Transport in London
London forms the hub of the road, rail and air transport networks in the
United Kingdom. It has its own dense and extensive internal private and public transport networks, as well as providing a focal point for the national road and railway networks. London also has a number of airports including the UK's busiest,
Heathrow, and a
sea port.
London's internal transport is one of four policy areas administered by the
Mayor of London through his executive agency
Transport for London (TfL). TfL controls the majority of
public transport in the city (including the
Tube,
local buses,
trams and the
Docklands Light Railway, but it currently has virtually no control over
commuter rail services, which are administed by the national
Department for Transport (DfT). TfL also controls most major roads in the city, but not minor roads (
see below).
London operates three railway systems distinct from its conventional surface railway network. The most important is the
London Underground, which is supplemented by the automated and segregated
Docklands Light Railway in
East London, and the suburban, partly street-running
Tramlink system in
Croydon.
London Underground
Colloquially known as the Tube, London Underground is the oldest
metro system in the world, having begun operations in 1863. More than 3 million passengers travel on the Underground every day, amounting to nearly 1 billion per year.
[Transport - facts and figures www.london.gov.uk] The Underground is operated as a network of twelve lines, most of which connect the suburbs to
Central London and provide a distribution role around the city centre, particularly from major railway terminals.
The Underground serves London
north of the river much more extensively than
the south. This is the result of a combination of unfavourable
geology, historical competition from surface railways and the historical geography of London which was focused to the north of the Thames. South London is served primarily by surface railways (although it should be noted that the majority of London Underground's route length is actually on the surface rather than in tunnel).
The Underground suffers from an image of poor reliability and overcrowding, which a large programme of investment by
TfL is attempting to address. The age of the network is a key issue - with the exception of the
Victoria line and
Jubilee line, its lines were opened in the 19th century or early 20th century.
Docklands Light Railway
The Docklands Light Railway (DLR) is an automated
light rail system serving the
Docklands area of
East London. It complements the Underground, largely sharing its fares system and having a number of interchanges with it. It is focused on the
Canary Wharf business district, although this was not its initial objective upon its opening in 1987.
Partly thanks to the success of Canary Wharf, the system has expanded several times and now has five main "arms" connecting the
Isle of Dogs and
Royal Docks to each other and to the
City of London,
Stratford and
Lewisham south of the river. It also serves
London City Airport. A number of further extensions are in the works, including another cross-river link, to
Woolwich.
Trams
Although all
trams disappeared from the streets of London by the mid-20th century, a new tram system was opened in 2000 to serve the large employment centre of
Croydon on the southern edge of London. Named Tramlink, it connects Croydon and its surface railway stations to surrounding suburbs and to the town centre of
Wimbledon to the north-west.
London is the focal point of the British railway network, with some fourteen terminal stations around the city centre providing a combination of commuter, intercity, airport and international services. Most areas of the city not served by the Underground or DLR are served by commuter
heavy rail services into one of these terminal stations.
The termini are
Blackfriars,
Cannon Street,
Charing Cross,
Euston,
Fenchurch Street,
King's Cross,
Liverpool Street,
London Bridge,
Moorgate,
Marylebone,
Paddington,
St. Pancras,
Victoria and
Waterloo.
Commuter rail
London is the centre of an extensive radial commuter railway network serving both the city itself and the surrounding
metropolitan area. Each terminal station is associated with commuter services from a particular segment of this area. The majority of commuters to central London (about 80% of 1.1 million) arrive by either the
Underground (400,000 daily) or by surface railway into these terminal stations (860,000 daily).
[The Mayor's Transport Strategy - Figure 2.20 and Paragraph 2.76.] Although the majority of services reach the end of the line at terminal stations, there are a few notable exceptions.
