London Tube tracking trial may make commuting less miserable The people in charge of the London Underground transport have released a report [PDF] in their month-long tracking trial of Tube users – and the results are fascinating. Transport for London (TfL) used Wi-Fi access points in 54 stations in central London in December last year to track nearly six million mobile phones, and …
I can recommend the 3rd party "Tube Assistant" app - although not sure if it can take advantage of live arrival information (if that's in any feed from TfL).
It's very good at telling you the different route options and how long each route *should* take, plus where to sit/stand to minimise your travel to the exits from he station.
No apps.
Do you really need a few million of the clueless looking head down inside some of those stations?
People will think "Signage, how quaint." But changing signs could cut 2 mins off the journey time of 1 million commuters is basically 3.8 years of journey time each day. Signage also keeps the visitor looking up, not down, so they're less likely to trip over someone.
Alternatively discouraging some of those 17 odd routes should stop squeezing some of the severely congested stations during the rush hour. I wonder if tfl realized just how massive a surge some of those stations were getting who were not entering or leaving, but just passing through?
This (in principle) is a microcosm of the concept of the "smart city." Using the passengers not to track them but as probes within the system and hence identify ways to improve the system.
I applaud the results, but I doubt many other trials will be conducted so scrupulously. :-( That's the problem. But for now thumbs up.
"Do you really need a few million of the clueless looking head down inside some of those stations?"
They're already looking at their phones, why not give them a nice easy sat-nav type app which tells them exactly where to walk. That way they can point different individuals in different directions, perhaps routing that tourist family on a slightly longer journey so they don't have to get mixed up with all the commuters.
"It may even be possible for TfL to update commuters in real time about a faster or less crowded route to their destination,"
I wonder whether that would suffer from oscillations. The less crowded route then becomes the most crowded one. That state being advertised then switches the load back to the first one.
Any app or signage would have to be selective about how many passengers it told about an updated route.
I have seen people take the tube from Warren Street to Goodge Street - I'm sure that the walking into/out of the stations is further than the distance between the stations.
The other one that gets me (now that I arrive at Euston) is the convoluted route to get to Euston Square - it's a short walk along Euston Road, or multiple changes on the tube, so which does TfL recommend?
"the convoluted route to get to Euston Square - it's a short walk along Euston Road"
Presumably you mean Euston Square tube station - Euston Square itself is just in front of Euston railway station. Euston Square tube station used to be called Gower Street which was appropriate because that's where the entrance is. When it was renamed Euston Square it really should have been provided with entrances & exits at the Euston end of the platform.
Back in the days when I commuted into Marylebone or Paddington to work very near Euston the route I'd take depended on the weather, something TfL should take into account. On wet days it would be the longer route via Oxford Circus on the Bakerloo & Northern lines to avoid as much walking outside as possible.
A pedestrian subway link to ES station from Euston itself would be nice in the wet weather.
And whilst we're about it, rather than the cavernous concourse at Euston, why not split the holding space for arrivals and departures on to two floors with ramps leading down to the platforms, so that arriving passengers aren't fighting their way through the massive crowds waiting for the 16:47 London Midland calling at all stops to pergatory and the queues for Burger King?
Oh crap, I've gone off on one of my 'why don't stations learn some of the good points from airports?' rants.
"Do the apps tell people they should walk instead?"
Yes. The TFL route finder will flag when a connection can be walked, but the problem is many of these walking connections count as tapping out and then tapping back in, so if you don't have a travelcard or aren't hitting the daily cap that's two journeys you'll be charged for. There are a small number of connections where tapping out at one station and tapping in at another won't be charged, but frankly unless you work for Londonist remembering where this is permitted is nigh on impossible.
Why people leave their phones to constantly search for wifi networks. Not only does it put quite a drain on your battery you're also exposing yourself to all sorts of possible nastiness.
Of course it's much more hip these days to place the blame on the people who didn't protect their wifi access point instead of the people who, in the end, basically tried to connect to it themselves (or by proxy of course).
> The system looks at which SSID's your device is trying to connect to
No, no, no - RTFReport:
"When a mobile device such as a smartphone or tablet has WiFi enabled, it will search for a WiFi network to connect to. This involves the device sending out a probing request that contains an identifier specific to that device, known as a Media Access Control (MAC) address. If a WiFi network is
found that is known to the device, it will automatically connect. If the device finds unknown networks, it lists these in the device settings so the user can decide which, if any, to connect to.
