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Dear Mr Harris

Thank you for being patient in waiting for my fuller response to your email, I am sure you will

appreciate that I have needed to focus on customer service during the period of poor

weather. I am now in a position to cover all the points you made.

To begin, I am glad to hear that you have noticed an improvement in service reliability on the

Northern line. This improvement is something that has been recognised by our customers,

and as a result, customer satisfaction scores for the line have reached record levels.

Customer satisfaction is assessed using surveys where customers are selected randomly

and interviewed about their journey when leaving the station. There are around 9,000

interviews are carried out every year in stations throughout the entire network, between

0700 and 2200 throughout the week. This ensures that the survey is representative of all

customers.

The survey asks customers to rate various aspects of their journey (such as train service,staff, information, safety and cleanliness, as well as an overall assessment of the journey)

on a scale of 1 to 10. The results are analysed, and an average overall rating is worked out

and multiplied by a factor of 10 to give us a rating out of 100, e.g. if the average rating is

7.34 out of 10, this would become 73.4.

On the Northern line, measures such as length of time waited for a train and length of

journey time, both key aspects directly affected by the timetable improvements, have shown

a marked improvement, as has the score for train crowding. Scores are reviewed on a

quarterly basis and the overall score for the Northern line went up from 77 in Quarter 3 of

2007/8 (the last period before the timetable changes I mentioned in my last response were

implemented) to a high of 82 in Quarter 4 of 2008/09. The average score since the timetable

was introduced is around 80 which is both greater than the average network-wide score

over this time and also represents a greater overall increase compared to the network

average - which has also been increasing. Customer experience therefore also

demonstrates that the Northern line is now one of our best performing lines.

You asked for some further clarification on whether, under our plans for partial separation of

the Northern line, trains from Edgware would still serve both the Charing Cross and Bank

branches throughout the day. I can confirm that this will indeed be the case, except during

the core peak hours when, in order to maximise capacity and operate a much increased

frequency (28-32 trains per hour) on all parts of the line, services in the contra-peakdirection will operate as they already do now in the morning peak. More information on this

is set out below.

With regards to what is meant by peak direction, this refers to the direction in which, during

peak times, the highest number of customers are travelling. Generally speaking, this means

that peak direction during the morning peak is towards central London (so southbound from

the Edgware branch), and during the evening peak, from central London (so northbound to

the Edgware branch). When we refer to the contra-peak we mean the opposite direction to

the main peak flow.

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Under our plans the service for Hendon residents would be as follows:

During the AM Peak (approximately 07.00 - 10.00 on Monday to Fridays), the service

will remain as it is now. This means that trains from the Edgware branch will continue

to serve both the Bank and the Charing Cross branches. Northbound trains from

central London during these times are scheduled so that all trains from the CharingCross branch serve the Edgware branch and all those from the Bank branch serve

the High Barnet branch. This maintains the optimum balance of frequency and

reliability on the line meaning that we can run as many trains as possible whilst

retaining the robust service that we know our customers value.

During the PM Peak (approximately 16.00 19.00 on Monday to Fridays) a similar

service will operate as a mirror of the AM peak: northbound trains from both the Bank

and Charing Cross branches will continue to serve the Edgware branch. Southbound

trains would be scheduled so that all trains from the Edgware branch serve the

Charing Cross branch, and all those for the Bank branch operate from the High

Barnet branch.

This means that in both the AM peak and the PM peak the vast majority of Hendon

customers will undertake their journeys in the same way as now, but will also benefit from

the major improvements the planned change will bring. Indeed, this change will mean we are

able to increase the number of trains at the busiest times, to between 28-32 trains per hour

in the peaks, compared to 20 now and 24 after the completion of the upgrade in 2012.

This simplification of service will further build on the benefits we have seen to reliability and

performance through the recent timetable changes and will mean that we are able to fully

utilise the capacity benefits of the upgrade. Reliability in the off-peak (and contra-peakdirection) will also be improved meaning that all Northern line customers will benefit as a

result.

LU is constantly re-evaluating ways of improving the service on all its lines including the

Northern line. In many cases these changes are in response to the changing needs of the

network and are operational in nature.We will of course engage fully with all of our keystakeholders on this issue and will communicate comprehensively with customers in

advance of any change taking place. As I explained in my previous response, these

proposals are still at an early stage and implementation is not planned until towards the end

of this decade.

If you require any further information, please do not hesitate to contact me again.

Kind regards

Pat Hansberry

General Manager, Northern line