Tube Map App Lets You Watch Trains Live As They Travel Through The London Underground

August 9th, 2013 by James Ayre

Ever want to see where exactly the train that you’re waiting for is? Well now you can — well, if you live in London anyway. The new “Tube Map Live” app provides a live, real-time view of the London Underground, and all of its trains — perhaps an appealing distraction while waiting for your train? Or maybe just for those that like trains and public transportation systems a lot.

Oh, and the basic version of the app is completely free — for both the iPhone and the iPad. So no need to make a decision about whether it’s worth buying or not. For a free app, it really looks pretty nice. I recommend checking it out.

Image Credit: © Tube Map Live

TreeHugger has some more details:

Transport for London provides open live data of where all its trains are at any time. This has allowed smartphone app makers to build really cool apps that give you a live view of the whole transit network, one of these being Tube Map Live, a free app for both iPhone and iPad (the same people also make Tube Tracker, a more full-featured app, but it costs £1.99).

If you want to plan trips and track specific trains, Tube Map Live isn’t for you. But if you simply want to play around with a live map of the London Underground and once in a while look up where a train is, this is perfect.

On a somewhat related note, for those of you that live in London but prefer to ride your bike rather than take the train, well you’re apparently not even close to being alone, a recent report from Transport for London found that cyclists now account for over 24% of the vehicles on the roads of London during the morning rush hour. That’s quite impressive — while taking the train is certainly better than driving, cycling is likely a good bit better in most regards. And it provides a number of great health benefits, as well.

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Tags: ipad apps, iPad train apps, iPad Tube apps, iphone apps, iPhone apps for London Underground, iPhone train apps, iPhone Tube apps, London, London Underground, London Underground live app, metro live app, trains tracking map, Tube map app, Tube Map Live app

About the Author

James Ayre 's background is predominantly in geopolitics and history, but he has an obsessive interest in pretty much everything. After an early life spent in the Imperial Free City of Dortmund, James followed the river Ruhr to Cofbuokheim, where he attended the University of Astnide. And where he also briefly considered entering the coal mining business. He currently writes for a living, on a broad variety of subjects, ranging from science, to politics, to military history, to renewable energy. You can follow his work on Google+.

Marion Meads

Wow, this would be an excellent app for the terrorists to set perfect timing of detonation of their planted explosives. They would know exactly which train to blow up.
- Ronald Brakels
  
  I think that if London, a city that has experienced decades of terrorist bombing, is okay with letting people know when their train is going to arrive, then that probably indicates it’s not much threat to those people’s survival. I suppose there is always the risk that making the trains run on time will turn Britain facist, but I’m not sure the causality runs that way.
- Blind Tubemare
  
  That’s both the most paranoid and funniest thing I’ve read in ages. Given that tube trains run every 1-2 minutes, and indicator boards on each platform tell you how long until the next train, why would a terrorist need an app like this to know when a train is going to arrive? Someone needs to get out more.