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Back-of-the-envelope calculations:

* 1,037,000,000 passenger trips a year.
* Ticket price varies roughly in a range of 2-4 GBP per trip.
* That comes to maybe 3,000 million GBP annual revenue.

Yes, that's 3 billion pounds (American billion) give or take a bit, which is more than the GDP for most of the smaller African nations. Apparently this is all used to cover operating costs, although annual operating cost is actually in the region of 1.2 billion pounds (PDF warning, see section 3).

Sounds to me like they're actually turning a hefty profit.

Better not mention that this card will enable the authorities to track all travel. They have already got rid of paying by cash on a lot of bus routes, forcing cash payers to pay twice as much as the Oyster payers to "encourage" the card use. To aid this, they have recently got rid of the pre-pay paper *1 tickets under disguise of mass fraud *2. Also children under 16 get "free" *3 travel using Oyster whilst data is actually being secretly collected for the governments ID card system.

*1: They were offering travel using these tickets the same price as the Oyster system.
*2: http://www.tfl.gov.uk/tickets/faresandtickets/singlefares/2904.aspx
*3: Free as in other sucker taxpayers paid for their privilege.

There are very few subways that run all night. The New York Subway was build with four tunnels for each line -- at night, only two are needed, so maintenance can be done on the other two. The London Underground only has two tracks for each line, so they have to shut at night for maintenance. It's annoying.

There are lots of night buses, many of them running as often as every 10-15 minutes all night (but if you want to go to outer London it might only be every half hour). They're quite safe to use, and the same price as a daytime journey (90p). Many routes are getting voice+LED announcements, so you know where to get off too. And there's not much traffic at night either.

Here's the night buses that go past St Pancras station.

I'd like to see more trams in London. And I'd like to see less cars too, and more bikes.

It costs 90p per journey (around US$1 - I haven't bothered to check the rate this week) *if you have an Oyster Card* ... if you don't, it's GBP2 as I mentioned.

As for my suggestion of 4 buses being ludicrous, perhaps I could refer you to http://www.busesatwork.co.uk/ which gives a comprehensive breakdown (pun intended) of London bus routes over the years and how they've been tampered with.

You could, if you wanted, try the old route 37 (Peckham to Hounslow West) using the current bus services on http://journeyplanner.tfl.gov.uk/ which will give you a number of possible journeys - but none of them with less than 4 buses. It's not my suggestion that's ludicrous - it's London's transport services.

There was some discussion in London a while back that the traffic lights at a number of junctions had their red phase increase and green phase decreased just before the introduction of congestion charging and then decreased once it was enforced.

I'm not sure the extent to which these accusations were justified (they were originated by the Evening Standard, which has a long, acrimonious relationship with the mayor. It's an interesting thought, though.

There are two versions of the Oyster Card.

Actually, there's just one (well, unless you count niche variants like the student one). It can just be used in different ways.

You can do two things with an Oyster card: put one or more Travelcards or Bus Passes (a Travelcard allows unlimited travel within certain zones of London) on it or store money (called Pre-Pay) on it. You can even do both at the same time. When you make a journey, the system figures out whether you have a valid Travelcard or Bus Pass or if it needs to make a deduction from your Pre-Pay total. There's no need to explicitly state which ticket you want (or even visit a ticket machine), it's all automatic (and even does neat things like upgrading several single fares to a one day Travelcard if it works out cheaper).

If you have a Travelcard or Bus Pass valid for more than seven days on your Oyster card, you have to register it, which involves filling out a form with your name and address. You also have to get a small card with a photo to go with it. This was the case with the old paper Travelcard system.

If you just have Pre-Pay on your Oyster card, you don't have to register it. To obtain the Oyster card, you just have to pay a deposit of £3 (refundable if you decide you don't want it any more). If you buy one over the counter, the staff seem to encourage you to register but don't insist on it. You can even get Oyster cards from vending machines in certain stations, which involves no encouragement to register (or interaction with real people). You can add more Pre-Pay cash at ticket offices in stations or in certain shops. There are also machines in some stations, which accept cash or debit/credit cards.

It should be noted that registering has certain benefits:

• If your card is lost or stolen, you can get any Pre-Pay stored on it refunded.
• You can set up an account on the Oyster card website, allowing you to view your balance and add Pre-Pay or Travelcards online (you can add PrePay or a seven day Travelcard online without having an online account or registered card but it's not as quick) or set up Auto top up, which automatically adds Pre-Pay from a debit/credit card when your balance drops below a certain level.

