Indispensable travel tool for Londoner and Tourist alike (tfl.gov.uk)

Member Name: Ghostkov

Product:	tfl.gov.uk
Date:	26/09/09 (15 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Quick to use, lots of detailed information, route planning, maps, offers

Disadvantages: Individual items have become more difficult to find, estimations not always accurate

The TFL website is a very useful tool for getting around London, and personally I cannot imagine not using it.

The main advatange of using the website over the phone service for instance, is that you can use addresses and places of interest to look for means of travel while if you call up the TFL hotline, you can only use post codes and rudimentary places of interest, usually tourist locations.

Another nifty part of TFL is that you can also use it to plan a walk and estimate distances between 2 places. To my knowledge, streetmap and other map services do not allow this, so TFL can be a handy tool even when your intention is not travel.

However, it also has downsides, which is that sometimes, routes displayed are not really the fastest/closest/best. This is especially true if travelling by bus and it will often make you change buses when there's no need to and tell you to walk a distance between stops even though you can just stay on the bus for an extra stop and be quicker that way. So one has to take the information with a pinch of salt.

The website will also tell you whether there's any works currently ongoing and other information that may significantly impact your travels, so a quick check before you leave may well save you an hour, as a station or section may be entirely suspended.

In terms of actual time estimations, TFL is fairly accurate, however it does not take into account traffic much, so while for 75% of journeys, its more or less spot on, the other 25% either take much longer or much shorter. Long distance tube travel is generally overestimated for instance.

Another bonus the website has is that you can log into oyster there and also apply for oyster. The benefit of having an online oyster account is that you can check your balance online and your recent journey history, for instance if you need it as a receipt. Note that you can only retrieve the journey history if you have topped up your oyster card using the website, though this is useful only if you really know which station you'll pass through first and if you are actually using the tube. Sadly, aut topups don't let to change stations without waiting an extra day and won't let you pick it up on buses either.

Over the years, the website has undergone quite a few changes, but not all have been for the best. For instance, it takes a lot longer to click yourself through to the tube map now and unless you are lucky or have a great memory, you'll have difficulty finding exact bus route tables as well. Nevertheless, its also had many additions for free travel, such as walking and biking, and has added voucher initiatives and other London related information onto the website which makes it appealing both to the born and bred Londoner as well as a tourist passing through.

Summary: Never leave home without checking TFL, it will save you time