Office attendance at Elizabeth Line stations up by 23% as line approaches first anniversary
Image Credit: TFL
Offices and co-working spaces located along the route of the Elizabeth Line have seen significant year-on-year increases in attendance, according to new data released ahead of the first anniversary of the London’s newest tube line.
Footfall data from IWG, the world’s largest operator of flexible and hybrid workspaces, shows that the average number of visits to IWG locations across nine Elizabeth Line stops in April has increased by 23% compared to the same period last year, the month before the line opened.
Inner city locations such as Paddington (+50% across two centres), Canary Wharf (+22%), Liverpool Street (+21%) and Farringdon (+6%) reported strong increases, with workers’ journey times to the centre of London cut dramatically from the East and West.
Newly connected commuter locations in the suburbs and outside of London also registered major rises in footfall, including Reading (+45%), Slough (+38%), Maidenhead (+19%) and Ealing (+9%) as workers choose places to work closer to home.
In February Transport for London (TFL) announced that more than 100 million journeys have been taken on the line since its opening on 24th May 2022. Around 600,000 journeys are made on the line each day, making it one of the UK’s busiest railway lines.
The figures demonstrate the integral role that shorter commutes play in bringing workers together to collaborate in person. Research from IWG shows that employees are four times more likely to choose an office close to home than in a city centre, while 58 per cent would be put off applying for job with a long daily commute.
Mark Dixon, founder and CEO of IWG, commented: “There is now a wealth of evidence to show that long and costly daily commutes will be a thing of the past for a large proportion of white-collar workers, as hybrid working continues to take hold. Where arduous commuting barriers have been reduced, be that through improved transport links such as the Elizabeth Line or the increased availability of local workspaces in the suburbs and former dormitory towns, the demand for offices and hybrid workspace is thriving.”
An environmental impact study by IWG and Arup also revealed the significant green impact of hybrid working. It showed that working closer to home through a hybrid model can cut carbon emissions in UK cities by up to 70%. IWG itself has achieved carbon neutrality for the entire first quarter and expects to be carbon neutral for all of 2023 and beyond.
As demand for hybrid working accelerates, IWG has seen many businesses adopt a hub and spoke office model, with employees splitting their time between home, a local office and city centre HQ.
These changing work patterns have resulted in a 36% increase in demand for IWG workspaces located outside of city centres in 2022. IWG is expanding to meet this demand by adding 1,000 new locations globally in the next year, the vast majority of which will be in rural and suburban areas.
