Using the airport moving walkways 'actually slows you down'

Something I've often suspected.

I usually run alongside the moving escalator if I'm really in a hurry. Less risk of being stuck behind a group of people standing motionless.

So I was interested to read this in the Daily Telegraph:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/5836445/Using-the-airport-moving-walkways-actually-slows-you-down.html

Some interesting facts in the Telegraph story:

Designed specifically to improve the flow of passengers, they often catch out tired and elderly travellers who find it difficult to maintain balance coming off and on the moving pathway.

They can also disorientate drunken passengers and those loaded down with luggage.

In 2006, London Underground estimated they were the most common cause of accidents across the network, and reported 933 injuries from their use.

There is also a problem with people wearing bifocal glasses as when they look down everything is out of focus. They cannot see their feet and trip over.

At Rome’s Tiburtina station, York University professor Sally Baldwin was crushed to death in 2003 after a travelator collapsed and she was pulled into the cog wheels.

And in Boston, USA, drunken sushi chef Francisco Portillo died after getting his head stuck in a subway escalator in 2005.

ouch...