London Underground (LU) has now returned to a normal service today following the strike called by the leaderships of the RMT and TSSA unions.

Despite the strike up to 40 per cent of Tube services continued to run across the Capital during Monday's strike.

Trains ran on ten of eleven lines, more services and stations were operated than during the last strike and most stations in central London remained open.

All key transport hubs operated including Liverpool Street, London Bridge, Victoria, Euston, Stratford, Waterloo, Holborn, Heathrow, Kings Cross, Finsbury Park, Paddington, Earl's Court and Whitechapel.

More than 100 extra bus services were provided, along with capacity for an additional 10,000 journeys on river services and marshalled taxi ranks.

The number travelling by Barclays Cycle Hire bike increased by around 25 per cent. 

Volunteers were provided at bus, Tube, and rail stations to help passengers and distribute walking maps and other useful information.

Mike Brown, Managing Director of LU said: 'Despite the 'paralysis' predicted by the RMT and TSSA leaderships London kept moving.

Most stations in central London remained open and trains ran on ten of the eleven Tube lines, with up to 40 per cent of services running.

'Londoners showed real resilience and patience, and I would like to thank them as well as the staff who kept services going, and the staff on other parts of the transport network who helped get people around the city.

'This was a wasted exercise by the RMT and TSSA leaderships.

'They achieved nothing but losing their members a day's pay and losing the goodwill of the travelling public.

'We remain ready for constructive talks, and we are urging the two unions to return to work with us to resolve the issues without further disruption.'

Notes to editors:

  • Some LU ticket offices now regularly sell fewer than 10 tickets an hour. The quietest ticket offices include North Ealing, which sells under six tickets per hour, and Latimer Road and Moor Park, which sell only around seven tickets per hour
  • Overall, sales from ticket offices are down 28 per cent over the last four years as more and more people switch to Oyster, just one in 20 Tube journeys now starts with a visit to a ticket office
  • Under LU's proposals staff will be more effectively deployed to areas of stations where they can better assist customers, removing duplication of roles whilst delivering the best possible value for fare and taxpayers
  • The proposed changes would mean a reduction in the total number of posts across LU, but will involve no compulsory redundancies, and will have no impact on the Tube's high safety standards
  • The changes would not affect Tube drivers, and the majority of the roughly 800 posts that are identified for reduction are ticket office staff; this also includes a saving of around 150 posts from reductions in management and administrative staff. This is out of a total of around 19,000 LU staff, so represents less than five per cent of the workforce. Some 250 positions are already, or are expected to become vacant, so these would merely not be filled