Making Sense of Inevitable Transit Delays

London's Tube system works a bit like the network of blood vessels in the human body. One closed station or delayed train can throttle movement across the entire system, like a blockage in an artery. Tube delays and emergency closures are a fact of life for London, but they don't have to be as debilitating as a heart attack. By looking at ridership data to see where and how Underground users move throughout the system, researchers are finding new ways of dealing with increased congestion during station closures, and even developing strategies to keep the flow moving, like the blood of a healthy person.

Researchers at University College London have teamed up with the Underground's operator, Transport for London, to analyze system usage information for millions of riders. Based on data collected at stations through the Oyster card transit pass system, the researchers were able to track and analyze about 4 million movements per day.