A Freedom of Information request has retrieved daily usage rates for the Emirates Air Line during the financial year 1st April 2014 - 31st March 2015. The spreadsheet is here, if you want to dig around for yourself. Don't you just love FoI requests?
The ten windiest/most disrupted Dangleway days
Date
Service
availability
Closure due
to wind
1st
Tue 31 Mar 15
3%
Yes
2nd
Tue 21 Oct 14
8%
Yes
3rd
Sun 29 Mar 15
20%
Yes
4th
Sat 10 Jan 15
27%
Yes
5th
Sat 10 May 14
38%
Yes
6th
Mon 22 Dec 14
45%
Yes
7th
Fri 09 May 14
48%
Yes
8th
Fri 09 Jan 15
51%
Yes
9th
Mon 12 Jan 15
52%
Yes
10th
Mon 02 Mar 15
56%
Yes
The cablecar closed due to wind on 87 days last year, which is 24% of the possible total. Service was closed for more than half the day on only seven occasions, and for more than an hour on only 29 days. The month most affected by wind was January, with 11 days of disruption. March was in second place, followed by December, February and May.
The ten days with the fewest Dangleway passengers
Date
Passengers
Service
availability
Closure due
to wind
1st
Tue 31 Mar 15
12
3%
Yes
2nd
Tue 21 Oct 14
20
8%
Yes
3rd
Sun 29 Mar 15
235
20%
Yes
4th
Wed 28 Jan 15
511
95%
Yes
5th
Mon 02 Mar 15
681
56%
Yes
6th
Tue 02 Dec 14
781
66%
Yes
7th
Sat 10 May 14
792
38%
Yes
8th
Sat 10 Jan 15
1022
27%
Yes
9th
Thu 08 Jan 15
1068
100%
No
10th
Wed 07 Jan 15
1092
100%
No
Yes, it's true, on Tuesday 31st March this year the cablecar had only twelve passengers. This equates to just six passengers in each direction, which is the equivalent of one cabin almost full. Equally minimally, on Tuesday 21st October the cablecar had only 20 passengers. Both of these days suffered from very limited service availability due to high winds (on 31st March, less than half an hour). The lowest number of passengers on a day with calm weather conditions was 1068, on Thursday 8th January. This equates to 1.3 passengers per minute. 15% of days had fewer than 2000 passengers, while 41% of days had fewer than 3000.
The ten days with the most Dangleway passengers
Date
Passengers
Service
availability
Closure due
to wind
1st
Sun 24 Aug 14
11351
100%
No
2nd
Sat 09 Aug 14
11103
100%
No
3rd
Sat 12 Apr 14
10888
100%
No
4th
Sat 14 Feb 15
10673
100%
No
5th
Sun 25 May 14
10593
100%
No
6th
Sat 06 Sep 14
10526
100%
No
7th
Sat 16 Aug 14
10435
100%
No
8th
Sat 19 Apr 14
10298
100%
No
9th
Sun 04 May 14
10286
100%
No
10th
Fri 18 Apr 14
10159
100%
No
The greatest number of passengers in one day was 11351 on 24th August, the Sunday before the August bank holiday. This equates to 17 passengers per minute. Only eleven days saw more than 10000 passengers (one of which was Valentine's Day). The 25 busiest days were all Saturdays, Sundays or bank holidays. The highest number of passengers on an ordinary weekday was 8180 on Tuesday 28th October, which was during the school half term holidays.
The average number of passengers by day of the week
Mon
Tue
Wed
Thu
Fri
Sat
Sun
3285
3232
3323
3323
3822
7253
6398
On an average weekday approximately 3500 passengers ride the cablecar, which is fewer than 2000 in each direction. Weekends are roughly twice as busy as weekdays, and Saturdays are busier than Sundays.
The average number of daily passengers by month
Apr
May
Jun
Jul
Aug
Sep
Oct
Nov
Dec
Jan
Feb
Mar
5243
4463
4242
4990
7029
4484
4485
3617
2963
2936
4118
2998
The top month by far was August, which is peak tourist season and entirely within the school holidays. April was in second place, again probably thanks to two weeks of school holidays. Other spring/summer months had around 4000 passengers a day. February's average topped 4000 thanks to the special promotion which boosted passenger numbers over the Valentine's Day weekend. The fewest number of passengers rode in December, January and March. I've not counted the seven day maintenance closure in March when calculating these figures.
The total number of passenger journeys in the financial year 2014/5 was 1,544,679. This is 3% above TfL's target of 1½ million passengers. It's also lower/higher than the number of passenger journeys the previous year. Damn, I'm not sure precisely how many passengers the cablecar had in 2013/14. Perhaps someone could put in an FoI request and ask...