If you don't want an Oyster card, you don't have to get one; you can still pay by cash but this is almost always more expensive. You have to get an Oyster card if you want a Travelcard or to take advantage of the special discounts available to groups such as under 18s. Note that Transport for London explicitly allow you to lend your Oyster card to someone else if it has only adult fare Pre-Pay on it, so there's some level of plausible deniablity there.

While you can upgrade an anonymous Oyster card to be registered, I don't think you can do the opposite. All Oyster cards store details of the last few (eight, I think) journeys on the card itself. I'm not sure how long the central database stores details for. Possibly forever (which is currently practical as Oyster cards were only introduced less than five years ago).

There are two versions of the Oyster Card.

Actually, there's just one (well, unless you count niche variants like the student one). It can just be used in different ways.

You can do two things with an Oyster card: put one or more Travelcards or Bus Passes (a Travelcard allows unlimited travel within certain zones of London) on it or store money (called Pre-Pay) on it. You can even do both at the same time. When you make a journey, the system figures out whether you have a valid Travelcard or Bus Pass or if it needs to make a deduction from your Pre-Pay total. There's no need to explicitly state which ticket you want (or even visit a ticket machine), it's all automatic (and even does neat things like upgrading several single fares to a one day Travelcard if it works out cheaper).

If you have a Travelcard or Bus Pass valid for more than seven days on your Oyster card, you have to register it, which involves filling out a form with your name and address. You also have to get a small card with a photo to go with it. This was the case with the old paper Travelcard system.

If you just have Pre-Pay on your Oyster card, you don't have to register it. To obtain the Oyster card, you just have to pay a deposit of £3 (refundable if you decide you don't want it any more). If you buy one over the counter, the staff seem to encourage you to register but don't insist on it. You can even get Oyster cards from vending machines in certain stations, which involves no encouragement to register (or interaction with real people). You can add more Pre-Pay cash at ticket offices in stations or in certain shops. There are also machines in some stations, which accept cash or debit/credit cards.

It should be noted that registering has certain benefits:

• If your card is lost or stolen, you can get any Pre-Pay stored on it refunded.
• You can set up an account on the Oyster card website, allowing you to view your balance and add Pre-Pay or Travelcards online (you can add PrePay or a seven day Travelcard online without having an online account or registered card but it's not as quick) or set up Auto top up, which automatically adds Pre-Pay from a debit/credit card when your balance drops below a certain level.

If you don't want an Oyster card, you don't have to get one; you can still pay by cash but this is almost always more expensive. You have to get an Oyster card if you want a Travelcard or to take advantage of the special discounts available to groups such as under 18s. Note that Transport for London explicitly allow you to lend your Oyster card to someone else if it has only adult fare Pre-Pay on it, so there's some level of plausible deniablity there.

While you can upgrade an anonymous Oyster card to be registered, I don't think you can do the opposite. All Oyster cards store details of the last few (eight, I think) journeys on the card itself. I'm not sure how long the central database stores details for. Possibly forever (which is currently practical as Oyster cards were only introduced less than five years ago).

There are two versions of the Oyster Card.

Actually, there's just one (well, unless you count niche variants like the student one). It can just be used in different ways.

You can do two things with an Oyster card: put one or more Travelcards or Bus Passes (a Travelcard allows unlimited travel within certain zones of London) on it or store money (called Pre-Pay) on it. You can even do both at the same time. When you make a journey, the system figures out whether you have a valid Travelcard or Bus Pass or if it needs to make a deduction from your Pre-Pay total. There's no need to explicitly state which ticket you want (or even visit a ticket machine), it's all automatic (and even does neat things like upgrading several single fares to a one day Travelcard if it works out cheaper).

If you have a Travelcard or Bus Pass valid for more than seven days on your Oyster card, you have to register it, which involves filling out a form with your name and address. You also have to get a small card with a photo to go with it. This was the case with the old paper Travelcard system.

If you just have Pre-Pay on your Oyster card, you don't have to register it. To obtain the Oyster card, you just have to pay a deposit of £3 (refundable if you decide you don't want it any more). If you buy one over the counter, the staff seem to encourage you to register but don't insist on it. You can even get Oyster cards from vending machines in certain stations, which involves no encouragement to register (or interaction with real people). You can add more Pre-Pay cash at ticket offices in stations or in certain shops. There are also machines in some stations, which accept cash or debit/credit cards.

