Oxford Circus tube station
Commuters and shoppers queue for access to Oxford Circus underground station during a tube strike in 2014. Reuters

Oxford Circus station which is on the Bakerloo, Central and Victoria lines route, has been named as the most overcrowded Tube station in London. According to figures, the station was closed a total of 219 times over the past two years due to overcrowding.

According to a Freedom of Information request by the Press Association, commuters were barred from entering the Oxford Circus station between March 2014 and February 2016 due to overcrowding on the platforms. Bank station, which also hosts one of the main DLR terminals and interchanges to three other London Underground lines, was closed 90 times during the same period.

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Newly-elected London Mayor Sadiq Khan said through his spokesman: "Sadiq has been clear that we can't have a situation where people don't feel safe on the Tube, and TfL [Transport for London] are already taking short-term measures to avoid overcrowding."

The spokesperson also told Huffington Post UK that: "We can't have a situation where people don't feel safe on a platform to get on the Tube, having panic attacks, having palpitations, especially when it's hot weather."

"The short term solution is we've got to make sure that we close the barriers [to the platforms] so there isn't overcrowding on our Tubes and on our platforms." the spokesman said.

The most overcrowded stations, ranked by the number of times they have been closed over the two year period, are as follows:

  • Oxford Circus —219
  • Bank —90
  • Walthamstow Central — 77
  • Holborn — 55
  • Finsbury Park —29
  • Warren Park — 27
  • Euston — 26
  • London Bridge — 26
  • Canada Water — 25; and
  • Green Park — 23

A TfL spokesman acknowledged that the number of people using the Tube had risen to record levels, with more than 1.3 billion passenger journeys recorded last year alone. He also said the city's population is expected to grow from 8.6 million currently to 10 million in 2030.

"Our modernisation of signalling on vast parts of the Tube network, new more frequent trains and our rebuilding of stations like Victoria and Bank is also critical. But we also now need to start building Crossrail 2 as soon as possible to relieve Waterloo and enable London to meet growing demand," the TfL representative added.