While using public transport in London is an easy enough process, it’s safe to say that having an iPhone makes it so much easier that you soon forget how you ever coped without it. No longer do we have to think for ourselves when working out how to get from A to B, our iPhone does it all for us! London Transport is the latest App that allows you to plan your journeys around the capital. The question is, does it contain any features that make it stand out from the rest of the crowd?
London Transport has an extremely simple and accessible interface. The main menu is divided into the categories of ‘Bookmarks’ and ‘London Transport.’ Under Bookmarks you have the standard options of journey-planning and ‘Take me home,’ both of which use GPS to track your location. Your recent planned journeys are automatically saved so that they can be viewed offline – handy for those owning an iPod rather than an iPhone. Aside from these expected options however, you can also contact your nearest taxi operator; a seemingly basic inclusion missing from some of the other transport Apps, and essential for those times (usually at weekends) when you find yourself in unfamiliar urban territory in the middle of the night.
It is under the ‘London Transport’ category that this App really provides the user with some heavyweight transport detail. Here you have live access to public transport times for most services ranging from the Underground, to River Services, to the easily-overlooked tram service. However, being a person who lives by the new East London Overground route, I was a little disappointed to find that there is no live access to Overground train times; it’s safe to assume that these will be added with an update, but for now it seems the flash new train service has been forgotten. Thankfully, the Overground does feature as a mode of transport when you plan a journey.
London Transport also includes cost calculators for most forms of transport including buses, Cycle Hire and Congestion Charge (handily, if a little depressingly, it lets you call TFL directly and pay off your charge immediately). The amount of detail you can access about all the services is impressive. Whether it’s finding out about Tube statuses or if your local cab company operates 24/7, London Transport provides you with the kind of info that make the daily grind of London that little bit simpler.