It should be noted that registering has certain benefits:

• If your card is lost or stolen, you can get any Pre-Pay stored on it refunded.
• You can set up an account on the Oyster card website, allowing you to view your balance and add Pre-Pay or Travelcards online (you can add PrePay or a seven day Travelcard online without having an online account or registered card but it's not as quick) or set up Auto top up, which automatically adds Pre-Pay from a debit/credit card when your balance drops below a certain level.

If you don't want an Oyster card, you don't have to get one; you can still pay by cash but this is almost always more expensive. You have to get an Oyster card if you want a Travelcard or to take advantage of the special discounts available to groups such as under 18s. Note that Transport for London explicitly allow you to lend your Oyster card to someone else if it has only adult fare Pre-Pay on it, so there's some level of plausible deniablity there.

While you can upgrade an anonymous Oyster card to be registered, I don't think you can do the opposite. All Oyster cards store details of the last few (eight, I think) journeys on the card itself. I'm not sure how long the central database stores details for. Possibly forever (which is currently practical as Oyster cards were only introduced less than five years ago).

There are two versions of the Oyster Card.

Actually, there's just one (well, unless you count niche variants like the student one). It can just be used in different ways.

You can do two things with an Oyster card: put one or more Travelcards or Bus Passes (a Travelcard allows unlimited travel within certain zones of London) on it or store money (called Pre-Pay) on it. You can even do both at the same time. When you make a journey, the system figures out whether you have a valid Travelcard or Bus Pass or if it needs to make a deduction from your Pre-Pay total. There's no need to explicitly state which ticket you want (or even visit a ticket machine), it's all automatic (and even does neat things like upgrading several single fares to a one day Travelcard if it works out cheaper).

If you have a Travelcard or Bus Pass valid for more than seven days on your Oyster card, you have to register it, which involves filling out a form with your name and address. You also have to get a small card with a photo to go with it. This was the case with the old paper Travelcard system.

If you just have Pre-Pay on your Oyster card, you don't have to register it. To obtain the Oyster card, you just have to pay a deposit of £3 (refundable if you decide you don't want it any more). If you buy one over the counter, the staff seem to encourage you to register but don't insist on it. You can even get Oyster cards from vending machines in certain stations, which involves no encouragement to register (or interaction with real people). You can add more Pre-Pay cash at ticket offices in stations or in certain shops. There are also machines in some stations, which accept cash or debit/credit cards.

It should be noted that registering has certain benefits:

• If your card is lost or stolen, you can get any Pre-Pay stored on it refunded.
• You can set up an account on the Oyster card website, allowing you to view your balance and add Pre-Pay or Travelcards online (you can add PrePay or a seven day Travelcard online without having an online account or registered card but it's not as quick) or set up Auto top up, which automatically adds Pre-Pay from a debit/credit card when your balance drops below a certain level.

If you don't want an Oyster card, you don't have to get one; you can still pay by cash but this is almost always more expensive. You have to get an Oyster card if you want a Travelcard or to take advantage of the special discounts available to groups such as under 18s. Note that Transport for London explicitly allow you to lend your Oyster card to someone else if it has only adult fare Pre-Pay on it, so there's some level of plausible deniablity there.

While you can upgrade an anonymous Oyster card to be registered, I don't think you can do the opposite. All Oyster cards store details of the last few (eight, I think) journeys on the card itself. I'm not sure how long the central database stores details for. Possibly forever (which is currently practical as Oyster cards were only introduced less than five years ago).

There are two versions of the Oyster Card.

Actually, there's just one (well, unless you count niche variants like the student one). It can just be used in different ways.

You can do two things with an Oyster card: put one or more Travelcards or Bus Passes (a Travelcard allows unlimited travel within certain zones of London) on it or store money (called Pre-Pay) on it. You can even do both at the same time. When you make a journey, the system figures out whether you have a valid Travelcard or Bus Pass or if it needs to make a deduction from your Pre-Pay total. There's no need to explicitly state which ticket you want (or even visit a ticket machine), it's all automatic (and even does neat things like upgrading several single fares to a one day Travelcard if it works out cheaper).

