Since the new website launched on Monday evening it has served over 6 million pages in 1 million visits from 900,000 customers. This is a little more than normal, reflecting the increased interest around the new site.
Your feedback
We’ve also received plenty of useful feedback with the full range of opinions, from the site being great through to hopelessly flawed. In this post I’ll try and address some of your key questions and explain our thinking a little.
Site performance and links
Initially we had some performance problems, which meant the site was slow in places and certain elements did not work well. Despite numerous load and functional tests before launch we did not pick up this particular problem.
In the end it was easily resolved and good performance was restored, now mirroring what we were expecting.
Some of you were frustrated that links you previously used had been broken. Where we could we put in redirects but inevitably we missed some. We’ve added most of the ones which were causing real problems now.
Where can I find downloadable bus maps?
It’s clear from your feedback that some of you love the ‘spider’ maps and area maps, which are pdfs.
We’ve created some really nice interactive maps that show you transport links near your given location (try them in ‘Nearby’), and display live information such as bus routes and stops, and cycle hire docking stations.
However it’s clear that for some this can’t replace the original maps, so we’ll be adding these to the new site shortly as well.
I have an older phone or browser – why does it not work so well?
There is a balance to be made between offering really rich interactions (which require more modern devices and browsers) and providing a basic experience for those with older technology.
We’ve tried to get this right by ensuring that if you don’t have the very latest smartphone, the core functionality of the site will still work, although you may lose some features.
However there is a limit to which we can do this and still deliver everything in one site. We’re looking at whether we’ve done enough for some older devices and we will be making updates where necessary to help.
Why do you have a big image on the homepage?
Often we have messages about our services and improvements which we need to share with you. This visual space enables us to get these across in a really effective way. On a mobile it’s smaller and more subtle, but still there.
We realise that we are part of the fabric of London and we want to reflect that in the imagery that we use, not just of transport, but of the city and all that it has to offer, so you can expect to see those sorts of images over time.
We’ll also be using the space for some commercial offers, such as the ones we’re running with Google Play and New York/British Airways right now. This helps to offset the cost of running the site.
What was wrong with the old site – can I have it back?
I was part of the team that built the old site, which we launched in 2007. At the time that was a massive change and was not immediately liked by all. Few would now argue that it was not a vast improvement over what went before.
The good news is that we’ll be continuously improving and adding to this site, just as we did with the last one. I’m sure those of you who are not convinced about the new site will grow to like it more over time.
In the meantime do please keep your comments coming – we are listening carefully. While not everything can be done immediately we’re working hard to make the site better still.
I can not open the details of a part closure statement and where do I find the further service alterations.
I do not find the screen layout very readable
Hi Jennifer, what browser or phone are you using to do this? We can take a look at the problem for you.
Hi Phil, the weekend line closures are currently showing all wrong – can this please be a priority fix? Luckily I’ve managed to find a link to the old site so I can plan my weekend travel.
Also, links to first/last trains don’t work.
Many thanks
Yep this really needs fixing – the Overground lines on the weekend closure map are completely wrong, and if you expand the Overground text not only does it list SOUTHERN closures for some reason, it also lists an Overground closure for Saturday 30th March – I assume this is Sunday?
Oh and you’re absolutely correct that pdf bus maps need to be reinstated and made easy to find and access. Not all journey planning is done at the moment of travel – sometimes it is necessary to plan ahead and not from where you’re looking to travel – only the pdf maps can truly fulfil this need.
Why are there adverts on a sub-domain of gov.uk?
Hi Philip, I think I answered that question already in this post.
Mmmm, yeah. I agree with the pragmatic analysis, I just don’t think people should be spammed with adverts on a site they’ve already paid for. It’s just the thin end of the wedge that leads to product placement on the BBC and NHS records being sold to insurance companies.
I guess it will not be everyone’s cup of tea, however we also had ads on the old site for years and this was never a big issue. In the new site the ‘hero’ image is being used commercially from time to time, so it’s more visible than before, but we’ll be doing this as sensitively as we can.
Thanks for listening to feedback.
Still looking forward to the spider diagrams’s return – despite what you’ve written about this in this post, the new functionality has its uses but it’s really not comparing like with like to suggest it could ever be used as a replacement because it only works from one single stop at a time, and does nothing to distinguish the routes drawn on the map (nor to learn the lessons of Harry Beck in simplifying the geography for the sake of information clarity!). If what the new interactive bus map does were really so good, bus shelter posters would show only the routes from that single stop too, which they don’t, because it isn’t as helpful as the spider diagrams.
You haven’t reinstated the shortcut URL that was publicised for many years to check for weekend closures, tfl.gov.uk/check – surely others have also come to rely on this as a result of all that publicity and are missing it? Please could you reinstate this link?
Will bus-service-changes.pdf be making a return to the site? Or has it already? Or indeed could you make forthcoming service changes have their own page/section on the site which is updated as and when you know about the changes, rather than only every six weeks or so in an obscure PDF?
Finally, I and many others were baffled by the sudden, completely unexplained disappearance some time last year of the interactive bus map system from the old site. One of the useful features of that site was the ability to load up a web-page timetable for each route at every stop, containing exactly the same information as the timetables displayed on the real-world physical stops’ timetable boards. From what I’ve read in comments on Diamond Geezer’s excellent posts about your site, it sounds like this functionality was originally present on this new site too. I have no idea why the old bus maps site was suddenly deleted without replacement (please enlighten us if you can?), but if you could please reinstate this per-stop timetable functionality this would at least mean we were back at the level of functionality we enjoyed prior to that deletion.
Thanks.
Hi Paul,
We’ve got interactive bus maps in the new site and and they do have a timetable feature. However we’ve had some problems with the API which grabs the timetables and our supplier is working to fix. We can then switch them back on . I expect we’ll be able to do this in the next week or so.
The old bus maps used an old version of the Google Maps API, which went out of support. It was a few months before the launch of the new site and spending significant sums of money redeveloping it did not seem like the best value. All of the maps were (and are) available anyway in countdown.tfl.gov.uk for the time being.
