Hello. Please can you provide me with data that shows the number of instances that the Metropolitan line was either 'suspended' or suffering 'severe delays' over the last 12 months. If possible, please provide this data broken down into instances on individual days. Many thanks.

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TfL Ref: FOI-2390-1920

Thank you for your email received by Transport for London (TfL) on 8 November 2019.

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

Please can you provide me with data that shows the number of instances that the Metropolitan line was either 'suspended' or suffering 'severe delays' over the last 12 months. If possible, please provide this data broken down into instances on individual days.

Please find the attached spreadsheet which shows when the Metropolitan Line has been suspended or operating with severe delays over the last 12 months.

It’s important to note that after Baker Street station, the Metropolitan line shares tracks with the Circle and Hammersmith & City lines. Therefore if these lines are affected, it impacts the Metropolitan line too.

The Metropolitan, District, Hammersmith & City and Circle lines carry 1.3 million passengers per day, accounting for 40 per cent of the Tube network and 25 per cent of the overall London Underground ridership. Because these lines share a lot of track and infrastructure, we are modernising them under a single combined and integrated project, Four Lines Modernisation (4LM). Our £5.4 billion programme to modernise the signalling on those lines will result in greater capacity and frequency, as well as improved journey times, reliability and customer information. This is the largest single upgrade in the history of the Tube.

Customers have already seen the benefits of the brand new walk-through air conditioned trains. Now we are into the critical stage of introducing the new signalling, including replacing signalling equipment built in 1926. The programme is currently on track to deliver an initial 30 trains per hour service over the south side of the central area in May 2021. Further increases to 32 trains per hour are then planned to be in service across all lines by May 2023.

On 2 September 2019, a section of new digital signalling was introduced from Latimer Road to Finchley Road and Euston Square, with trains operating automatically on those sections of the route. We extensively tested the new signalling during engineering hours and on weekends prior to going live, and this went well. But, while running the new software with the trains in a live environment we have experienced some software reliability issues and there have been a number of incidents of disruption for our customers. These have largely centred around communications issues between software systems on and off the trains.

We have been working with our signalling supplier to identify how to address these issues, and fixes are now being developed. Two software updates are scheduled for late this month and for mid-January next year, which we are confident will improve the situation for our customers.

If this is not the information you are looking for, or if you are unable to access it for some 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

Eva Hextall

FOI Case Officer

FOI Case Management Team

General Counsel

Transport for London

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