London Bridge provides several through lines which allow certain services to continue to more central terminals at
Cannon Street and
Charing Cross, and services running through to the latter also call at
Waterloo East which is linked to
Waterloo by a footbridge. London Bridge's through platforms are also used by the
Thameslink services of
First Capital Connect, which cross the city centre, calling at
Blackfriars (another terminal with through platforms),
City Thameslink,
Farringdon and
King's Cross Thameslink. These services run between the northern and southern suburbs, and between the more distant towns of
Brighton on the south coast and
Bedford in the north.
In addition to its radial lines, there are also several orbital lines connecting parts of the inner city to each other. The
West London Line crosses inner
West London and allows services to run from the northwest suburbs to
Croydon, Brighton and
Gatwick Airport. The
North London Line arcs across
North London from
Richmond in the west to
Stratford in the east, and the
Gospel Oak to Barking line links inner North London to the northeastern suburbs. Work is also underway for extensions of the Underground's
East London Line, converting it into a heavy rail commuter line linking inner north-east London to south London and eventually creating a full circle through the inner suburbs. From November 2007, TfL will take over control of these orbital routes from the
DfT as well as the inner-suburban
Watford DC Line services out of
Euston.
Constantly increasing pressure on the commuter rail systems and on the Underground to disperse passengers from the busy terminals has led to the multi-billion pound
Crossrail scheme. Superficially similar to the
RER lines of
Paris, Crossrail would link commuter services into
Paddington in the west with
Docklands and services out of
Liverpool Street in the east, by constructing twin 16km tunnels underneath the city centre. New stations would be provided at key city centre locations, linking to the Underground.
The growing overcrowding on commuter rail services has led to new ticket restrictions on leisure travellers using cheaper tickets. Although morning peak restrictions for these travellers have been commonplace for many years, evening peak restrictions are also now coming into place. For example,
First Capital Connect no longer allow cheaper tickets to be used on services departing London for destinations to the north outside London in the evening peak (4.30pm - 7.30pm), and holders of cheaper tickets are barred from some express
First Great Western services from Paddington in the evening.
Intercity rail
Long-distance
intercity services do not depart from all terminals, but as with commuter services, each terminal provides trains to a particular part of the country. The key intercity terminals are
Paddington (for the west of
England and
Wales),
Euston (for the
West Midlands, the north west of England and
Glasgow),
St. Pancras (for the
East Midlands),
King's Cross (for the north east of England and
Edinburgh) and
Liverpool Street (for
East Anglia). Some intercity services carry significant volumes of daily commuters between their stops nearest to London and their city terminals. For example, long-distance daily commuting has been evident from
Swindon to Paddington since the introduction of
High Speed Trains.
[Nash, 1991, "The case from high speed rail"; ''Investigaciones económicas (segunda época), 15 (2), pp337-354]Airport services
Heathrow,
Gatwick and
Stansted airports are served by dedicated train services (although the latter two are also served by standard commuter services). The
Heathrow Express service from Paddington is provided by the airport operator,
BAA plc, whilst the other services (
Gatwick Express from Victoria and
Stansted Express from Liverpool Street) are provided by standard
train operating companies. However, the Gatwick Express service may be discontinued in favour of more commuter trains on the same route.
International services
International services are provided by
Eurostar from
Waterloo International to
Paris and
Brussels via the
Channel Tunnel. Eurostar services share tracks with commuter railways until they reach the high-speed
Channel Tunnel Rail Link outside London. This high-speed rail link is currently being extended through tunnel to
St. Pancras, with an intermediate stop in
Stratford in
East London. This final link will see all Eurostar services move to St. Pancras and a reduction in journey times of some 20 minutes, putting Paris 2 hours 15 minutes from London.
[Eurostar welcomes development of landmark hotel at St. Pancras station, www.eurostar.com. Accessed 16 June 2006.] Some high-speed commuter services to
Kent will also be operated over the new line, which represents one of Britain's biggest engineering projects.
London's bus network is extensive, with over 6,800 scheduled services every weekday carrying about six million passengers on over 700 different routes.
[About London Buses, Transport for London. Accessed 16 June 2005.] Catering mainly for local journeys, it carries more passengers than the Underground. In addition to this extensive daytime system, a 100-route night bus service is also operated, providing a 24-hour service.