I’ll get back to you about the bus service changes pdf
If you want to know about weekend works you can get the info at http://www.tfl.gov.uk/tube-dlr-overground/status/?when=weekend
Thanks Phil.
Thanks Phil. Please could you reinstate the /check shortcut link to point to the long, impossible-to-remember URL you just shared for weekend works? Then I can continue the habit, which I’m sure TfL’s long-running campaigns must have got others into too, of simply and quickly typing “tfl.gov.uk/check” when I want to know what works are on that weekend.
Yep – we’ll put that one back in the next day or so.
Think you should put your service first and put ads (if you must have them) out of the way. BTW, most of us never see them with ad blockers.
Saw some major issues with the Status Updates page on IE8 – should it be fully compatible?
Screenshot: http://cl.ly/Ugv6/image.png
Thanks
There are a few visual aspects which are out of line. I would like to join the team and work to fix them, I am a graphic designer and have knowledge and experience in html5 and css3.
I’ve favourited some bus stops that I use around London; previously these were accessible via MY STOPS. I cannot now find anyway to get to the stops I have favourited other than to repeat the process of going to the home page, clicking live information, buses, find the bus route, find the stop and view. How do I find my page of favourites?
Hi Denise. These should be on the homepage. Under the Tube status there is a bus button. If you click on that it will expand and show favourites.
Thank you for keeping your promise and reinstating the quadrant and spider bus maps. It is appreciated.
As this is “Year of the Bus” can you explain the sudden disappearance of the 4 weekly bus service change lookahead? Have Surface Transport adandoned production of it as I note it has not been updated on the “origin” version of the old website. On the old site the info was buried away and I had expected it would be made readily accessible on the new site. I hope you and Surface Transport colleagues can look at this. The public deserve to have a guide to service changes given the palpable lack of info on the buses themselves and limited info put up at bus stops with no guarantee of a consistent application of such info. Social media channels are not an adequate replacement and their use remains limited and inconsistent when it comes to the bus network.
I would also support requests for the reinstatement of the 6 month track / station closures document for LU / DLR / Overground. It was extremely easy to use and easy to find. Digging away via a caledar interface really is not as straightforward although I understand why you have that facility too. I know that “look ahead” documentation is produced for internal purposes so I cannot believe there is any real “production overhead” to be saved from not providing a document for public use.
The Tube 6 month look ahead files are at http://www.tfl.gov.uk/travel-information/improvements-and-projects/tube-improvement/whats-the-plan?intcmp=4950. They are a little out of the way so we will see what we can do to increase their visibility.
We will see what’s happenning with the bus services changes and let you know.
hi there – how do I log in to Oyster? I can’t find the login which was always on front page. Have had to resort to searching for Oyster and going through results! Not ideal – but otherwise site looks great
It’s still on the front page, but if you want to bookmark it the address is http://tfl.gov.uk/fares-and-payments/oyster.
Just found it on the drop down on front page – thanks for response though 🙂
I cannot get any enthusiam about the new site, I think it is total rubbish. Tonight I tried to look up something simple – the times of the early morning buses to Heathrow. I live on two direct routes so know which bus I need, I only need to know the times. This is impossible as the timetables are no longer there – or I cannot find them. The journey planner is trying to send me on a route that involves a transfer and walk in Hounslow!!!! Hopefully I will make it to the plane>
I also wanted times. The earliest tube from a station. Gave up. The planner needs a date and time option. If it is there, it’s cunningly hidden.
Hi Dave, Journey Planner allows selection of dates and times through the ‘change time’ link. If you’ve already done a plan but want to change the time then choose the edit button.
The new site does not work on my BlackBerry smartphone: I can’t drill down to see the details on service updates, only the main page. Many if not most of the links do not respond, including Journey Planner, whether I touch the screen or click with the cursor. Very frustrating! Mine is not an outdated phone: less than a year old.
Hi there, what Blackberry have you got? Those running BBOS 7 are able to do most tasks in the site (with a couple of exceptions).
Blackberry Bold, and I’m stuck with it for another year, so I very much hope I’ll be able to check the details of service disruptions: I depend on them daily!
It might depend which model you have or which version of BBOS you are using. I use one of these phones, a Bold 9790 with BBOS v7.1, and most of the key features of the site are accessible, including journey planning and status information. The exception is bus arrivals which do not appear on the device currently due to some compatibility issues with the javascript library being used. We’re investigating how we can get it to work correctly on that device type. To get around this you can use m.countdown.tfl.gov.uk which has a simpler interface. The browser on these Blackberry devices is not particularly capable generally, so it won’t be the fastest or the best experience. This will be true for most sites you use it on. There is a rapidly declining population of Blackberry devices so it’s unlikely we would invest heavily in these as a platform for the future – bear in mind that the overall Blackberry market share in sales is now around 1%.
I have a BlackBerry 9900 OS 7.1. After planning a journey and seeing the results it is impossible to click to see the detail of a particular journey. Never a problem with the old site.
Duncan, on this device you can plan a journey and see the route details. The only thing in Journey Planner which you won’t be able to do is view the embedded Google Map as this device does not support that feature, but the old mobile site did not have this feature in any case. On the plus side you’ll be able to access the whole TfL site now, not just a few pages which we had in the old mobile site.
Hi, the weekend status map still isn’t working problem – the closures marked are incorrect, making it pretty useless. Surely this should be a priority? It’s the main thing I use the site for!
Hi Dave, we’re working on the representation of the weekend works within the map – it was not quite right this weekend gone and it’s a high priority for us to get this right.
Please bring back the widgets! They were a cornerstone of our company intranet. Or at least re-allow external access to: http://www.tfl.gov.uk/tfl/syndication/feeds/serviceboard-fullscreen.htm
This was the most useful service you provided, it seems daft that I’ll now need to write a widget to use your XML feeds when a perfectly good one exists already. So… any plans to re-instate these?
Hi Claire, this URL is still available and working. Can you let us know exactly what you are trying which is not working and we can look into it.
