London peak-time travel has levelled out post-covid but many still start and end the week at home, data suggests
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London peak-time travel has levelled out post-covid but many start and end the week at home, data suggests: Peak-time travel data released by Transport for London (TFL) indicates that the return to the office has flattened out in central London since covid-19. Tap-out figures Tuesday to Thursday have evened out at 80% of pre-pandemic levels but Monday and Friday figures remain much lower, suggesting a preference for mid-week office days.
The data from TFL spans September 2024 to March 2025 – a period during which media coverage highlighted new office mandates by many major organisations. Despite these moves, the data reflects just a 1.3% increase in peak time tube travel volumes in central London since September last year. All weekdays have seen a similar increase in volumes, but Friday remains the lightest travel day by far, at just 62% of pre-covid levels, followed by Mondays, at 71.2%.
In addition to differences by day, breaking the city down into smaller areas highlights significant geographical variations in travel volumes. The West End area of central London has the least amount of people travelling during peak-time, with 44% less tap-outs recorded in this area vs. pre-covid. The City of London’s legal district and Westminster remain 33% below pre-covid rates. In contrast, the finance district in the City of London has a much higher return rate with peak tube travel up at 84% of pre-pandemic levels.
From the data we can conclude that workers are spending much larger amounts of time out of the office than they were in 2019, in some areas of London more than others. With many London employers set to increase office mandates further, future trends in the TFL travel data may provide an interesting insight into their success.
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