Goin' underground with TubeStatus
Londoners like to know what's going on in the tunnels beneath their feet. The Tube is how every Londoner gets pretty much anywhere, and when bits of it are broken, it helps to know before you walk to the nearest Tube station.
The beauty of the Tube, (well, the central zones in particular) is that the lines are so intertwingled that it's often quite easy to route yourself around breakages or blockages. If the Northern Line's hosed, maybe the Piccadilly or Jubilee Lines might get you close enough to where you need to be. And if the Circle line's running slow (which is often is), you might be able to skip round the problem via one of the many other lines that bisect it.
Which might explain why TubeStatus (App Store link) by Malcolm Barclay is such a good idea.
Oddly, though, Malcolm had been hoping that it wouldn't appear in the App Store, while he sorted out some copyright issues with Transport for London, the body that manages not only London's transport network but also the data feeds about it that make apps like TubeStatus work. If we hear anything further on the status of TubeStatus, we'll let you know.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
N J A said 2:02PM on 8-07-2008
Leave it to TFL (transport for london) to have a fit over something useful which is provided to its customers for FREE by someone not employed by them. They are too lazy and/or incompetent to provide a similar utility, and doing so would take them at least a year of consultations and publishing papers (this is just the planning stage), it would take another year to do it, and somehow at an expense well over £5,000,000. TFL is expensive, and more than double NYC and I bet the transit authority of NYC isn't trying to cause issues with those who launched similar Apps on the store. TFL and the Mayor of London who oversee TFL are aggravating at best. God bless this developer and piss off TFL.
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Nick said 3:52PM on 8-07-2008
"Leave it to TFL (transport for london) to have a fit over something useful which is provided to its customers for FREE by someone not employed by them. They are too lazy and/or incompetent to provide a similar utility..."
Hey NJA, hate to piss on your cookie, but this has been around for quite some time, is available from their website, is free and works, so , erm...
http://www.tfl.gov.uk/widgets/?CMP=widget-banner&banner=ltn-rhs
N J A said 6:04PM on 8-07-2008
How does this have anything to do with the iPhone? There's no comparable app from TFL on that site, or anywhere.
guise said 2:19PM on 8-07-2008
Personally i am really looking forward to Tube London from Visual IT which looks infinitely more useful
http://www.visualit.co.uk/apple/iphone.htm
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ximon said 2:30PM on 8-07-2008
'intertwingled' - great word!
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Alex said 2:33PM on 8-07-2008
Yes, I'd been waiting for this!
Totally agree with N J A about the licensing thing... just leave it be, please TfL. Oh, and TUAW: please keep on reporting on London related stuff like this :]
Cheers
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Raheem said 2:33PM on 8-07-2008
As a Londoner i totally love this app as I previously has the Tube Status web page on my iPhone. I was waiting for this on launch of the app store but it's not been that long so props to the dev behind this.
N.B. - Not every Londoner uses the tube... most still use cars :P
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Danny Goodman said 3:19PM on 8-07-2008
At first I thought this was an Internet ISP status app for Senator Ted Stevens.
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Macintosh Lou said 3:52PM on 8-07-2008
Ooh! This is the application that I've been waiting for. The amount of times I've left the flat without checking to see if the dear Central Line is having a wobbly or not.
Here's hoping TFL can let this one live.
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ian patterson said 4:44PM on 8-07-2008
The App is quite good - and free - though I can understand TfL having copywrite objections since it lifts raw one of their web pages.
Given the App only works when its connected to the network anyways, why not bookmark one of the TFL web pages. One good one thats not widely known is a dynamic map off current issues:
http://journeyplanner.tfl.gov.uk/im/RD-T.html
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dswift said 8:02PM on 8-07-2008
At least something is a series a tubes.
(Okay, Danny Goodman beat me to the Ted Stevens ref)
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Tom said 12:33AM on 8-08-2008
at first i was hoping there would be a similar app for the trains here in tokyo. then i realised that we have the most reliable train system in the world and rarely have delays. ha!
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James Grinter said 3:49AM on 8-08-2008
Got to agree with another poster - just create a webclip or bookmark link to one of the existing status web pages (I found that http://www.tfl.gov.uk/tfl/syndication/widgets/serviceboard/netvibes/default.htm worked ok).
No standalone application required (although an application could be marginally quicker at retrieval, if there is a raw data feed lurking in there somewhere.)
Now, when will OS X/iPhone stop messing with images saved from Safari or Mail, so that the underground map remains readable direct from the Camera Roll? Eh? (At 256kB for the TfL-supplied GIF it's a bit big to download quickly over the air each time.)
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