We had that url in an iframe – this no longer works, even though the url is accessible directly. Also the widgets page no longer exists: http://www.tfl.gov.uk/info-for/open-data-users/
OK – yes, looks like there’s something wrong with that iframe element. The team are looking at that right now and we’ll restore it today or tomorrow.
Hi Phil, any progress on this? The widgets link on https://www.tfl.gov.uk/info-for/open-data-users/ also still points to nothing.
There also doesn’t seem to be an option on all of these comments to reply – does it only allow replies up to a certain depth?
Claire, sorry we’ve not been able to move faster on that. We understand the change that needs to be made now to fix the iframe and will roll it out in the next few days.
This can happen even you’ve got enough pay as you go credit or a valid Travelcard on your Oyster card because you could be experiencing ‘card clash’.
http://www.tfl.gov.uk/fares-and-payments/oyster
Hi we cannot see the service definitions such as good service, minor delays etc as customers ask for this alot, and we now cannot seem to find this. We also cannot find the customer performance figures that we could access on the old site which gave station and line figures.
Hi Caroline, performance figures are at http://www.tfl.gov.uk/corporate/publications-and-reports/underground-services-performance. Service definitions are not on the site as far as I’m aware, nor were they on the old site. This is more likely to be intranet information in terms of how service status is assessed.
Hi Phil, the service status information was on the old website.
Bring back the old site. I can’t use the journey planner anymore on my phone as it keeps on crashing every time I search. At least make a less processing power demanding journey planner. It’s a complete pile of poo that’s dumbed down and designed for tablets. Think of all the people who don’t upgrade phones every year and don’t own tablets. Sort it out.
Hi Simon, what phone do you have?
Blackberry Bold 9700. I’m not a fan of touchscreen phones at all which is why I haven’t upgraded it. Also, the battery is 3 times better than newer models. My phone still works fine for everything except the new journey planner. I find it very unfair that you don’t think of the minority. Please make a less power hogging version available as an option so that I can check my routes, many demanding websites do this to cater for everyone.
Simon, I’m afraid this device runs either blackberry OS 5 or 6 which are both really old and have very poor web features. With that device you will have problems on sites all over the web. Sadly it’s not something we can do a great deal about.
I also deeply regret the decision not to upgrade the site for Blackberry users. I have a Blackberry Curve 9900 which I have finally gotten used to after a long time and the live travel updates for the buses has been the most useful thing about it ever. For those of us with fat fingers and other issues with touchscreens there aren’t many other places to go. Phone manufacturers are constantly trying to find ways of getting us to junk perfectly serviceable machines. It does seem a shame that TFL should be helping them.
Should the live departures information for Bus Stops be refreshing itself? Sometimes it seems to update for the next five minutes or so and then displays ‘This departure information is out of date. Please try reloading the page’ but at other times it doesn’t refresh at all. On the old site there was a refresh button, can that be reinstated and we do the refreshing ourselves? At least we know that the information is up-to-date then. Also on the old site the ‘Live bus arrivals’ also had a ‘Filter routes’ button which was useful. Can that be reinstated as well? Often more than one bus goes to the destination you require but you don’t want to have to run through a long list unnecessarily searching for the buses you require or have to select them one by one either. I have also only just recently noticed that the old site seemed to remember if you have previously filtered the routes for a particular stop, when you visited it subsequently, which was also useful.
Also I’ve noticed that regularly when I select an individual route it shows ‘Next service towards… but shows no arrivals, but when I select the ‘All’ button it will include arrivals for the route in question as part of the ‘All’ listing. Can this bug be fixed? In the old site if there were really no arrivals it would show ‘Sorry no arrivals are expected within the next 30 minutes of this stop. Please try later or go to http://www.tfl.gov.uk‘. At least with this message you could be sure that it had actually performed the requested search whereas producing a blank section leaves you with the impression that there are no buses when in fact there are. I have screen prints of these missing individual departures if you wish to see them.
For each search I have performed I have checked it against the Live bus arrivals on the old website and each time the old website performs consistently faster and always produces correct information. Why should the new one be so much slower than the old website?
When can I expect a reply from TfL to this?
Still no reply 🙁
Should I be emailing Customer Services instead?
Hi Paul, the bus live arrivals refreshes itself in-page using web sockets technology. We’ve been working on the reliability of that and it’s achieving a good standard at this point. You can filter routes one by one in the new site, we’re not planning to introduce filtering of multiple routes at present but we’ll consider that for the future. You can ‘favourite’ stops in the new site of course and it stores recent stops on the homepage. We’re getting pretty good results comparing the old and new site, although there may be some latency introduced by the API which is not in the core countdown website, something we’re discussing with our colleagues who support the API.
The new site is much worse than the old one for live tube departures. It used to show the next 3 trains each way from West Harrow, but now shows only one, or if you are lucky, two. So I can no longer plan when to leave home. Also you used to be able to see service updates on all lines and local departures all one one page which made it much easier to see it one go. Now you have to click elsewhere to get this.
Also the live departure times do not work at all on my Samsung S2 (Android 2.3.5),
So all I have found so far is a far worse service and no improvements of any use to me. Bring back the old site!
Situation still the same. Why no comment from TfL on these points?
Hi Martin, we’ll take a look at the specific situation at West Harrow with the Tube departures. On the device problem with the Samsung S2 you would need to upgrade to Android 4.0 or later to access that content. The older bus arrivals website is still available for a while longer at http://m.countdown.tfl.gov.uk and we also have an SMS service which is described at http://www.tfl.gov.uk/modes/buses/live-bus-arrivals.
Any comment yet on the West Harrow tube departures? Still only showing one or two trains each way and so no longer of any use to me.
Also Samsung have confirmed that my 2 year old S2 cannot upgrade to Android 4.0 or later as you suggest. Did TfL do any research into how many people would be excluded from using these facilities on the new website (including the Blackberry users above) and if so, can we see it ? Or are you only interested in serving those customers who can afford the latest smartphones?
