Pedestrianisation: London's Oxford Street experiment

Abstract

Oxford Street in London, is the capital's principal shopping street and famous throughout the Western World; it is also the most obvious route from the city of London to the West, the Midlands and the North of England.

The conflict between its twin roles of shopping centre and major traffic route was demonstrated in its accident record which put Oxford Street top of the list of accident blackspots in London, whilst its location in the most fashionable area of London make the costs of new road construction prohibitive.

A comprehensive accident analysis defined the pedestrian/vehicle conflict by time and place and facilitated the detail design of a limited traffic ban with associated rerouting.

Considerable uncertainties in prediction of the resulting traffic conditions, in the absence of data on demand elasticity, dominated the design of the experiment and led to the inclusion of an “avert chaos” policy. Traffic predictions which included details of the probable manner in which congestion would spread were assisted by a new network simulation model developed by one of the authors and described here.

The report outlines the history of the experiment from conception to implementation (in record time) and reports some early and generally encouraging results. On the strength of which the Greater London Council has confirmed the scheme (August 1973) and has announced plans for its extension to the remaining half of Oxford Street — from Oxford Circus to St. Giles' Circus — which still carries the full weight of traffic.