London Tube strike 2015: This map shows how the strikes hit retail sales
This summer’s Tube strikes were a headache for more than just frazzled commuters: A new map shows it also changed our shopping pattern dramatically, striking hard against retailers in the city.
Using figures on sales transactions made across 10,000 stores across the capital, Applied Predictive Technologies has analysed the effect of the August Tube strike on retail and restaurant sales.
It may not shock you hugely to learn that sales in Central London crashed far lower than the average shopping day.
But other parts of London stood to gain from the disruption: as thousands of commuters avoided the throngs by working from home, suburban shops and restaurants actually outstripped their average performance by far on the day of the strike.
The London Underground came to a complete standstill twice over the summer as unions battled it out with Transport for London (TfL) over the planned introduction of the Night Tube. After the discussions collapsed, it now seems as though the all-night service originally scheduled to be introduced in September will be pushed back until next year.