Jubilee line may not cope with Olympic demand

Heavily delayed upgrade work threatens London Underground's most important Olympic route, politicians have warned.

The Jubilee line, which will take passengers to the Olympic Park and other Olympic venues such as the North Greenwich (O2) Arena, is the only London Underground line on which service has deteriorated in recent months, prompting concerns it may not cope with the significant extra demand that will be placed on it over the summer.

The London Assembly's Transport Committee has asked the Mayor of London for details on how Transport for London (TfL) will ensure the service has improved in time for the Olympics at the end of July.

Committee chairman Caroline Pidgeon said: "Given the scale of the challenges, some disruption to the transport network is inevitable." But she said she was keen to get some reassurance about critical areas like the Jubilee line.

Mark Evers, TfL's director of Games transport, said big strides had been taken to improve the Jubilee line's reliability following its signalling system upgrade.

"We know that hosting the London 2012 Games will be a huge logistical challenge, but we have a detailed plan and we are confident that we will get everyone to their Games events on time and keep London and the UK moving," he said.

TfL has launched extensive campaigns encouraging businesses in east London to allow staff to work from home, and for spectators to travel to events via circuitous, and on some occasions longer routes, in order to ease congestion on the most popular routes.