Didn’t the old site let you plan a journey from any street? I tried to put the road that I live on into the planner yesterday but it only lets me use TFL stations etc. I really can’t believe just how much worse things are! Must’ve taken some doing1
The new planner and the old planner are actually the same engine behind the scenes. They both let you plan from an address, postcode, place of interest, station, stop or pier. With the new Journey Planner you don’t have to tell it whether you are putting in a postcode or address or stop, it works that out. However it’s not going to get everything right every time. If you’ve got specific ideas of how it could do this better please let us know.
Working now – hurray!
The new wbsite does not have first and last tube times and is much harder to navigate round.
Just tried to find out how long it takes the number 7 bus from a certain stop at Tottenham Court Road to Sussex Gardens. Despite showing both these stops on the route list for that bus, when I tried to plan a journey (which, as far as I can tell, is the only way to find this information), the number 7 was not even mentioned, and I was told I had to take two other buses. I know the 7 goes directly between those two stops, but the TFL site doesn’t seem to.
I’m also getting a different set of answers each time I run a test journey (by setting the same route parameters), so don’t know which answers I can trust to be correct.
I also can’t find the first and last tube times, which used to be easy to locate.
Hi Jason, journey planner offers the faster route by default so that may be why you are not getting the one you expect. You can see a route page for the number 7 in ‘stations, stops and piers’ from the main menu and then get live departures.
I’ve mentioned our plan for timetables and first and last Tubes in my most recent post, they will be back on the site shortly.
Unbelievable that there are no timetables. Surely these should have been among the first items to be “migrated to the new website”. Particularly the London overground timetables. As with the maps it is much easier when planning things in advance to be able to get an overview of all options available rather than being forced to “interact” which means re-entering different options over and over and having to note down the results and gives a very limited view of the services available. very poor not to have timetables or is TFL doing away with scheduled trains on the London overground?
Hi Nicola, I’ve covered this in a more recent post. Timetables will be back on this site shortly.
Can’t we access the old website for this in the meantime – plus any idea how long shortly is?!
Yes – timetables from the old site can be found at journeyplanner.tfl.gov.uk
London overground timetables are not available on the new site or from the link to the old site journeyplanner.tfl.gov.uk and yet there are posters on the london overground which state
“Timetable changes from Sunday 18 May 2014.
New timetables are now available to download at tfl.gov.uk…”
Why not link to the old timetable page from the timetables link until the new timetables are ready? rather than the unhelpful message “We are in the process of migrating content to our new website and the feature you have chosen is not available yet. Please come back soon.”
For other readers looking for the plan for timetables here is the link to the particular blog entry http://blog.tfl.gov.uk/2014/04/08/new-website-after-2-weeks/#more-910
Hi Nicola, it’s taken a little longer than we’d hoped but we’re on the point of making all the timetables and first and last services available throughout the site. However as this will take a few more days we’ll put up the pdf documents for London Overground now so you can get hold of the new schedules in advance of the upcoming changes – I’ll post a reply once that’s in place. Journey Planner is updated already so any journeys you plan will have the correct timetable driving them.
Hello Phil, Thank you for your replies. Having the pdf version of the london overground timetables will be a great help.
Hi Nicola, we’ve got these timetables available now at http://www.tfl.gov.uk/modes/london-overground/london-overground-timetables
brilliant. Thank you 🙂
Hi Phil,
Are there any plans make the CCTV images available as they appear to have stopped worked last Thursday. Have the image locations changed at all?
I think the transition could have been made easier by running the two alongside for a while to maintain the connectivity to a 7 years old site.
Old links die hard 😉
Great site though, one to be proud of..
Hi Jason, we’ve been having a few issues with the CCTV images on the website. The developer feed should not be affected though. Are you getting the images through at present on the developer’s feed or are you looking for them on the website?
Thanks for your response Phil.
I host pages that are designed to show certain images files available on the TfL server.
I noted that the BBC Traffic Camera site (that uses the developer feed option) was also having the same problem of showing static images from last Thursday only.
I’m very pleased to say that all appears to be working correctly now (23/04/14).
Thanks for the intervention or if this wasn’t the case, thanks anyway for a great looking site to show off our world class transport network and fine city!
All the best.
Jason, it appears we had a problem with the developers feed on this. We got the issue cracked this morning. Really sorry your app was disrupted by this.
Hi Phil,
I need ti embed the Tfl journey planner form widget in my webpage. Here are some observations –
1. The journey planner form html generated for me has javascript errors in it, I cannot test it on the tfl website.
2. The journey planner form only shows ‘Leave Now’ option. It does not allow to enter date/time and leaving/arriving information. So not much use for ‘planning’ the journey. Is this standard or is the widget going to be updated to allow entry of this info?
Thanks,
Monali
Why no reply for my question? I expect at least an acknowledgement?
Sorry Monali, thanks for the feedback. These tools are a hangover from our old site, so they work exactly as they did before which is not perfect. We’ll look to modernise them in due course.
Hello Phil,
When are you planning to update the Oyster account section? the rest of the website looks really good, however, as soon as you click to the logon page of your Oyster account and the account itself it’s back to the old website! 🙁
It would be great if this could be updated as soon as possible.
Kind regards,
George
George, we’re hard at work on this right now. You should see a new Oyster area in late summer this year, to the same mobile friendly standard as the rest of the new site.
Dear Phil,
It is now early autumn and I can’t see a new Oyster Area on the TFL website! Can you please confirm the date when the new Oyster account area will be launched and ready to be used?
Many thanks,
George
Hi George, you’re right – that’s not come through as quickly as I thought when I wrote that post. However we have just launched the new Contactless account management area – which is now fully responsive and integrated with the new website. It uses the same login credentials through our single sign on as the Oyster service. Give it a try!!
Hi Phil, a customer has asked where have the alerts details gone, as she was trying to change her text alert journey and now cannot find this on the site. I must admit we cannot find it either and its not been added to the Oyster account. IF they are not on the site at the moment will they be looking to be added at some stage soon.
Hi Caroline, existing customers can change their alert preferences at http://alerts.tfl.gov.uk. We’re not linking to that from the site as we have a new alerts product which we’re working on and the old one is outdated, so we don’t want lots of new users of it. The new alerts will most likely be ready in late summer.
