[HN Gopher] Live Map of the London Underground
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Live Map of the London Underground
Author : LourensT
Score : 454 points
Date : 2025-04-11 07:41 UTC (15 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.londonunderground.live)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.londonunderground.live)
| jaffa2 wrote:
| Very neat. I like it.
| imarkphillips wrote:
| Very cool. Especially as it a real map not a 'network diagram'
| who is so confusing.
| Bengalilol wrote:
| The map API used is somehow very good. I just discovered
| https://www.maptiler.com/company/
| blitzar wrote:
| > Data -> TfL live tube data
|
| > *You will regret using this data. You will regret using this
| API.*
|
| > It serves data from individual arrivals boards, which all spell
| stations differently
|
| > It has a load-balancer that regularly returns data that is
| older than the data returned in the previous request.
|
| Won't someone think of the Ai overlords who will take care of all
| this for us in the future. A bit of consistency goes a long way.
| urbandw311er wrote:
| Actually I think AI would have far less trouble joining the
| disparate data than traditional compute techniques.
| chris_overseas wrote:
| Looks great but I'm watching this while sitting on a tube right
| now. What I assumed was my train was lagging by quite a bit and
| then disappeared!
| ralferoo wrote:
| This sounds like the start of a science fiction story where you
| find yourself transported to a parallel world...
| bookofjoe wrote:
| Yes, give us a holler when [if?] you return...
| n4r9 wrote:
| It's cool to see how fast the trains go on different lines.
| But... where's the Elizabeth line? You get the tooltip when you
| hover over it, but the polyline is missing.
| bodyfour wrote:
| Waterloo&City seems to be missing too
| pledg wrote:
| If you hover over the line to the right of Blackfriars it
| says Waterloo and City, incorrectly.
| throwaway519 wrote:
| It's not a tube, it's an overground line. As evidenced by
| this Network Southeast livery.. on a tube train that's an
| overground train that goes entirely underground
| https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=MhUDyX4DKXQ
| fredoralive wrote:
| The Waterloo and City was transferred to London Underground
| in 1994, as part of the privatisation (or not in this case)
| of British Rail.
|
| As the only way to get trains on and off the line involves
| craning them out of the depot[1], they did retain their
| Network South East livery for about a decade after formally
| becoming an Underground line though, until repainted at an
| off line overhaul.
|
| [1] There used to be a lift that could take a carriage at a
| time to surface tracks, but the Eurostar extension at
| Waterloo did for that.
| Symbiote wrote:
| I think it's present on the map, but is transparent or
| invisible in some way.
|
| You can find it if you hover north-east of Waterloo.
| megapolitics wrote:
| It's probably excluded because TFL don't classify it as an
| Underground line. Similarly, hovering over the DLR will produce
| a tooltip but the line is excluded.
| teleforce wrote:
| One of the best game I ever played is the text based souvenir
| game shopping game on Windows 3. I can't recall the name of the
| game now since it's more than 30 years ago, but it's about
| shopping souvenirs using London Underground Tube. You have a semi
| realistic time constraints like train schedules, your flight
| schedules and of course list of souvenirs items to shop. This is
| totally offline since there is no Internet available at the time
| but it's very engaging nonetheless.
|
| My proposal for the modern version of the game is to use real-
| time train schedules (with delays, ticket discounts, etc) that
| are available publicly on the Internet for many metropolitan
| cities in the world for examples Tokyo, London and Berlin.
|
| Imagine you can have a real-world realistic in-app in-game items
| purchases feature that you personally can buy in the game and
| delivered to you or anyone you fancy of giving souvenirs except
| that you only virtually went there.
| djxfade wrote:
| Sounds kinda like Backpacker:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backpacker_(video_game_series)
| marliechiller wrote:
| Maybe a slight bug: the overlay doesnt appear to be locked to the
| map - when I scroll around, the overlay moves. Currently the
| northern lines' southern terminal is hovering over Kingston
| rather than Morden!
| ratatoskrt wrote:
| > It serves data from individual arrivals boards, which all spell
| stations differently
|
| It doesn't, at least not for most lines. TfL's data is
| notoriously inconsistent, with multiple backends used for
| different purposes. For most lines, the dot matrix indicators are
| fed by the signalling system and timetables (more modern
| signaling systems are timetable-aware). Meanwhile, the online API
| relies on estimates from TfL's TrackerNet.