If you have a Travelcard or Bus Pass valid for more than seven days on your Oyster card, you have to register it, which involves filling out a form with your name and address. You also have to get a small card with a photo to go with it. This was the case with the old paper Travelcard system.

If you just have Pre-Pay on your Oyster card, you don't have to register it. To obtain the Oyster card, you just have to pay a deposit of £3 (refundable if you decide you don't want it any more). If you buy one over the counter, the staff seem to encourage you to register but don't insist on it. You can even get Oyster cards from vending machines in certain stations, which involves no encouragement to register (or interaction with real people). You can add more Pre-Pay cash at ticket offices in stations or in certain shops. There are also machines in some stations, which accept cash or debit/credit cards.

It should be noted that registering has certain benefits:

• If your card is lost or stolen, you can get any Pre-Pay stored on it refunded.
• You can set up an account on the Oyster card website, allowing you to view your balance and add Pre-Pay or Travelcards online (you can add PrePay or a seven day Travelcard online without having an online account or registered card but it's not as quick) or set up Auto top up, which automatically adds Pre-Pay from a debit/credit card when your balance drops below a certain level.

If you don't want an Oyster card, you don't have to get one; you can still pay by cash but this is almost always more expensive. You have to get an Oyster card if you want a Travelcard or to take advantage of the special discounts available to groups such as under 18s. Note that Transport for London explicitly allow you to lend your Oyster card to someone else if it has only adult fare Pre-Pay on it, so there's some level of plausible deniablity there.

While you can upgrade an anonymous Oyster card to be registered, I don't think you can do the opposite. All Oyster cards store details of the last few (eight, I think) journeys on the card itself. I'm not sure how long the central database stores details for. Possibly forever (which is currently practical as Oyster cards were only introduced less than five years ago).

How about this: The Low Emissions Zone in London.
"The aim of LEZ is to improve air quality in London by deterring the most polluting vehicles from being driven in the area."

I don't see how much the charge is, but I think it's a good idea (as a resident of London).

I write my blog in the tube quite often (and then post it when I get to an internet connection.) I'm sure some of the important bloggers do the same...

Like this one? And this one?

If you live in the UK or US then you have probably never experienced many MOMENTS of terror, let alone LIVED in terror.
As far as folks in the UK are concerned, I guess you never heard of the IRA. That's the reason that to this day, you will not find any trash cans on most London streets.

That doesn't go far enough, I believe that the July 7th bombers may well have used maps such as these - http://www.tfl.gov.uk/tube/maps/ which I might add are openly available to the public in pamphlets, the back of diaries, they are even posted on the walls of the city!

They were also known to have been communicating with a lexicon derived from dictionaries available everywhere! We must stop the terrorist networking -remove the dangerous dictionaries!

That doesn't go far enough, I believe that the July 7th bombers may well have used maps such as these - http://www.tfl.gov.uk/tube/maps/ which I might add are openly available to the public in pamphlets, the back of diaries, they are even posted on the walls of the city!

How many people have to die before we realise that the Ordinance Survey and London street mapping should be stopped. Fortunately those saintly graffiti artists are already working on censoring maps in public places.

Please see http://www.tfl.gov.uk/pco/ph_licensing.asp

booked minicabs are legal as long as they are properly licensed.

Now I'm offended, yes there are a small number of unlicensed cabbies around, yes women have been raped by these unlicensed drivers but it is a small number not "hoards", what I suspect is that you have mistaken the "hoards" of Licensed Private Hire Vehicles (PHV's) for unlicensed cabbies, PHV;s outnumber Taxi's in London by a ratio of 2:1. These PHV's and those who drive them are licensed by the Public Carriage Office, the same body that licenses Taxi's and Taxi drivers. The three big differences betwen PHV's and Taxi's are (1) PHV's use normal cars, (2) PHV's must be booked - they cannot be flagged down and (3) PHV's set their own rates (always ask for a quote when booking). Both Taxi drivers and PHV drivers undergo an "enhanced criminal background check" in which not only is a check made for pervious convictions but also a check of any intelligence the Police may hold (i.e if the police think you may of committed a crime but cannot prove it you do not get a license unless you can prove otherwise).

More in information can be found on the Public Carriage Office web-site http://www.tfl.gov.uk/pco/

As a licensed PHV driver I really do not appreciate it when misinformation about cabs in London is posted.