Hi Phil. Thanks for responding so fully to comments. One area where there’s a lot of work to be done is the website Search facility. For many search terms it resembles what I think is known informally as an RPG (Random Page Generator). I first noticed this when I was looking for info on Chesham station. Here’s a few examples, where I think there’s an obvious page which is most likely what’s wanted by the user:
Search: “Chesham”
Most likely page wanted: http://www.tfl.gov.uk/tube/stop/940GZZLUCSM/chesham-underground-station?lineId=metropolitan
Position: Not in top 50 results
Search: “Jubilee”
Page wanted: http://www.tfl.gov.uk/tube/route/jubilee/
Position: Not in top 50 results
Search: “weekend closures”
Page wanted: http://www.tfl.gov.uk/tube-dlr-overground/status/?when=weekend
Position: Not in top 50 results
Search: “wheelchair”
Page wanted: http://www.tfl.gov.uk/transport-accessibility/wheelchair-access-and-avoiding-stairs
Position: 3rd result
Search: “opening times”
Page wanted: http://www.ltmuseum.co.uk/visit/plan-your-visit/opening-times-and-tickets
Position: 6th result (“transport museum opening times” returns no results at all)
These are just examples – I’d be keen to know more generally how far you see in-site search as being important (compared with other aspects of findability such as navigation, links from emails, etc).
Simon, thanks for this – all good points of course. We have a development in our list for allowing the search to identify key assets (like stations, stops, piers, lines, routes and locations) and creating ‘cards’ which relevant snippets (like status, next bus, map etc) along with search results. There’s still a fair bit for us to do to tidy up the site generally and release elements like improved fares and timetables. After that we’ll be able to focus more on the search. All forms of findability are important to us – so we would not want to leave search lagging behind. Having said that the initial implementation we have done is already an improvement on what we had in the previous site.
Hi, only just started using the new journey planner website and overall like it. However to comments I wanted to feed back.
Today I searched for fastest trip from Balham to Stratford. All of the results included tube with one or more bus journeys and took approx 1 hr, however if you manually untick the bus option when you search, you get tube only options that take 42 minutes! Seems like a bug in the planning software.
Also when I click on more details on an option, it is not possible to see the whole journey in Google maps, rather than just each portion. This would greatly improve the user experience when looking at the map. Thanks.
Hi, Can someone have a look at the print-out capability? Fairly simple journeys take two or three pages to print out which, apart from being a waste of paper, is annoying to a carry around. Can this be compressed to something a little more compact?
Hi Laurie, we’ve got that in our list to do as the printing clearly needs some improvements.
It’s incredibly frustrating that you can’t currently access timetables on the new site – especially with the strike coming – could you not at least give us a link to the old website timetable information as how are we meant to look up London Overground timetables otherwise?!
Hi Sophie, You can plan London Overground journeys on our journey planner – which uses the underlying timetables. If you really need the old timetables they can be found at journeyplanner.tfl.gov.uk (timetables link is on the left of the screen).
Hey Phil,
Thanks for your speedy reply – unfortunately the link you gave me doesn’t have the overground timetables on it – it does have everything else though! Also – I’m not entirely sure I trust the journey planner which is currently not reflecting the tube strike when I try to plan a journey for tomorrow. Once the strike starts will it reflect real time information in planning?
Thanks
Hi Sophie, sorry for not replying yesterday. Yes, Journey Planner should only plan routes which are running, although it’s possible they will be more crowded than usual. Overground timetables are also at http://origin.tfl.gov.uk/gettingaround/6391.aspx
Hi Sophie, the new London Overground timetables effective 18th May are now at http://www.tfl.gov.uk/modes/london-overground/london-overground-timetables
Hi Phil,
I appreciate the care you take to reply to messages, but I really think it is wrong — everyone I speak to can barely believe it — that Blackberry users are to be excluded from live travel updates. Before I go buying a new smartphone, which many people can’t do because of being tied into contracts, will you at least confirm that TfL is not going to fix the interface between Live travel updates and Blackberrys? We want to know where we stand. Bear in mind that while BB market share may now be just 1% (I’ll take your word for that) the percentage of smartphones which are being used now and are Blackberries is surely much much higher. I really can’t understand why TfL wants to make enemies of its customers. You can hardly think of anything worse, customer relations-wise, than to introduce a brand new excellent service, and then yank it away from a significant portion of its users.
live departures boards has disappeared – please bring that back.
To be honest it’s clear this new site is beta at best and you should take it down while you fix all these issues
Hi Chloe, which departure boards are you after – Tube or bus or something else?
Tube please Phil.
I’ve tried finding them via ‘status updates’ and then entering my station in the ‘search live departures box’ but it doesn’t work
OK – it should ‘auto-complete’ as you type and then you should be able to select from a list of stations. However if that’s not working in your browser then you might find it easier to go to http://www.tfl.gov.uk/travel-information/stations-stops-and-piers/ and click through to the line and station of your choice. We have some problems with Circle and District departure boards at present due to the way the underlying systems are being used during today’s strike. Another way into Tube departures is through ‘Nearby’ which, if you are on a mobile, can work out where you are and show stations on a map. Clicking on the station will allow you to get to departures.
Using journey planner from “Oaklands Avenue, Romford” the option I wanted was listed as being in Havering-Atte-Bower but it’s actually in Romford in the London borough of Havering. Soooo confusing.
Journey Planner is much worse than the old version. It doesn’t recognize many full addresses in the format “1 RoadName Road”, instead it gives suggestions like “We found more than one location matching 1 RoadName Road”, but none the suggestions match “1 RoadName Road” although they’re in the same area. The old version doesn’t ask to pick suggestions nearly as often, and when it does, it almost always has a suggestion matching the address.
agree with the fact that the new search is really bad and doesn’t recognize addresses. Surely if the engine is the same why are so many addresses not recognized? The old one was far better, really disappointed, it is quicker to work out how to get anywhere myself!
