Lowri Griffiths on what twenty-four hour transit actually does for the people who need it most
By Lowri Griffiths
The Night Tube — the 24-hour Friday and Saturday tube service that launched in 2016 and has been expanded and contracted since then in ways that track the TfL budget more than the public’s enthusiasm for it — is consistently discussed in London media as either an economic story (does it generate enough activity to justify the operating cost?) or a convenience story (isn’t it useful to be able to get home from a gig without booking a cab?). What it is not consistently discussed as is a safety story, which I think is the most important story about it and the one most directly felt by the people who use it most.
Women who regularly use late-night London transport know this intuitively. The choice between a Night Tube and an Uber at 2am is not primarily a cost choice or a convenience choice. It is a safety calculation involving: the known environment of a tube carriage with other passengers and CCTV, versus the unknown environment of a private vehicle with an unknown driver, accessed through an app whose safety record is the subject of ongoing reporting that I will summarise as “better than it was and not as good as it should be.”
The Data That Exists and Doesn’t
Transport for London publishes crime statistics for its network that allow some analysis of safety patterns. What TfL does not publish, and what would make the safety case for the Night Tube more clearly, is comparative data on assault and harassment incidents on late-night journeys by mode: how do Night Tube incidents compare per passenger-journey to Uber and private hire incidents, to taxi incidents, and to incidents on night buses? This comparison would allow a proper assessment of the safety landscape that the Night Tube sits within. The data exists within different systems — TfL, the Metropolitan Police, and Transport for London’s private hire licensing operation — and has not, to my knowledge, been compiled and published in a form that enables the comparison.
The Policy Implication
The Night Tube’s operating cost to TfL is approximately Pound Sterling 30 million per year, a figure that appears in discussions of TfL’s budget as a deficit item. If you frame the Night Tube as a transport service, the cost-per-journey calculation is unfavourable relative to peak hours. If you frame it as a safety infrastructure — as a service that makes a city safer for the people who most need safe late-night transport options — the calculation changes. The TfL personal safety resources cover the support available. The London VAWG strategy addresses the broader context. Lowri Griffiths covers London life at prat.uk.
SOURCE: https://bohiney.com