The average preparation time for the "Knowledge" is nearly 3 years and most applicants have to sit the exam more than 10 times before they pass. The "Knowledge" is the most demanding training for taxi drivers anywhere in the world. See here for more info: http://www.tfl.gov.uk/pco/knowledge.shtml

There sure are a lot of Americans on here trying to make out the "Knowledge" is nothing special or it somehow anti-American to say that it is.

Of course it means I have to take my Oyster card out in order to use it, rather than wave the wallet at the reader - but that's the point!

"BTW, WTF is a 'London Oyster Card'?!" http://www.tfl.gov.uk/tfl/fares-tickets/oyster/gen eral.asp it looks like a smartcard for public transport that sends your usage data into a database

Next lawsuit will by Ken Livingstone for use of the word tube

1mm is too close.

RFID-style cards are in wide use in London and while the idea that they can be read from several meters away with the right reader is disturbing; it is good that they still work when they're still in your wallet, a distance of a bit more than 1mm.

Will it be as reliable as when they automated the baggage handling in Denver Airport. How will the driverless cabs respond to unplanned events like breakdowns or an obstruction. I once asked the conductor on the driverless docklands light rail what happens if there's an obstruction. He replied that well then we hit it.

The Docklands Light Railway in London is driverless. It is a fairly complicated network too. http://www.tfl.gov.uk/dlr/pdf/network/zones.pdf

Just in case you live in London or happen to travel through it - there is a whole network of RFID readers installed that everyone (and I mean EVERYONE) has free access to.

If you don't really want to make it visible that you've nuked your RFID by using the microwave method you'd obviously do it at a level of power that wouldn't turn the thing into a visible crisp (i.e. you have plausible deniability of your involvement in the chip malfunction) - but how would you know you've been succesful?

Simple:

(1) take the functioning passport into a Tube station (London Underground for those new there ;-).

(2) hold the passport against the Oyster card reader. The machine will complain about an unregistered card, or in any case acknowledge that something RFID-enabled was near the reader (this, by the way, is also why you should keep the Oyster travel card separate - the system is unable to separate simultaneous responses so two cards present at the same time will confuse it). Keep this in mind the next time you want to check for RFIDs and don't have a tester handy :-)

(3) Go forth and nuketh the darn thing. Or use a hammer, but I think doing that in the Tube station could get you arrested for carrying an offensive weapon (no, there's a different law for mouths :-).

(4) repeat (2) to see if you've zapped it properly. If the reader doesn't acknowledge your passport the evil deed has been done!

There is a certain degree of irony in having a public/private funded system helping in negating the effects of a public/private funded waste of money (the background of the ID Card project would be farcical if it hadn't resulted in such a vaste waste of taxpayer's money).

They could, of course, change the software, but that would prove that the RFID numbers aren't quite as random as advertised...

Just in case you live in London or happen to travel through it - there is a whole network of RFID readers installed that everyone (and I mean EVERYONE) has free access to.

If you don't really want to make it visible that you've nuked your RFID by using the microwave method you'd obviously do it at a level of power that wouldn't turn the thing into a visible crisp (i.e. you have plausible deniability of your involvement in the chip malfunction) - but how would you know you've been succesful?

Simple:

(1) take the functioning passport into a Tube station (London Underground for those new there ;-).

(2) hold the passport against the Oyster card reader. The machine will complain about an unregistered card, or in any case acknowledge that something RFID-enabled was near the reader (this, by the way, is also why you should keep the Oyster travel card separate - the system is unable to separate simultaneous responses so two cards present at the same time will confuse it). Keep this in mind the next time you want to check for RFIDs and don't have a tester handy :-)

(3) Go forth and nuketh the darn thing. Or use a hammer, but I think doing that in the Tube station could get you arrested for carrying an offensive weapon (no, there's a different law for mouths :-).

(4) repeat (2) to see if you've zapped it properly. If the reader doesn't acknowledge your passport the evil deed has been done!

There is a certain degree of irony in having a public/private funded system helping in negating the effects of a public/private funded waste of money (the background of the ID Card project would be farcical if it hadn't resulted in such a vaste waste of taxpayer's money).

They could, of course, change the software, but that would prove that the RFID numbers aren't quite as random as advertised...

Just in case you live in London or happen to travel through it - there is a whole network of RFID readers installed that everyone (and I mean EVERYONE) has free access to.