Are you going to reply to my April 14 post? It’s a serious point about accessibility for anyone with a phone older than 2 years and apparently all Blackberry users.
Martin, we’re working hard to see if there is a solution for this specific problem on older Blackberry phones and Android 2.x.x. However, putting the issue into context, most of the site works ok on those phones, the problem being with departure boards. The more modern Blackberry phones (10 series) work fine. Earlier Blackberry phones make up less than 2% of visits overall. Those using Android 2.x.x phones make up about 1% of visits overall. These numbers are based on our mobile site before we moved to the new website. We’ve not given up trying to find a fix for the departures issue on these devices but the older devices are very much in a minority here.
I am glad to hear that you are working on a solution for older Blackberrys on Android 2.x.x. I would be grateful if you could let us know if you decide to stop working on a solution or come up with one.
As regards minorities, that is a fact of life in a digital environment with so many different platforms. It is a cross the software community has to bear, but I strongly believe it should do so. You don’t tell political or ethnic minorities they don’t count because they are only 1%. The digital world should be about flexibility and diversity, not conformity. Thanks again for your helpful posts and your constructive approach.
The new Jorney Planner doesn’t show the zones. It is a really important information when planning a journey, is it going to be available on the new website soon?
2 months down the road and the bus service changes page is still not available.
http://www.tfl.gov.uk/cdn/static/cms/documents/bus-service-changes.pdf found it via Google
How do I report bugs with the new tfl website?
Here’s one,
http://pbrd.co/1o3ilbH
but you really should make it easier on the website as it’s very frustrating not to have an email address for reporting problems.
I can’t open up full details for a journey on my phone. Journey comes up with + on left but can’t see the details of the journey so a bit useless at the moment. That’s on chrome and in an android app as well on an xperia z2. Frustrating the new site is harder to use to perform simple tasks. Would appreciate a fix please
Hi Diane, are you using tfl.gov.uk through a web browser on a desktop or a mobile? If so, what devices and browser combinations are you using? The Sony Xperia Z2 should work fine with the site through the Chrome browser and the site works well in Chrome on desktops/laptops. TfL does not produce any travel information apps (although we do provide them with all of our data), so if you are having problems with an app you would be best contacting the app developer.
The new journey planner is awful, much worse than the old one – very slow and falls over most of the time. Accessing it on Firefox .
Hi Philip, can you let us know what computer, operating system and browser version you are using, we can then take a look at your specific issues. Since we launched the site the usage of Journey Planner has increased around 10% so many people are using it with no problems.
I have an S4 with the latest updates. The new website was working for a while but now doesn’t respond if you click on the ‘plan your journey’ button. Thought you would have noticed and corrected this. I’m accessing via the mobile version of the website; do not wish to download the app; and have tried loading the page several times. Also the link to the tfl home page from the ‘live bus arrivals page’ does not work – so I’ve had ton stall a second shortcut on my phone (but as you’ll notice from my initial query this was page no longer functions properly).
Just an update really… this is the problem both with IE and Chrome
Hi Stuart, can you say specifically what the problem you are having with IE and Chrome us and with what versions?
Hi Stuart, I’m an S4 user as well and having no problems with these parts of the site. Suggest clearing your web cache and cookies and trying again.
Tried clearing the cache and cookies with the same effect. I’m using Chrome 35.01.1916.141; Android 4.4.2; IE
Stuart, what device is that on?
When I click the ‘plan a journey +’ sign from the mobile homepage nothing happens. When I click the ‘Home-TfL’ link from the ‘Live bus arrivals’ page I get the ‘404 Fil or directory not found’ message.
When I put the phone in desktop view the homepage works, but the ‘live bus arrivals’ homepage link still produces the error.
Hi Phil,
Haven’t seen your reply. Any solution?
Hi Stuart, sounds like the page is not being fully loaded for you. We did a site update yesterday and it would be good to know if that’s sorted it for you. Also the exact device you are using would be good to know.
Stuart, are you on O2 – if so we’re seeing some issues where O2 (or Tesco Mobile, Giffgaff, Lycamobile) users are not getting the full javascript loading. This means the menu does not appear and the plan a journey button does not work. It’s fine on wifi and over https. If you are seeing this problem then try using https://www.tfl.gov.uk. We’re working with O2 to resolve.
Hi,
I have a Nexus 4 and have been having trouble with the site since its upgrade. When using the journey planner and the weekend outages option, if I click on the maximise button, nothing happens. Very frustrating. Can’t see which routes to take or what lines aren’t working! Also happening on a Nexus 5 device.
Hi Daniel, can you try clearing your cache and deleting cookies – see if you have the same problems.
Are the Spider Maps back yet? I note one poster saying thanks for bringing them back, but I have spent an hour perusing the site and have not been able to find them … if they are back, please can I get a link? If not, do we have any idea when they will be returning?
Thanks
Hi Paul, spider maps have been back since a few days after launch at the end of March. You can find them at http://www.tfl.gov.uk/maps_/bus-route-maps. It’s a bit clunky at the moment and we have some improvements to this page planned to help you to navigate to the right map more easily. You might find it easier to use the bus maps through the station, stops and piers pages at http://www.tfl.gov.uk/travel-information/stations-stops-and-piers/ or through ‘Nearby’. If you want the best journey from A to B then Journey Planner is good for that and can be set to ‘bus only’ in the preferences or through the button on the journey results (bottom of the page).
Pretty nice post. I just stumbled upon your blog and wanted to say that I have really loved surfing around your blog posts.
In any case I’ll be subscribing on your rss feed and I’m hoping you write again very soon!
Hi for the last few days I cannot get live bus stop news this is infuriating as I can use 2 different buses but don’t know which stop is being served first
Hi Rosemary, you can get live buses at m.countdown.tfl.gov.uk. Let me know if you have any problems with that. Our new bus arrivals tool is having some problems but we will have it back up and running soon.