TfL manages the bus system by tendering out routes to private companies. This means that TfL set the routes, frequencies, fares and even the type of vehicle used, and companies bid to run these services for a fixed price for several years, with incentives and penalties in place to encourage good performance against certain criteria.
Many services are operated with the iconic red
double decker buses, although virtually all now use modern low-floor accessible vehicles rather than the traditional open-platform
Routemaster vehicles, which are now limited to two city centre "heritage routes".
The bus system has been the subject of much investment since TfL's inception in 2000, with consequent improvements in the number of routes (particularly night services), their frequency, reliability and the standard of the vehicles used.
London has a hierarchy of roads ranging from major radial and orbital trunk roads down to minor "side streets". At the top level are
motorways and
grade-separated dual carriageways, supplemented by non-grade-separated urban dual carriageways, major single carriageway roads, local distributor roads and small local streets.
Most of the streets of central London were laid out before cars were invented and London's road network is often congested. Attempts to tackle this go back at least to the
1740s, when the
New Road was built through the fields north of the city; it is now just another congested central London thoroughfare. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, new wide roads such as
Victoria Embankment,
Shaftesbury Avenue and
Kingsway were created. Some drastic plans for motorways in the heart of the city were put forward in the decades immediately after
World War II, but they came to little due to the costs involved and objections to the mass demolitions required. By the end of the 20th century policy swung towards a preference for public transport improvements, although the 188km
M25 orbital
motorway was constructed in the late 1980s and early 1990s to provide a route for traffic to bypass the entire London urban area.
Major routes
Although a network of grade-separated radial and orbital trunk routes was planned for London in the mid-20th century, widespread opposition to the required demolition halted much of the programme, and today few grade-separated routes penetrate the city centre - although the majority of car traffic is in suburbs, as journeys to and from
central London are largely carried out using public transport. Only the western
A40 and
A4 and the eastern
A13 are grade separated for most of the way into
central London.
There is a technical distinction between the
motorways, operated by the
Highways Agency, and all other major routes, operated by
Transport for London as the
Transport for London Route Network (TLRN). Many of London's major radial routes continue far beyond the city as part of the national motorway and trunk road network.
Starting at the 12-o'clock (due north) position (and noting a key commuter location served by each rather than the final destination), the major radial routes are the
A10 (north to
Hertford), the
M11 (north to
Cambridge), the
A12 (northeast to
Chelmsford), the
A127 (east to
Southend), the
A13 (also east to
Southend), the
A2/
M2 (east to
Chatham), the
A20/
M20 (southeast to
Maidstone), the
A23/
M23 (south to
Gatwick Airport and
Brighton), the
A3 (southwest to
Guildford),
A316/
M3 (southwest to
Basingstoke), the
A4/
M4 (west to
Heathrow Airport and
Reading), the
A40/
M40 (west to
Oxford), the
M1 (northwest to
Luton) and the
A1 (north to
Stevenage).
There are also three
ring roads linking these routes orbitally. The innermost, the Inner Ring Road, circumnavigates the
congestion charging zone in the city centre. The generally grade-separated
North Circular (the
A406 from
Gunnersbury to
West Ham) and the non-separated
South Circular (the
A205) form a suburban ring of roughly 10km radius. Finally, the
M25 encircles most of the urban area with roughly a 25km radius. The western section of the M25 past
Heathrow Airport is one of Europe's busiest, carrying around 200,000 vehicles per day.
None of these roads have
tolls.
Distributor and minor routes
The major roads mentioned above are supplemented by a host of standard single-carriageway main roads, operated as part of the afore-mentioned TLRN. These roads generally link suburbs with each other, or deliver traffic from the ends of the major routes into the city centre.
The TLRN is supplemented by local distributor roads operated by the local authorities, the London boroughs. These non-strategic roads only carry local traffic.