If you don't really want to make it visible that you've nuked your RFID by using the microwave method you'd obviously do it at a level of power that wouldn't turn the thing into a visible crisp (i.e. you have plausible deniability of your involvement in the chip malfunction) - but how would you know you've been succesful?

Simple:

(1) take the functioning passport into a Tube station (London Underground for those new there ;-).

(2) hold the passport against the Oyster card reader. The machine will complain about an unregistered card, or in any case acknowledge that something RFID-enabled was near the reader (this, by the way, is also why you should keep the Oyster travel card separate - the system is unable to separate simultaneous responses so two cards present at the same time will confuse it). Keep this in mind the next time you want to check for RFIDs and don't have a tester handy :-)

(3) Go forth and nuketh the darn thing. Or use a hammer, but I think doing that in the Tube station could get you arrested for carrying an offensive weapon (no, there's a different law for mouths :-).

(4) repeat (2) to see if you've zapped it properly. If the reader doesn't acknowledge your passport the evil deed has been done!

There is a certain degree of irony in having a public/private funded system helping in negating the effects of a public/private funded waste of money (the background of the ID Card project would be farcical if it hadn't resulted in such a vaste waste of taxpayer's money).

They could, of course, change the software, but that would prove that the RFID numbers aren't quite as random as advertised...

Depends on the website. If it is likely to be used by people on the go, then yes, I'd say it was worth it. E.g. TFL (Transport For London) have a reasonable site that can be used by people on GPRS enabled mobile phones with the limited browsers they contain. You can lookup schedules and the best route from location(a) to location(b) for your needs. Very handy when you're in London and don't know the system well or need to know estimates of when you'll get somewhere. (the address is http://www.tflwap.gov.uk/ for the mobile friendly site)

Same for the UK rail network (National Rail - http://mobile.nationalrail.co.uk/ ) and at least some of the train companies.

Various other companies have cut-down sites for mobile use, although I have seen a few really disappointing ones (british airways comes to mind)

If, however, the website is for, say, a company that sells cardboard boxes and only deals in bulk orders from other companies, then I'd say the usefulness of a mobile site would be rather less.

What is sorely needed is a standard place to look for mobile content. Every bloody place is different!

If you use USD then you may find the bills too long and thin to conveniently fold to use the card case as a wallet, but it works well for GBP, EURO & NZD.

(Caveat, I don't use it for it's RFID stopping abilities but for its abject refusal to stretch when it needs clearing out, preventing wallet bulge!).

Transport for London has had an online journey planner for a couple of years now where you can enter your starting location, time and destination and get directions using bus, underground, and mainline rail.

Transport for London Journey Planner

Quite cool; allows you to plot a journey on several different types of public transport. Even includes the amount of time it takes to walk to the station, which makes it really really useful.

http://www.tfl.gov.uk/tfl/pdfdocs/colourmap.gif

it is the range of the magnetic induction field coming out of the reader to power the card

This is true.

Anecdote: During the early trials of the Oyster RFID transport card in London, there was a problem with passing buses dinging the accounts of people waiting at the stop who didn't get on that bus. The Solution was to reduce the power of the reader on the bus.

Similar thing for London's underground real-time tracker: they call the terrorist bombings last Thursday a "network emergency".

But I think, in this case, obscuring the gory details is acceptable because they distract from the site's purpose of providing train scheduling information.

Each station would cost from £150,000 to £2 million to fit depending on its size and the number of entrances.

The London Docklands Light Railway is an example of such a system. In case the automatic system breaks down (which happened very often when LDLR was new) the conductor has the keys and skills needed to drive the train manually. Usually (s)he drives the train to the next station and restarts computer operated mode. The conductor's primary function is to close the doors and ensure safety on board of the trains and to assist passengers with boarding, alighting and information.

In automatic mode, the computer stops the train at each station and unlocks the doors. When the time to depart has arrived the RTD (Ready To Depart?) light comes on (there is one at every door). The conductor is then supposed to close the doors (using a key that can be used in a lock present on any of the doors). When all doors are closed the ADC (All Doors Closed?) light (also at every door) comes on and the train departs.

As there is no train driver cabin, the passengers have a nice view in all directions (LDLR runs mostly on elevated track). Having no driver cabin saves some space too. (The manual driving controls are behind a cover.)

