.

There are only two short sections of the road that currently have bus services.

The first is westbound only on Lower and Upper Thames Street from Fish Street Hill to Southwark Bridge on route 344. This used to operate eastbound as well but because of a road closure due to Bank Station upgrade works was diverted in this direction away from the road; it is likely to be restored in 2021/22. In 2013 the route 344 ran every 6 minutes in the peak and every 7 minutes off peak, and every 12 minutes in the evening Monday – Friday in both directions. Currently it is every 7 minutes during the day and every 10 minutes in the evening westbound only.

The others section of that road where bus services currently operate is Tower Hill where route 15 runs between Great Tower Street and Minories. In 2009 it ran every 8 minutes during the day and every 10 minutes in the evening Monday - Friday. Currently it is the same frequency. In 2013 there was an additional heritage service on the 15 running every day every 15 minutes during the day. Now this additional service only runs at weekends during the summer every 20 minutes as it’s low use and high cost made it an inefficient use of Londoners’ fares to run outside the peak time for tourism.

Double deck buses are used on routes 15 and 344 which have a capacity of about 87 passengers except for the Heritage route buses where the classic Routemasters have a capacity of 69 passengers.

If this is not the information you are looking for, or if you are unable to access it for any reason, please do not hesitate to contact me.

Please see the attached information sheet for details of your right to appeal as well as information on copyright and what to do if you would like to re-use any of the information we have disclosed.

Yours sincerely

Sara Thomas

FOI Case Management Team

General Counsel

Transport for London

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