That works thanks
Hi – Journey Planner seems to be coming up with a very convoluted route to travel from Woodside Tramlink to Bromley South. The best route (which always came up previously) is from Woodside Tramlink to Beckenham Junction and from there to Bromley South. Now it’s suggesting a silly route which takes much longer. I also noticed the planner seems to now think it’s a 8 minute transfer time between Beckenham Junction Tramlink and Beckenham Junction station when in reality it’s 30 seconds! Can someone take a look at this please. Thanks
Journey plannner used to be good, but since the new website appeared it seems to give wrong details. It does not recognise many well known landmarks or bus stops. For example, if I enter the name of my local bus stop as a start point it assumes I have a five minute walk to get to it. I know how long it takes to get to the stop, so I want the times of the buses at that point. Why treat us as idiots, which is what this site does.
The new site is ridiculous, Oakwood to Heathrow, four changes when the Piccadilly Line goes direct!!
Yes, I know I can set options but you have to look for them, four changes to save les than one minute.
Why does it worry me about disruption on my journey when i am traveling no where near the disruption and it is just a bundle of un-punctuated text.
Whoever approved this should be fired, Boris next stop to ask how this ever got off the ground, ok to support new mobiles but not to the extent of abandoning common sense.
The worst so called improvement ever.
In the previous version, it took a just a few seconds to search the weekend closures. I searched the terms ‘weekend’, ‘closure’, ‘calendar’ but no luck. How can I see next 3-4 weekend’s planned closures?
Hi there, you can get the closures at http://www.tfl.gov.uk/tube-dlr-overground/status/?when=weekend and there’s a link there for the planned works calendar.
I appreciate that this is 11 days after you left your message, but I have just looked at the link for planned closures and it is very buggy. If i click on anything at all (say for the Distrcit Line) it just tells me about August closures on the Piccadilly Line, even if I go as far ahead as September. If you need a hand testing it, let me know.
Searching tfl information on Google website works better than the tfl website, the calendar is here:
https://tfl.gov.uk/forms/12392.aspx
Not sure how much functionality is lost in this transformation – a mapping 2-pager will be helpful where all functionality that was available in the previous version is mapped to the location within the new website.
Sorry, I don’t know where else to post this.. At the moment there are planned works being undertaken on the picaddilly line. Ok, no problem. In the mornings, I like to give a quick glance over the tube situation before I leave for work. The headline for P. Line simply says ‘part closure’. To save me having to click the link to find out what kind of part-closure it is, would it be possible for you to include the word ‘planned’ before the words ‘part closure’? It would just save me having to click through to the explanation link. Thank you.
Robert.
+1
Great idea, distinguishing between planned versus unplanned closures would be very useful.
The new website is an improvement over the old one when accessing it on a (modern) mobile device but where has the useful “share journey by email” option gone?
Hello. Could something be done to change the maps on the new tfl site. For any walking parts of a journey it’s nearly impossible to read the street names of the suggested routes as the line marking the route obscures them. I don’t recall this happening on the old site. It all looks great otherwise but this seems like rather a fundamental error. Many thanks.
Just did a search on the journey planner to travel from Victoria to King’s Cross St Pancras. Pretty simple journey – I just wanted to check how long it takes. It spent about a minute ‘fetching results’, then came back with the message ‘Journey planner could not find any results to your search, please try again.’ (and a placeholder for an advertisement). It is clearly not working! (Please fix it! Also, when I start typing Victoria, why would Royal Victoria come up first as a suggestion?)
Hi Dave, we did have one or two problems retrieving journey results for a hour or so the other day – hopefully all is working well for you now.
Is is impossible to apply for a service delay refund if you have a paper ticket. The ‘my refunds’ section when you click to apply you simply are presented with a page that says – “Sorry, we were unable to process your request. This is because our server is experiencing technical difficulties preventing it from responding to requests.
Please call TfL Customer Services on 0343 222 1234 for further assistance or go back to…”
I called in Thursday and was told its due to traffice about the contactless cards. Called Friday and even today, monday its still not working. WHY NOT??
Your TFL weekend map is broken, it does not load at any time on any computers. please correct it asap!
Hi there, are you accessing it over https or http? If the former then it’s got a problem (data service unavailable) if the latter then it works fine. The correct link is http://www.tfl.gov.uk/tube-dlr-overground/status/?when=weekend. If it’s still not working do let us know.
Dear TFL- When you go to your TFL site, and click weekend to see what tube lines are disrupted over any weekend the map that used to work does not ever show up, and instead a message saying: ‘Our Data Service is currently unavailable, we are trying to fix this, please come back later’ shows up where the map is. This has been the same for about 5months now. Can you advise how to look at the map? This is the same on my mobile, mac, laptop and work computer….I am sure you can shed some light. Many thanks. Ruth This is your link that shows no map: https://www.tfl.gov.uk/tube-dlr-overground/status/?startDate=2014-09-27T00:00:00&endDate=2014-09-28T23:59:59
Hi Ruth, it’s got a problem when you try and access it over a secure (https) connection. If you access it normally it’s fine and we’ll fix it for https shortly. Try http://www.tfl.gov.uk/tube-dlr-overground/status/?startDate=2014-09-27T00:00:00&endDate=2014-09-28T23:59:59
Just did a search on the journey planner to travel from Queen Road Peckham to Wembley. The weekend status update showed that Overground branch to West Croydon/Crystal Palace was closed from Surrey Quays-this means the branch to clapham junction was working. The web a minute ‘fetching results’, then came back with the message ‘Journey planner could not find any results to your search, please try again.’ THIS IS NOT WORKING CAN WE HAVE OUR OLD SITE BACK-THIS WAS SIMPLE, QUICKER AND CLEAR.
Note: I decided to ring the customer services only to be told that Claphan Junction branch wasn’t working which wasn’t true. Even if this was the case, why did it not give me options for the buses as the old one would do?-so even customer service had no idea on how to use this web!
What on earth has happened to the Walk London website? The replacement you have put up at http://tfl.gov.uk/modes/walking/top-walking-routes is a pale reflection of Walk London. Where is the interactive map? Where are the downloadable maps? Where are the user comments? Where is the detail about each stage? A really useful resource for walkers has been lost.