| cryptoboy2283 wrote:
| No Elizabeth Line?
| BillinghamJ wrote:
| Although it has a core section that does run underground
| through tube-like tunnels, it isn't classified as a tube line
| :) So isn't part of the "London Underground"
| iLoveOncall wrote:
| From tracking the tube I'm in right now it seems to have around a
| minute of lag, that's pretty good to know when to leave your
| house, etc.
| pjsg wrote:
| I note that the times for future stations are in UTC and not BST.
| Also, when you zoom in to only a couple of stations, the trains
| seem to vanish occasionally -- maybe when part of the train
| reaches the edge of the display. I also find it jarring that the
| trains appear _above_ the buildings rather than get hidden by the
| buildings. I 'd like to see the trains running along the
| surface... All of these suggestions are much easier to make than
| to implement!
|
| Good job on this and pretty cool.
| ainiriand wrote:
| This is one of the coolest things I've seen the whole morning.
| ed_db wrote:
| Very cool, although it seems to be missing both the Waterloo &
| City line and the Hammersmith & City line.
| Quarrel wrote:
| Hammersmith & City + Lizzy Line missing, makes Farringdon look
| like a backwater rather than London's best connected station.
| Carstairs wrote:
| It also has the met line extension in Watford that never got
| built.
| jipl104 wrote:
| What basemap provider are you using? built with Deck.gl it seems.
| Very cool!
| mike_hearn wrote:
| Sadly it seems to have broken, at least for me. I get:
|
| > dist.min.js:11 deck: LineString coordinates are malformed
|
| and no trains appear :(
| Geenkaas wrote:
| I once saw a rendering of parts of the underground showing the
| stations and the tracks in 3D (hand-drawn but in scale), what
| stood out to me is how much of the entire system is composed of
| stations and how little for the actual tubes connecting those
| areas, certainly in the busier areas. I was hoping to see the
| stations rendered as well as I never could find those images
| back. This looks very nice in any case, reminds me of
| marinetraffic.
| lucianbr wrote:
| http://stations.albertguillaumes.cat/
| hk__2 wrote:
| Don't miss the Chatelet one in Paris!
| gadders wrote:
| "ChatGPT - please make Waterloo station into a Doom WAD."
| pledg wrote:
| Its a bit confusing as it only shows a single line for places
| that have multiple lines running on the same track
| Quarrel wrote:
| Yeah, no Lizzy line, for me at least.
| sebzim4500 wrote:
| The line is there, it's just hard to see. There are no trains
| on it though, as far as I can see.
| bookofjoe wrote:
| https://x.com/elizabethln_bot?lang=en
|
| https://tfl.gov.uk/
| ralferoo wrote:
| The trains themselves have different colours though, so it's
| not too bad.
|
| Personally, I think the stations themselves are a bit too dark
| and hide any train that's at the station once the trail
| disappear. But overall, I think this visualisation is
| beautiful.
| TheOtherHobbes wrote:
| Trains in opposite directions overlap, which makes it very hard
| to see what's going on.
|
| Also, trains disappear when they stop. Which is - uh - strange.
|
| It's more pretty than practical. Trains marked with dots,
| arrows, or boxes would be far easier to read.
| casenmgreen wrote:
| See also : https://minitokyo3d.com
|
| I find the 3D trains (and planes) easier to see.
|
| Also, I _love_ the webcams scattered around the city, and
| especially those which have sound.
| softgrow wrote:
| It is better, has underground, overground and is womble free.
| Also has planes and current weather effect (raining).
| gala8y wrote:
| Cf. "A real-time 3D digital map of Tokyo's public transport
| system", https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37829061, Oct 2023
| hooch wrote:
| Quite exceptional
| i_like_robots wrote:
| I've seen visualisations similar to this before, but this one is
| by far the most beautiful and I could watch it all day.
|
| I echo the sentiments on the TfL API, I've built the same Tube
| Tracker app over and over for more than 10 years[1] as my go-to
| for learning new tools[2] or testing changes to frameworks[3] and
| I'm not sure it's ever improved. A chap called Chris Applegate
| wrote extensively about his battles more than a decade ago[4],
| did they ever add the stations between Latimer Road and Goldhawk
| Road on the Hammersmith & City/Circle line?
