London's Most Stressful Tube Station Has Been Revealed

Will Noble
By Will Noble Last edited 61 months ago

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Last Updated 04 March 2019

London's Most Stressful Tube Station Has Been Revealed

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King's Cross St Pancras is the tube network's most stressful station, according to research from PowWowNow.

Not only is the tube station London's busiest — 97.92 million people entering and exiting in 2017 — it also bears the shame of annually clocking up 1,853 minutes of primary delays (these are delays, which aren't caused by disruptions elsewhere on the network).

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We take findings with this like a fistful of salt, but to its credit, this one does take into account TfL data of entries and exits, train delays — plus negative social media posts over the course of a year. So it's pseudo-scientific at least.

According to the research, Bank and Monument is the second most stressful tube station. That seems a bit of a cheat, as it's officially two stations, but who's going to deny having almost lost their wits here at one time or another? Certainly not the social media massive, who bitched about Bank and Monument 394 times in 2017. We're shocked that figure's not way higher. Then again, have you ever tried taking your phone out on the tube, when you're essentially vacuum-packed in a fleshy cling film of fellow commuters?

The relatively suburban Acton Town ranks as the most delayed tube station, with 4,432 minutes of delays in 2017. Ouch.

As for the other end of the scale — the tube station least likely to have you pulling your hair out is... Barkingside. It suffered just 17 minutes of primary delays across the entirety of 2017. Then again, there were only 1.62 million entries and exits in 2017. That's over 60 times less passenger traffic than King's Cross St Pancras.