Congestion charge
In February 2003,
Transport for London (TfL) introduced a radical scheme to charge motorists £5 per day for driving vehicles within a designated area of central London during peak hours: the
congestion charge. The politicians behind the scheme claim that it has significantly reduced traffic congestion and hence improved reliability of bus and taxi services, but this is strongly contested by the scheme's critics, mainly found in various businesses. The charge was increased to £8 per day on 4 July 2005.
Taxis
The famous London
black cab remains a common sight. All London taxis are overseen by TfL's
Public Carriage Office (PCO), including both black cabs and
minicabs, and the PCO sets taxi fares along with minimum vehicle
emissions standards.
London is served by . In order of size, these airports are
Heathrow,
Gatwick,
Stansted,
Luton and
London City; the smallest,
Biggin Hill, does not offer scheduled flights.
Heathrow and Gatwick serve long-haul, European and domestic flights; Stansted and Luton cater primarily for low-cost European and domestic services, whilst London City caters for business passengers to short-haul and domestic destinations.
The closest airport to the city centre is London City, approximately 10km east of the
City of London financial district in the
Docklands area. A branch of the
Docklands Light Railway links the airport to the City in under 25 minutes.
[London City Airport train timetable, www.tfl.gov.uk. Accessed 16 June 2005.]Two other airports are at the edge of the city but within the
Greater London boundary: Biggin Hill, around 23km southeast of the city centre, and London's principle airport, Heathrow, 20-25km from
central London.
Heathrow handles nearly 70 million passengers per annum, making it Europe's busiest airport. Located on the western edge of the city in the
London Borough of Hillingdon, it has two runways and four passenger terminals, with a £4bn fifth terminal opening in 2008. It is connected to central London by the dedicated
Heathrow Express rail service, the
Heathrow Connect local rail service and
London Underground's
Piccadilly line, and is connected to the
M4 and
M25 motorways.
Gatwick is located just under 40km south of central London and in
Sussex, some distance outside London's boundary. Having a single runway and two terminals, it handles approximately 30 million passengers per year from domestic, short-haul and long-haul flights, and is linked to London by the
Gatwick Express and
Southern rail services, and by the
M23.
Stansted is London's most distant airport, approximately 50km north of the centre, in
Essex. With a single runway and terminal, it handles approximately 20 million passengers annually, mostly from low-cost short-haul and domestic leisure flights. It is connected to London by the
Stansted Express rail service and the
M11 motorway.
Luton Airport is about 45km northwest of London, connected to it by the
M1 and
First Capital Connect train services from nearby
Luton Airport Parkway station. It has a single terminal and fairly short runway, and like Stansted it caters mainly for low-cost short-haul leisure flights.
London also has an airfield at
Northolt in
west London, and an additional but small airport nearby at
Southend in
Essex.
The
River Thames is navigable to ocean going vessels as far as
London Bridge, and to substantial craft well past Greater London. Historically, the river was one of London's main transport arteries. This is no longer the case, but there are still small scale passenger services, and a large number of leisure cruises operating on the river. Additionally some bulk cargoes are carried on the river, and the Mayor of London wishes to increase this use.
London also has several
canals, including the
Regent's Canal which links the Thames to the
Grand Union Canal and thus to the waterway network across much of England. These canals are no longer used to transport goods, but they are popular with leisure cruisers.
London's port used to be the country's busiest when it was located in
East London's
Docklands, but
containerisation led to its decline and abandonment of Docklands in favour of a purpose-built port at
Tilbury in
Essex, around ten kilometres outside the
Greater London boundary. Tilbury is operated by the
Port of London Authority, which is responsible for most port activities in the
Thames estuary, and is the third-busiest of Britain's ports.
*
Transport for London*
London Buses*
Buses in London*
London Underground*
Docklands Light Railway*
London Rail*
Tramlink*
Public Carriage Office*
Victoria Coach Station*
London River Services*
Transport for London, executive agency in charge of most transport operations
*
Department for Transport, central government department overseeing the national railway network
*
Transport enthusiast's site with details of current projects