|
| [1]: https://www.matthinchliffe.dev/2014/03/05/building-robust-
| we...
|
| [2]: https://svelte-tube-tracker.vercel.app/
|
| [3]: https://github.com/i-like-robots/react-through-time/pulls
|
| [4]:
| https://web.archive.org/web/20150620042340/http://www.qwghlm...
| iamcalledrob wrote:
| Agreed, this is absolutely beautiful.
|
| The detailing of things like how trains "overlap" each other is
| incredible
| charkubi wrote:
| I also implemented this 16 years ago[1] while researching a lot
| of new technology all at once, it was tricky but very
| satisfying to get it working.
|
| [1]: https://github.com/charleskubicek/wheres-my-tube
| nullwriter wrote:
| its incredible the sentiment on TfL API without realising your
| country even _has_ an API for your public transport. Thats a
| huge leap in itself, let alone an actively maintained one
| ge96 wrote:
| Also this one
|
| https://minitokyo3d.com/
| totetsu wrote:
| But its after the last trains now so not much to see.
| the_mitsuhiko wrote:
| The Austrian version of this is particularly cool because it has
| all forms of public transport on it: https://anachb.vor.at/
| (click Kartenoptionen -> Live map -> alle einblenden).
| wwarek wrote:
| And even API available (for some forms of public transport):
| https://www.wienerlinien.at/ogd_realtime/doku/ogd/wienerlini...
| archagon wrote:
| I noticed Yandex maps for St. Petersburg has this as well.
| Always wanted it in the US.
| Althuns wrote:
| I just spent a bit of time in Wien and was blown away by the
| ease of use of their transit system and its integration into
| Google Maps. For someone from the US, it's like a different
| world.
| Weetile wrote:
| 'Elizabeth line line'?
| anotheryou wrote:
| the tube is so deep, would be fun if that was reflected here.
| lol768 wrote:
| https://ben-james.notion.site/tube-data
|
| > You will regret using this data. You will regret using this
| API.
|
| > It serves data from individual arrivals boards, which all spell
| stations differently.
|
| > It describes train status in free text that varies between
| stations. "Approaching Barnet", "Near Waterloo", "Heading to
| Bank", "Departing Southgate", "Leaving Hampstead", etc.
|
| I'm not sure what you expected from an organisation still
| offering nothing but SMS-based MFA to its "customers" and one
| that got massively disrupted by a 17 year old in a cyber incident
| which seemed to paralyse the entire organisation a few months
| ago...
| MrsPeaches wrote:
| Was this big one recently that took out the Zip cards?
| tim333 wrote:
| Seems to be: "TfL's efforts to deal with the cyber attack
| have resulted in a growing shutdown of its own systems,
| meaning that new zip cards used by children and teenagers
| cannot be obtained" "17-year-old male has been arrested on
| suspicion of Computer Misuse Act offences in relation to the
| attack. The teenager, who was arrested in Walsall ..."
| https://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/tfl-cyber-attack-
| pers...
| Symbiote wrote:
| It's also the organization that rolled out the second large
| stored-credit contactless payment system in the world (after
| Hong Kong), and was the first to introduce bank card
| contactless payments.
| HPsquared wrote:
| For some reason I'm thinking of the classic "Speed cooking"
| videos:
|
| https://youtu.be/8TVpQiCIqp4
| theginger wrote:
| Best part of 20 years ago, which is a long time in anything,
| it's a lifetime in tech. About 15 years ago I used to work on
| some projects for greater London authority, we seemed to
| mostly be squatting on transport for London servers and they
| seemed to have good tech and people seemed to like using it.
| 5 years later they couldn't get away fast enough.
| ghaff wrote:
| These days just tap a contactless credit card is about as
| good as it gets-while still having the Oyster alternative
| where the credit card isn't a good or preferred option.
| bookofjoe wrote:
| FunFact: I have enjoyed HN for about 10 years even though I
| have NO IDEA what an API etc. is. A tribute to its welcoming
| big tent for non-techies like me who wouldn't know a dark
| pattern from dark matter.
| Pathogen-David wrote:
| If you're curious: An API is more or less just the
| communication boundary between two pieces of software.
