It is one of the busiest street crossings in the world, but a small slice of anarchy was let loose on Oxford Circus yesterday.

As taiko drummers pounded out a heady rhythm and cartoon characters stalked the pavement, the Mayor of London struck a giant cymbal and urged pedestrians to scatter in all directions. For the first time, shoppers were urged to cross diagonally as well as straight ahead, following a giant white X emblazoned on the tarmac.

On the face of it, the scheme is very simple: about every 90 seconds, all four sets of traffic lights at the intersection of Oxford Street and Regent Street turn red simultaneously. Pedestrians then have 30 seconds to cross to whichever corner they want.

The intention is to double the number of people able to cross at any one time, easing congestion on one of the busiest stretches of pavement in the West.

At peak times as many as 32,000 people cross there every hour. Tokyo is one of the few cities in the developed world whose infrastructure has to cope with such immense daily migrations, so it is perhaps fitting that the Oxford Circus scheme, which cost £5 million, was modelled on Tokyo’s famed Shibuya crossing.

The acid test will come on Saturday, when Christmas shoppers descend on the West End in earnest.

“This project is a triumph for British engineering, Japanese innovation and good old-fashioned common sense,” Boris Johnson, the Mayor, said. “The head-scratching frustration caused by the previous design is over and we’ve brought one of the world’s greatest crossroads into the 21st century.”

The theory may be sound, but once the dignitaries had gone many pedestrians were left blissfully unaware of their new-found freedom. Most continued to cross as they always had done, from east to west, north or south.

But a brave minority strode confidently into the X-zone. “I was coming this way and I just had to come and try the crossing,” Fiona Gaw, 21, from Camberley, Surrey, said. “It used to be really congested. It is much, much better now.”

James Blackwood, 34, from Fulham, West London, was similarly impressed with his inaugural crossing. “I saw the picture of it and I thought I would come and give it a whirl,” he said. “It is a big improvement. It is ten times better than it used to be: it used to be a nightmare with all the girls going to Top Shop and everyone squeezed in behind the railings.”

All railings, apart from those around Tube station exits, have been removed. The old traffic islands have been ripped out. Pavements have been widened and there is no kerb, with York stone cobbles — treated to allow for the easy removal of chewing gum — lying flush to the road surface.

A new feeling of space and light has certainly been breathed into the crossing, but as the evening rush hour began most commuters stuck to their well-worn routes. “I had no idea you could cross diagonally,” Sandrine Guerra, 35, said. “It would be nice to know what is going on,” added Natalie Moggridge, 22.

Even the drivers of black cabs, those fonts of all knowledge, had not yet caught up with the new layout. “I don’t think it will make too much difference. Traffic has always been bad here anyway, especially at weekends,” said one driver who had not noticed the new road markings.

Despite the huge number of people who use the crossing, it has never been an accident blackspot. In the three years to June there were 34 recorded accidents at Oxford Circus, none of them fatal.

“We have found it very hard to have any safety concerns about it at all,” Andrew Howard, head of road safety at the AA, said. “Being able to cross in one go might make people more patient.”

A similar crossing is already operating in St Albans, Hertfordshire, and others may follow in London. An official for the Department for Transport said that she was not aware of any other cities wishing to follow suit. “It would be for local authorities around the country to decide if they wanted that kind of crossing,” she said.

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