Crime numbers on the London Underground

The Evening Standard has managed to get a list of crime numbers on the London Underground, broken down by station and delivered the not entirely surprising headline that Kings Cross is the crime ridden capital of the tube network.

However, as is noted in their article, that is a rather busy station, so what is more interesting to me is what is the worst stations in terms of chance of being a victim of crime.

Or the safest?

Starting with the good news, and I will admit to being surprised to see Barking and Willesden Junction coming out as the safest stations in London with just 0.15 and 0.26 crimes per million passengers.

Heathrow Terminal 5 comes in third, but the lack of crime is offset by the aircraft noise if you are seeking a nice place to live.

At the other end of the scale, tiny Chesham tops the chart as the most dangerous station, with a
seemingly massive 15.08 crimes per million passengers. However, as it is a tiny station with just 464,000 passengers and 7 crimes, the figures are obviously distorted.

More sensibly, West Ham with 12.58 crimes per million and Westbourne Park with 12.43 crimes per million come second and third in the charts.

The station branded as the worst for crime, Kings Cross actually comes in at 98th place, with a respectable 2.37 crimes per million passenger trips.

To be honest, I was surprised at how few crimes there are, even at the biggest stations and it seems to be less than fear might suggest.

The full chart is below, or can be downloaded from here.

Sources are the graphics of the crime data from the Evening Standard (laboriously typed in manually, thanks guys!) and the 2010 passenger numbers from TfL via an FOI request.

Some numbers are missing from the crime figures – I presume some omissions due to who looks after the station?