|
| A common sign of a bad API (including this one) is when it
| presents data in an overly human-centric way rather than
| something more computer-friendly.
|
| For a human it's really easy to see "Regents Park" and
| "Regent's Park" are very very likely referring to the same
| station, but a computer can't know that unless a human goes
| out of their way to tell it that.
|
| You could argue the TfL API is perfectly fine for its
| intended use-case of updating the arrival screens (which are
| meant for humans), but it's generally better to design APIs
| to grow for future use-cases you haven't thought of yet.
| Changing an API tends to be hard once it's being used in the
| real world.
|
| For example: The older TfL stations have LED matrix displays
| for displaying information, which are very limited in how
| much text they can display at once. The newer stations have
| big TV screens instead, which can show a lot of information.
| It wouldn't surprise me if this is the underlying reason
| behind some of the inconsistencies, especially ones like
| "Kings Cross" vs "King's Cross St. Pancras". I'd bet the
| longer names with punctuation correspond to arrival displays
| in the newer stations.
| eks391 wrote:
| An Application Programming Interface provides data to a
| requester. They are built/shaped by the provider and so the
| provider usually has documentation for a user to know how to
| pull and parse it, with example snippets.
|
| Its like having a printer with preset documents it can print.
| You set it on your desk, and others can click a button to
| have the chosen preset sheet come out. You can get creative
| by hiding some buttons, making some buttons also require a
| fingerprint of the user to print the paper, or the printout
| changes every minute, etc.
|
| But the API printer sits on someone's server and prints
| objects, or organized data, and sends it to whatever you used
| to call, or request, from the API.
| unfocused wrote:
| I'll try and explain it simply with no technical information.
|
| An API, or Application Programming Interface, allows you to
| interact with software using pre-defined agreements, or
| contracts.
|
| Think of API as a set of legal contracts. I use this analogy
| when explaining it to lawyers.
|
| If I give you $5, and I say give me an Apple, you will give
| me an Apple, as expected by the predefined contract, that I
| receive an Apple.
|
| If I end up receiving Broccoli, then what we have here, is a
| bug. Or, in other words, the contract has been broken.
|
| Now apply this to other domains in commerce - e.g. I give an
| ID of an item in a store, and I get back the name of the
| item, it's price, and if it's stock.
| sa-code wrote:
| It's like a website but for code instead of people.
|
| People use web browsers to hit websites, but when code hits
| URLs they are typically just called APIs. A website is
| technically an API too
| unkeen wrote:
| To the gloriously mansplaining sibling commenters: Do you
| really think a question has been asked in the parent comment?
| If you do, why?
| bookofjoe wrote:
| This made me smile.
| johnmlussier wrote:
| What's the harm? Parent can choose to not read if they
| want.
| bryanrasmussen wrote:
| Do you really think they're "mansplaining" to the user
| identified as bookofjoe?
| Mountain_Skies wrote:
| For each person who is willing to speak up and say they
| don't understand something, there's usually dozens more who
| silently are wondering the same thing. Even if the parent
| commentor didn't want an explanation, they opened to floor
| for others to help out the silent folks who actually were
| curious as to the explanation.
| hardlianotion wrote:
| Pretty sure they're all women.
| frakkingcylons wrote:
| This is something that a small LLM handles quite well. I'm
| using one to normalize MTA delay reports so I can aggregate
| stuff in a sane way.
| _joel wrote:
| Jago Hazzard will be happy (well worth subscribing on youtube btw
| if you like trains)
| gorbachev wrote:
| It doesn't list the final destination of the trains, which is
| quite important on lines like the District line.
| FlyingSnake wrote:
| There is a similar real time map for Berlin VBB network. It shows
| the realtime locations of S-Bahns, U-Bahns, Buses, ferries etc.
| Pretty cool and handy.
|
| (You'll have to select the Livekarte option under Livekarte &
| Multi -Mobilitat)
|
| https://www.vbb.de/fahrinfo/
| gloosx wrote:
| This is frankly very cool and hypnotising to look at. I'd love to
| see more real-life data maps; anything else like this for London?
|
| Imagine layering this, 3D buildings, live weather, street
| lighting, traffic, and even live business data from Google
| visualised as crowds on the streets. I could stare at that for
| hours.
