The New York Times recently asked experts to determine whether it's better to walk up an escalator or simply stand there, and the results were unanimous: if everyone stood still, we'd all get to the top faster.
An experiment at the London Underground's Holborn Station in 2015 found walking up the escalator took 26 seconds compared with standing, which took 40 seconds. However, the time it took to stand in line to reach an escalator then ride it dropped sharply when everyone stood, according to a blog post by the researchers.