After a week of the new timetable, we have drawn together our view from reports from our members and supporters, our own use of services and our monitoring of social media. Overall it has not been as bad as some had feared. But luck has been on Southeastern’s side: there were none of the major infrastructure failures which typically happen once a week, and the forecast snow never arrived. We’ve always said that the test would be not just the first few days but whether services could be sustained over 18 months. There are worrying signs that the network is highly stressed, and we are calling for urgent action to even out the pressures.

The key points from our analysis are:

• Morning London Bridge/Cannon Street trains are very crowded – there is difficulty in even boarding the few fast trains from Sevenoaks in the early morning (0600-0730), which arrive with passengers already standing from Tonbridge. One of our members could not get onto the 0723 four days running.
• Evenings are difficult and crowded at Cannon Street and London Bridge – people are finding it hard to get through the crowds to their intended train.
• There is heavy-duty crowd control at London Bridge in the evenings – only one entrance open and lots of “security people”. The British Transport Police had to be called to assist “with the large numbers of passengers attempting to access the Southeastern platforms at London Bridge”. One of our supporters wrote “passengers are treated as prisoners, not customers“. Escalators from the tube exit to the London Bridge platforms are now being closed during the evening peak, and passengers have to climb two flights of narrow metal stairs, which is difficult for those with limited mobility.
• There are Twitter reports of passenger/passenger fights on trains and platforms. This is a worrying indicator of the pressure passengers are under.
• By contrast, Charing Cross and Waterloo East trains were initially emptier than usual. However some evening trains are now filling up; some people may have switched to alternative routes via Waterloo East during the week.
• There have been many complaints about limited ticket acceptance on bus and tube – many people think a wider range of alternatives would make sense. So do we.
• There are many reports of short trains leading to severe overcrowding. Southeastern have insufficient rolling stock to run full-length trains everywhere, and it seems that they have not allocated the stock optimally. This affects some trains from Sevenoaks (even standing offpeak one day on a three-coach train).
• The rolling stock re-allocation is causing over-crowding even on services not directly affected by the London Bridge work. For Borough Green and Otford where older and shorter trains have been introduced with six (and sometimes four) coaches rather than the previous eight. Even late-peak 0847 from Otford to Victoria is reported to be standing-only from West Malling, giving Borough Green and Otford passengers no chance.
• There has been a doubling in social media traffic about @se_railway – 12,274 Twitter posts in the last week, compared to 5,869 in the previous week. The comment has been mostly negative, although there has been some praise for some station staff trying their best in difficult circumstances.
• There are at least three contract security/information staff at Sevenoaks who hang around the entrance and do not seem to be doing much.

Overall Southeastern seem to see this as a success – Managing Director David Statham even told Kent On Sunday that “we had no particular reports of overcrowding”. That’s a strange statement as the company last week received 608 Twitter messages mentioning “crowded”, “crowding” or “rammed”, compared to just 96 the previous week. It’s also strange because Southeastern’s own Twitter channels has been posting things like:

@dmbforever This is to prevent the platforms from being too crowded.

— Southeastern (@Se_Railway) January 15, 2015

@Se_Railway please lay on extra trains from Cannon Street to Chelsfield / Orpington. Unhealthily crowded all the time!

— MJB (@newsdawg17) January 15, 2015

Many of our members and supporters don’t share the self-satisfied view of Southeastern management. Movever the new arrangements have not really been tested when something goes wrong. So we consider that there is still too much risk and that some urgent action is required to reduce the stress in the system.  For us there are three immediate priorities:

• Wider acceptance of rail tickets on TFL tube and bus services. City workers need greater encouragement to switch from overcrowded London Bridge/Cannon Street services to Waterloo/Charing Cross and Victoria services and then complete their journey on TfL, and vice versa in the evening.  We’ve written about that in more detail.
• Better information and transparency to passengers, including information about lengths and loading of trains. This will help passengers find better alternatives. (Of course, if David Statham is right and there is no “particular overcrowding”, then we’d be happy for him to publish the figures that prove it.)
• Sorting out train lengths to get more even loading and ensuring no-one has to stand for more than the statutory 20 minutes – in short, putting the seats where the passengers are.

There’s more to do, but these can be done quickly and easily. Getting them done would be a good start, and would show that Southeastern was listening to the pain many of its customers are suffering.