Request ID: FOI-2606-2223 Date published: 15 February 2023
You asked
For each of the last three years to present, how many London Underground stations were closed to passengers during operating hours?
NOTES:
• Please break down each year's figures by month and by station name.
• Please provide a short note indicating the reason for each closure, such as temporary staff shortages outside of industrial action periods.
• Where one station has been closed multiple times in one month, please state how many times it was closed and why.
• Please also include stations which were partly closed for travel (e.g. one out of multiple lines being closed) -- state which line and why.
We answered
Our Ref: FOI-2606-2223
Thank you for your request received on 18 January 2023 asking for information about London Underground station closures.
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.
We aim to minimise station closures as much as possible and strive to always exhaust all avenues before making the decision to close a station. However, on some occasions it is unavoidable, and due to safety regulations which requires some stations to have a minimum number of staff, we are legally obligated to close the station.
We are aware of the inconvenience that station closures can cause to our customers and only close stations as a last resort. We are working to improve the situation and have seen a significant reduction in the number and length of closures over the past few months. Measures being taken include recruiting into roles where recruitment had previously been paused due to the pandemic. On the occasions when we are required to close a station, we will where possible, prioritise keeping the stations which have greater strategic importance open and those with Step Free Access (e.g. stations with better connectivity to the rest of the TfL and National Rail network) by re-deploying available station staff to these stations.
Above-ground stations are not subject to the same requirements for minimum staff numbers as underground stations and may be kept open when no staff are available. TfL’s Turn up and Go service for customers that require this service remains available at all stations.
Please find the requested information attached. Please refer to the Notes tab on the spreadsheet. In addition, planned closures and industrial action are not included in the figures. This includes the 37 planned closures that were implemented at the start of the pandemic in March 2020. We have also not included partial closures as the reporting system we use does not easily allow us to differentiate these.
If this is not the information you are looking for, or if you are unable to access it for some reason, please feel free to contact me.
Please see the attached information sheet for details of your right to appeal.
Yours sincerely
Gemma Jacob Senior FOI Case Officer FOI Case Management Team General Counsel Transport for London
