The London Traveler

I’m writing a piece on Digital Mapping for a travel magazine at the moment, and my researches have found some excellent new concepts – real time mobile maps, Google mashups, and wiki maps. Most of them, alas, are based in the US. I’m not really sure when I’ll next need a guide to San Francisco nightlife or Chicago crime statistics.

But here’s a nice one for London – Tube JP, your Underground journey planner. Type in what tube you’re starting from and going to, and it will show you your route on the map  along with an estimated time taken to get there, and a list of where you have to change.

I can see quite a fun game developing here, as some of its preferred routes aren’t the same as the ones I usually take.  For instance, from Monument to Paddington it suggests taking the Circle Line all the way.  Yes, that seems obvious – but every time I’ve tried it, there are only District and Hammersmith Line trains and I end up changing train at London Bridge and again at King’s Cross. So ‘beat Tube JP ‘ could be quite fun – I’ll let one of my friends take the Tube JP route, and see if I can guess a quicker short cut.

The site also gives bus and night bus times and routes. Useful, but look how much longer they are than the tube times! No doubt which is the quickest way to get somewhere.

Photo credit – an imaginative reinvention of the tube map by Annie Mole on flickr

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