The Tube is against us. (Underground in general)

Member Name: mattconnect

Product:	Underground in general
Date:	06/11/09 (37 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: comprehensive network of transport

Disadvantages: delays, maintainence, unenjoyable, OLD

The Tube (or London Underground) is London's subway network, spanning the whole of London, within the M25, and some slightly outside.

~~~STATIONS~~~
The stations of most underground stations are aged and look very grimy and "Oliver Twist" like. Apart from a few stations in Central London, and some that have recently been refurbished, stations are really not a nice place. Even without rubbish, they look dirty and horrible.

You can feel the dust in the air and the snoot all around you... NOT nice. The "hall" of the station is also tiny for a majority of stations, and the ones closer to Zone 1 (central) are only slightly larger.

~~~TICKETS~~~
Ticket Offices are also almost always a deterrent. At almost every station, there is either only one kiosk, or there is a long queue. NOT adequate when you are in a hurry, but thankfully, with the advance of technology, there is now a self service machine.

The self service machine allows you to buy tickets or top up your Oyster card.

An Oyster Card is like a top up card for travelling, allowing you to quickly travel by "beeping" your card on their readers which will open barriers etc... Overall it does save time, but error with technology always exist, like that Oyster card malfunction that happened last year where some sort of "virus" broke Oyster Cards...

~~~PRICES~~~
The prices below are average amounts

Adult One Day Travel Card: £10+ (Anytime), £7 (Off peak), £7 (oyster)
Child (UNDER 15) One Day Travel Card: £7 (Anytime), £2 (Off Peak), £1 (Oyster)

Pricing is completely disproportional, and just frankly ridiculous. When I was a child, going into central London was really cheap, which is great, but would've been expensive for my parents, which just isn't appealing to use the underground. Driving by car into central + congestion charge would've been cheaper!

If the government seriously want us to use the underground and meet their "carbon cap", then lowering prices for adults and perhaps raising price for children ever so slightly is the way to go.

~~~WAITING TIME~~~
Once you are on the platform, again there is that grimy dirty feeling. Waiting for trains is never pleasing, and always a bore. The constant lack of seating in ALL stations mean you will have to stand.

At most stations now, there is a computerised screen stating when trains will be coming... which has been LONG delayed!

Waiting isn't too bad, unless you're on the Metropolitan line where trains are almost always delayed, there are almost always a signal failure, and a surprisingly high rate of "people under the train"... Don't ask. OH, and they seem to have "planned engineering works" almost EVERY weekend, making travelling on such line simply HELL.

Within Central London, trains are more "on time", with a train coming around every 3-5 minutes. This is much more acceptable.

~~~ON THE TRAINS~~~
Trains on EVERY LINE are old, worn out and simply the opposite of MODERN, a word we would associate with London. Trains need to be upgraded and improved, seats need to be renewed, and air conditioning would be nice.

And you'd be pleased to know that some are! How ironic that it is the Metropolitan line trains that are getting an upgrade next year, with *drum roll* AIR CONDITIONING! D: I'll be looking forward to this, and yet again, a long delayed improvement!

~~~OVERALL~~~
The London Underground is frankly outdated and is an old system that needs to be renewed. There are so many problems and so many errors that need to be fixed. However, they ARE doing this, and are trying to make things better which are apparent and can be appreciated.

Without the London Underground, there would be chaos and travelling would be made even more difficult, so you can appreciate the necessity of such a system, although some tweaks and some improvements will make it top notch.

However, adult prices are ridiculous, whilst child ones are just an incentive for children to go rampaging in central London... this could be a good thing as they can experience the cultural side, and really LIVE in their city, but can also encourage gang and crime behaviour.

We've already seen the abuse on buses since the "free child bus travel" was introduced, and frankly, it's not much better on the trains...

I would recommend this system to tourists and London dwellers, as there's frankly no other public transport system that can rival this... Don't even mention the buses!!

Summary: Needs regeneration!