In London all the underground trains only have a driver, and all works pretty well. The doors open and close by themselves, other passengers will scream at you if you try to hold the doors open (not to mention that they are REALLY strong doors). The train automatically does the announcements without the need for a conductor and you can see when your next train is coming by looking at the electronic boards which show the time tot he next train and it's destination.
The DLR line even has driverless trains all computer controlled, it is great fun to sit in the front of the train where the driver normally would be and look out of the windscreen.

Things dont need to be that complex though, when I lived in Brussels the Metro there just had a map of the line hanging from the celing with little LED's along the route, they showed where the trains were so you could guess how long you would have to wait.

You want oyster cards next, now they really do rock....

Transport for London has quite a good integrated public transport/walking route planner. I'm not sure the route planner takes account of temporary travel disruptions though, only planned ones I think, but the current disruptions do scroll across the top of the screen, so if you are leaving immediately you can choose your route accordingly.

Online reporting of defective streetlights and traffic control devices, with complaints appropriately routed.

Online forms for bad street and traffic lights, sprinklers, etc with followup tracking.

Well do something about it! Transport for London are looking for suggestions to keep the tube cool http://www.tfl.gov.uk/tfl/promotions-cooling-tube. shtml I used to work in London (Kingsway, near Covent Garden), now I live in and work near Bristol. The few times I've been back, the streets do same clearer - it's easier to cross as a pedestrian, and the tubes don't seem all that much busier (it's hard to see how they could be when there was no room to get more people on.

Just as well you weren't thrown out of the station - ironically you're not supposed to take photographs without prior permission.

that's more cameras than square feet of subway track

Holy crap. Try googling! For instance, it says here that the Tube has over 400km of track.

Anyway, the cameras are mostly in the passenger tunnels connecting station to platform. They're there to stop/catch muggings and assaults, not to see if the trains are running on time.

Amateurs?

So I suppose the people who run the Transport for London web site are amateurs?

What about the folks running BlogSpot?

How about the admins of Rutgers Univesity?

Finally, how about Kyle Bennett, the creator of [H]ard|OCP?

Sure, Microsoft can say that Apache is used by amateurs. But I'm certain that for every half-assed amateur using Apache there are 100 admins who run Apache for mission-critical stuff and don't bat an eyelid.

Good point, everyone claims "Well trying to shelter the kids is pointless, they will find out about it sooner or later and then all you have done it make it more desirable by forbidding it."

When I was a kid, I had all the access I would want to my father's pr0n (pretty lame by today's standards).

Guess what? I'm a subway freak nowadays. I travel to faraway & exotic places just to have a look at their wierd subways.

Not so much to cut costs, but so that the site could be sold to some property developers so that they could build lots of nice luxury flats instead of having a redundant power supply for the tube.

The London Underground blackout has nothing to do with this, it was a failure of part of a utility service, and was contained within that utility.

I don't know where you got that idea from but it's completely wrong. London Underground ran their own power plant for nearly 100 years before they closed it last year and went onto mains power. Bad (or unlucky) call. The report on the power failure is instructive reading on how a combination of circumstances can break what should have been a quadruply redundant system.

It annoyed the hell out of me that even here in London they reported a "London Blackout!" over the top of footage of a brightly lit evening street focusing on an entrance to a tube station (lit) with a flashing emergency sign (powered by electric not hampster power).

Sure, they don't have many feeds into the Tube power supply, so there were areas of London with power but no Underground trains. And once you've decided to evacuate, you can't switch the power back on without electrocuting a few commuters. You have to cold restart by clearing the whole system.

Firstly, readers should remember that Transport for London, who currently operate the tube network are a publically run company whose sole aim is to provide cheap and efficient travel for Londoners and visitors. Even if the Tube did move to a public-private-partnership type set up, I doubt individual operators would have serious access to this data.

It seems to me that decent statistics on the routes that people take through the network could provide a gold mine of information for transport planners to further improve transport in London.

A secondary benefit is that it also ensures that London buses can slowly move towards being cashless (when prepay cards are introduced later this year), which helps prevent petty theft and assaults on bus drivers. Furthermore, bus drivers need waste less time at stops counting cash and giving change.

I would say that I'd rather have less theft from buses and a better planned transport network than an ability (which using prepay you'll still have anyway) to travel on a season ticket anonymously and (more, not fully) untraceably. Yes there are privacy implications, but I'm more than happy to put up with them for the possible benefits.

that the DLR are NOT involved in the ESA space flight programme!