London Transport: The Best iPhone App for The Tube, Night Buses and London Taxis

If you live in London, you need this app. It’s got the most comphrensive list of London’s transport information – and the best functionality – of any transport app, ever.

It takes the TFL website’s official journey planner, makes it pretty, adds a bunch of unique iPhone functionality and presents it extremely simple.

There are three features that win London Transport the best London travel award: real-time journey planning, live departure boards and bus and tram schedules. Rather than using a generic calculation of time (as most apps do), London Transport uses real-time information to calculate the most accurate route possible.

Live departure boards allow you to check when the next train is leaving (letting you plan when to leave for the station), while bus schedules mean that after 1AM, the app really comes into its own.

Plan A Journey: This option lets you plan a journey to and from a postcode, street name, place of interest or tube stop. You can save favourites, use an automatically detected location, browse previously used locations or even navigate to a contact (providing they’re got an address in your contact list).

You can then set a time to travel, what modes of transport you want to use and your mobility options. It’s extremely comprehensive.

You’ll then receive a variety of different routes, their depart and arrival times and how you travel: walk, tube, bus and so on. Tap a route for more information. And then (and this is cool) tap a specific part of the journey to see the start and end points on a map. Old routes are automatically saved, so its easier to browse back to them at a later date.

Take Me Home: Half the time, we plan to journey to go somewhere. The other half, we’re just trying to get home. London Transport has a one click solution: poke the option and it’ll automatically calculate your location, then calculate the way back to your preset home destination. It’s great for nights out, getting lost in new places and wondering about windy London’s backstreets.

London Transport: The app also maps out stations, bus stops, routes and journeys for your reference. For example, click the Tube option and you’ll be able to check the status of the network, see your nearest stations and browse the underground map.

Click your nearest station and you’ll be greated with the live departure times in each direction. Click the map option and it’ll show you where the station is in relation to you, and where the other stations on the line are. It’s an incredibly useful visualisation of the relevent tube line.

This really comes into its own for buses. Click a nearby stop and it’ll let you know all the buses that stop there. Click one of these and it’ll tell you when they stop, with an option to see the route.

Click this, and it’ll map out every stop along the bus’ route. It even numbers the stops, so confusing routes and understood. This is high praise, but it actually makes the London bus network accessible to even the newest tourist.
London Transport is the app for getting about London. It’s simple, it’s full of useful functions and the data is invaluable – especially if you use buses.