I have just tried to use this site for the second time and as before have discovered it is inaccurate and difficult to use. The old site was, at times stubborn but you got there in the end. The new site is inaccurate and of no real practical use as it fails to recognise addresses and earlier this week sent me to a station a good distance away from my required destination. I followed the directions as I believed that TFL must know its own business…. how naïve. I discovered a working underground station exactly opposite my destination. I will be using google maps in future they are much more helpful and informative.
I absolutely hate the new website. It gave me wrong details when I planned my journey on 14.12 (Sunday) as it showed me a 9.34am train from Loughborough Junction but when I got to the station there was no trains before 10am!!! I was late to work.
The old web was more clear and connections were easy to understand.
Hi Agata, can you tell us what your destination was from Loughborough Junction? We can take a look at what journeys were being offered for that time and come back to you.
Journey planner could not find any results to your search, please try again
Enfiled to Camden Town by bus, seriously?
Hi there, can you let us know what setup you are using and whether this happens all the time for you or just at one specific moment. We’ve tried the same journey and always get something back. If you can give us some more detail we’ll take a look.
For as long as I have had my Oyster card, I have never been able to view the card online, and have never been able to top up online. All ever receive is this:
Sorry, we were unable to process your request. This is because our server is experiencing technical difficulties preventing it from responding to requests.
Please call TfL Customer Services on 0343 222 1234 for further assistance or go back to My Account.
Now either this has been going on for 3 months or more. Or something is definitely wrong.
I’ve tried accessing from a variety of places on a variety of browsers with no luck
A request: For bus users,could we please have many more lit-up timetables at busy busstops? Older people
don’t all have Iphones, that infomation is most useful, it may give you choices, and there is something. to.look
at and pass the time when waiting. It would be great if this could be done. Thank you, Catrina Markwick, a
very frequent bus user
I’ve bee trying to get the hang of Mystops on the tfl countdown buses live page. Is there a guide? I want to save a list of several stops I use often. And to be able to retrieve them the next day
Every time I log on during an evening and change to change my auto top up payment message, i get the following message:
“Sorry, we were unable to process your request. This is because our server is experiencing technical difficulties preventing it from responding to requests.”
It seems your server experiences problems every evening.
I find I never use TfL website now. I used to use it all the time.
what’s wrong with the journey planner. I’m using firefox on android and when you begin to type a start or destination station name it keeps doubling up the letters i’m typing. I can’t even do a backspace because that simply copies the letters i’ve typed so far. It’s completely useless!!
This seems like a new bug that has only recently started to happen, but Journeyplanner no longer recognises St Pancras Station! It offers me lots of other options, including St Pancras Hospital and St Pancras Way but not London’s ninth busiest station. Seems very odd and it means that journey’s always fail to select the direct Thamesllink option – instead sending me via King’s Cross underground to Farringdon or Elephant and Castle
I also regularly receive the message about “technical difficulties” when trying to read my journey history. Presumably the server is just overloaded – so why on earth don’t you say so?
Can only occasionally log in to the Oyster online website – I usually get the old “Sorry, we were unable to process your request. This is because our server is experiencing technical difficulties preventing it from responding to requests”.
About time you were running this on AWS or similar isn’t it – let you cope with peaks in demand !!
Well, it’s October now, and still well-nigh impossible to get on the site (in this case to correct an “unterminated journey”)
OK – solved with help of website Chat operator – I opened the login page in a “Private Window” under Firefox – seemed to let me log in.
Though it seems odd that this is to correct a “server problem” .
I have also now deleted all “account.tfl.gov.uk” cookies, which might help matters.
I am constantly frustrated using TFL journey planner, because of technical glitches. I was further frustrated to find that when I looked for help on the TFL website, although there is help and FAQ in the ‘Help and Contact’ page for every other TFL issue, there is nothing for technical problems.
The problems I repeatedly encounter are:
i. When I plan a journey and select the option to arrive at a certain time at my destination, if I need to make changes to that journey, when I select ‘update journey’, it automatically reverts back to the default position of ‘leaving’ and returns the incorrect results. I then have to edit the journey back to the ‘arrive’ position
ii. If I update ‘travel options & accessibility’ to go via a destination (in this circumstance Balham), when I first run the journey, journey planner has no problem recognising Balham. If after the results are returned, I want a later journey for some inexplicable reason it brings up a page saying that it found more than one location matching Balham (this is in addition to again changing the criteria from ‘arrive’ to ‘leave’)
I end up spending a considerable time getting more and more annoyed as I keep having to re-edit my journey to get some sensible results.
it would be really nice if price for the journey could be displayed, next to the results when I plan a journey on TFL website. I know there is a single far finder option tucked in somewhere in fare and payments!
In addition to the above, it ‘used to’ display in older version of the site!
I am not able to type a word in the destintion search fields at ALL. Keyboard goes crazy!
It does not work on Firefox browser on my phones.
Why is there no Firefox support?
Hi Paul, can you let me know what phone you have? Ideally also what version of Android is running on it? We’ve had some other reports of this but none that we’re able to reproduce yet.
I was not able to touch in due to a broken card reader in DLR-land.
But did touch out when leaving the line, at Bank.
However, even though the record shows ‘unknown touch in’ at the start of the journey, it does not come up in the “unterminated journeys” section of the website.
Hence I was not able to correctly set the journey start-point and instigate a refund for overcharging – I had to send an email instead.
This looks like an oversight ?
Why is it so difficult to download journey history, it takes ages to load the page and then you get this “Due to the current high demand for Journey History data” – (could we not get higher bandwidth or is it another cost cutting exercise) . It use to be much easier and quicker before the update.
As someone from out of town that really uses my Oyster cards I like to keep track of their usage after trips. I’ve tried for two days to get my journey history since the weekend and the website hangs or kicks me out.repeatedly. Even the my account page won’t hold the display of the card details long enough for me to click the journey history link!, this is a perfectic system for something that seems to randomly charge £20 but has not easy contact method when it behaves like this. Not had these problems in the past!.