| dachris wrote:
| There's this board game we played as kids -
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scotland_Yard_(board_game) where
| you move around the London public transport system chasing Mr. X
| (everyone always wanted to play Mr. X) - it was really funny
| bbx wrote:
| I still play that game! Fairly popular in France, but nobody
| seems to know it in England weirdly enough. The newer board is
| a bit less readable than the 90's version. I also play it on my
| phone, although the AI isn't that good.
| hk__2 wrote:
| I'm French and this is the first time I hear about it.
| usr1106 wrote:
| It was fairly popular in Germany in the late 80s / early
| 90s.
| willvarfar wrote:
| Grown ups play Mornington Crescent.
| crabmusket wrote:
| I loved that! Thanks for reminding me of it.
| wwdx wrote:
| Repping for London UK - a rare feat these days. Well done Ben!
| modernerd wrote:
| Tube Creature is also cool (the source of the tube paths for this
| map).
|
| Particularly like the "Tube Tongues" metric -- the second-most
| commonly spoken language after English by residents near each
| tube station, it paints a real picture of a diverse London:
|
| https://misc.oomap.co.uk/tubecreature.com/#/tongues/current/...
| grishka wrote:
| Last time I ran into something similar, I researched whether I
| could get real-time subway train location data for my city, St
| Petersburg. It turned out that such data unfortunately doesn't
| exist as far as I can tell. I did find an official open API for
| the ground transport though.
| talkingtab wrote:
| FYI, the Amersham train just left.
| angrydingo wrote:
| sick
| class700 wrote:
| There's also OpenTrainTimes for mainline UK trains. E.g.
| https://www.opentraintimes.com/maps/signalling/wat#T_WATRLMN for
| London Waterloo
| InDubioProRubio wrote:
| Could you compute the heat-addition by the sub and the rail to
| the underground just by thermal radiation of the devices and
| passengers from this map?
| m3kw9 wrote:
| Why is it live?
| _kush wrote:
| I love how it makes life seem slow paced. If this was a wallpaper
| I would stare at it all day
| zabzonk wrote:
| Well, only because tube trains are a bit slow?
| rossamurphy wrote:
| Could you open source it ? Would love to contribute.
| IIAOPSW wrote:
| Incidental to this, I'm now convinced that the tube map is
| overrated and a quasi-geographical map would suit London better.
| And by "quasi" I mean slightly expanded or contracted in certain
| spots for clarity but basically correct.
|
| But the district labels are a bit too in the way right now, and
| in any case it would be nice to see the stations.
| LourensT wrote:
| Developer donation link (map tile gets expensive!): https://ko-
| fi.com/benbyfax
| figmert wrote:
| This is very cool, but it is so sad to look at. South of the
| river has barely any connections far as the underground is
| concerned. The trains aren't much better.
| ge96 wrote:
| wonder if it would be worth putting arrow heads on the train
| direction
| comte7092 wrote:
| Shout out to Trimet in Portland, Oregon. I think their map is
| pretty great:
|
| https://trimet.org/home/
| unkulunkulu wrote:
| Oh no they will hit each other, someone call 911!
| ww520 wrote:
| It's 999.
| usr1106 wrote:
| Is it? In EU 112 is legally mandated. Did they roll back
| after Brexit?
|
| Either way the numbers are mostly legacy. On mobiles
| emergency calls are a special protocol, no number is really
| transmitted to the network. If the phone application
| recognizes a certain number it will initiate an emergency
| call. And quite often several numbers do it. 000, 112, 911,
| 999. (Admittedly it's many years I last tested it.)
| hei-lima wrote:
| Great job! But what really caught my attention was that map --
| the 3D structures are perfect, and I was able to see my own
| building. Does anyone know which one it is?
| __jonas wrote:
| This one it seems:
|
| https://www.maptiler.com/maps/#style=streets-v2&mode=2d&lang...
|
| It looks like it uses OpenStreetMaps data.
| Kwpolska wrote:
| For most big cities and conurbations in Poland:
| https://czynaczas.pl/ (city picker in the top left, defaults to
| Warsaw, and shows many modes of transport).
| kayo_20211030 wrote:
| Nice. Pretty impressive in the standard view. But zoom and pan
| are broken. A revert to default view would be helpful.
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(page generated 2025-04-11 23:00 UTC)