Tube Map changes since December 2023

Especially in winter!

I picked up the new map at my local station (by coincidence)...sorry for the poor quality, no scanner:



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It looks rather... Cramped?

That also leaves me wondering, is it really a 'Tube Map' now if it includes services like the Trams, Thameslink etc.

...and for good reason.
The map is hideously overcrowded. A tube map, or underground-only map might help, but I wonder if a 'primary routes' map for London tourists could help.
It might contain simple routes only, irrespective of 'mode'.

How does omitting non tube routes help tourists ? THEY are the ones who DO need more travel information not less.

Would you expect a Paris tourist map to omit RER just because it is not Metro ?

Or, say, a Munich or Berlin tourist map to omit S-bahn just because they are not U-bahn ?

Etcetera.

Place yourself as a visitor to a city you not been before, then ask yourself is the map with everything or the one arbitrarily split by metro / non-metro the most helpful ?

The limiting factor is east-west rather than north south, and conveniently there is a whole panel that the map could expand on to. This would require moving the key and "check before you travel" panels. The former will fit in the bottom left corner now there is space for the Heathrow branch to be shown mostly horizontally rather than the present mostly vertically. The "check before you travel", if that doesn't also fit near the key or in the probably relatively empty top right corner, could be moved onto the back cover. Even on the December 2020 map (which used a larger text size for the key) there was half a page taken up by an advert for the TfL Go app (this had grown to a full page by the May 2023 map; these are the two versions I happen to have to hand).

If you change the size of the paper (e.g. adding a fifth panel) then even more options open themselves up.

Nice to see the wheelchair access symbols for Amersham and Harrow-on-the-Hill made consistent with other Met stations where step-free to the (S stock) train is also provided. Only taken 18 months or more! I wonder when the muddled set of Met line car line diagrams in the trains will be sorted out.

Would be interesting to know what percentage of visitors to London come from other parts of England, from other parts of the UK & abroad, respectively.

I'd expect most foreigners would be in fairly-Central hotels,so how much need would they have for all the other stuff on here?

Equally,thanks to Dstock7080, we can now see what the end-game will be;just get the app instead & then Tube maps will die out entirely, except on station sites, whence archaeologists will wonder at them around 2250(that's the year, not the time!) and wonder.

The issue is the fact that as soon as you add all of the other types of transport, the map no longer becomes fit for purposes in its present form. It is physically too small to have everything on there.

The style of how lines are shown/design of the map, which IIRC, the present modern design/format was first brought about in 1990 - the first one showing the H&C line (the styles all before this look quite different).

There are a number of other designs which are not official but would work much better, which I have seen before. Maybe its time for a change?

Which is by far the most sensible option _ assuming of course the change is an increase.

Methinks clinging with continued use of the same sized folder paper means it is approaching, if not already there, no longer fit for purpose.

No doubt the "must stop using paper" brigade will have their way and the opposite is more likely to happen.

There is another factor applying to tourists from overseas working against electronic phone based maps and that is international data roaming charges can be exhorbitant and many visitors while using their phones as phones and cameras etc do not surf for data of any sort; indeed may not even be able to.

And removing non tube elements from tubemaps also has the effect of removing alternative routes needed at time of disruption or closures.

We - in here - probably know the alternatives routes ; ordinary passengers especially visitors of any sort do not.

I'll say it again, the maps may be complex, but any attempt at simplification by removing anything quickly reduces the map usefulness inversely proportional to those who most need it.

My view is that the Tube Map has lost its way: either it should be just a Tube Map - so strip out Overground, Tramlink, etc.; and arguably Elizabeth Line and Thameslink, certainly beyond their Tube connections - that can be much be less crowded, and so more legible. Or bite the bullet and make it a proper London Rail map, including all the NR suburban lines within Greater London/the Zones/Oyster Area, with an appropriate size they all fit comfortably without being squezed in. Perhaps accompanied with a Central/Tourist map, equally complete, but only going out to Zone 2 or 3(?) - and perhaps including, or with, 'key' bus routes?

Just a personal perspective but I find the latest map is fine - but the "Tube Map" name is no longer appropriate.

It has evolved into a hybrid London public transport services map but without the buses.

I would leave the Tube Map alone and focus on getting TFL to once again realise that providing a decent bus services map is important for travellers to identify whatever bus routes link to services shown on the "Tube Map",

I hear the argumentthat everyone now uses some sort of Journey planner app - but not everyone has a smart phone, and digital mapping is only as good as its programming algorithm, and working with a typical mobile phone screen makes it hard to spot if there are alternative routes just off the screen.

PS leave the dangleway alone. It has only become almost exclusively a tourist service, because it is not treated and charged to users as other zone one Oyster journeys. In the alps similar equipment reliably and efficiently carries thousands of passengers per day and indeed requires far less manpower than operating a bus shuttle to carry similar numbers of passengers. Given the hardware costs have already been incurred it really should not be inordinately to expensive to operate.

Eventually someone at TFL will be brave enough to realise that the Dangleway could almost overnight become a hugely popular transport resource provided they drop the premium pricing approach and treat it as a trip within zone one and therefore dangleway deserves its place on the "Tube Map".

I think you will find the latest map does cover many(most) National Rail services within Greater London - albeit apart from services operate by TFL like the Overground and Elizabeth Line, National Rail routes are rather inconspicuous.

Inherently the "Tube Map" still works for most station to station route finding.

But if that is all you have to hand it can be hopeless for visitors trying to work out how to get to a specific destination/address which may be a very long walk from any of the listed rail stations. That is the reason I think TFL need to relaunch the bus map especially as routes seem to change frequently and just as importantly make it available as one of more downloadable files. So rather than just one London wide bus services map it might be sensible to reinstate sectoral bus maps as well.

Basically the geographical distortion in the tube map tends to get worse the further out from the central area you go. Greenford and Reading are actually an awful long way apart!

Over time TFL have wrongly focused on cramming more and more stuff onto the "Tube Map" - which is actually a routing map, and since Elizabeth line fully opened it has massively extended the area covered by TFL services and once again there is a yawning gap which needs something (a geographically correct Map?) to put this all in context.