During the pilot, if a device was near one of the 1,070 WiFi access points in the designated area, and it had WiFi enabled, we would have collected the request(s) to connect, even if the device did not subsequently do so."
Every mobile with WiFi enabled transiting through TfL's system will be probing their APs, even if they don't register. This leaves a MAC address record in the AP, which is harvested with a timestamp. This happens in shopping malls and airports (at least) for footfall analysis and is a fairly standard feature in the boxes. TfL have merely put the information together from their many APs in a useful way.
Last year TfL held a hackathon and exposed a wide variety of data feeds to the entrants (traffic light timings, road status information, traffic queues, ...). For all their flaws, they're being quite good at attempting to find ways to embetter their service offering.
I believe iOS does a pretty good job of MAC address randomisation when not associated, Android is generally very poor.
According to this, MAC address randomisation on iOS is "useless" while there is no such thing as "Android". Depends on the vendor, but "generally very poor" is correct, where it exists at all.
"Why people leave their phones to constantly search for wifi networks. Not only does it put quite a drain on your battery you're also exposing yourself to all sorts of possible nastiness."
That was my first thought too on reading the article. It's no wonder so many get "battery anxiety". Since it's a phone with a data connection, I fail to see why having WiFi on would make a user think they might be missing out on something unless they have such a poor data plan they are prepared to sacrifice a level of security by allowing their phone to connect to any old WiFi WAP they happen to be near, It does seem to be the vast majority of people too.
"Because London Underground offer free, fast, reliable Wifi to pretty much everyone on the tube"
That'd be it. I have an unlimited data plan, so wifi isn't something I generally bother with. The tube network is one of the few places where I do switch it on.
"Because London Underground offer free, fast, reliable Wifi to pretty much everyone on the tube"
I have seen the ads for Virgin Media wifi and assumed that since I was not a VM customer I wouldn't get this.
Or at the very least I would have to register with them to get it.
Am I mistaken?
"Am I mistaken?"
Not entirely. You can access the "Virgin Media" WiFi if you've got a login for Virgin Media, EE, Vodafone, O2 or Three. The mobile operators alone account for something like 85% of the market, so there's a very good chance you've got access.
It is surprisingly fast and performant.
> Why people leave their phones to constantly search for wifi networks
Because it's a complete pain in the arse with the standard UI (at least on Android) to toggle GPS, cell data, or wifi, at least up to Marshmallow where they FINALLY put those in a settings dropdown.
I rooted my phone so I could write simple apps I could tap to do each.
Who gives a stuff. People know where I am because they can see me. If I had a reason to be hidden I wouldn't go out or I would change my appearance and my phone every time I did.
Do you seriously make sure you switch wifi off every time you leave the house / office / girlfriends house / local whose wifi you use / coffee shop whose wifi you use / train station whose wifi you use / airport whose wifi you use . . . . .
It would be like having to faff with my phone to switch bluetooth on every time I want to listen to music on my headphones. Who honestly really gives a shit whether people can see them walking around?
@Mark110 ..... "Do you seriously make sure you switch wifi off every time you leave the house / office / girlfriends house" ......
When leaving the girlfriends house.... yes, and swap SIMS, clear the text messages and phone logs, turn off the secondary email account, and wipe stored location data. Leaving anywhere else I don't bother.
AC for the same reason as the steps taken above.
"When leaving the girlfriends house.... yes, and swap SIMS, clear the text messages and phone logs, turn off the secondary email account, and wipe stored location data."
Methinks you'd have it easier to have a seperate phone for visiting your girlfriend
;)
"Do you seriously make sure you switch wifi off every time you leave the house / office / girlfriends house / local whose wifi you use / coffee shop whose wifi you use / train station whose wifi you use / airport whose wifi you use . . . . ."
Sometimes.
"It would be like having to faff with my phone to switch bluetooth on every time I want to listen to music on my headphones. Who honestly really gives a shit whether people can see them walking around?"
I always turn BT off when not in use. It's not a faff.
If you think this kind of thing is too much hassle I don't know how you deal with real life.
It's easier to leave WiFi on and have it autoconnect to known networks, than be constatly turning it off.
Perhaps the bigger problem is the high cost of data meaning WiFi is the preferred way to connect - would you like a 1GB tariff for £20 and use WiFi, or a 5GB tariff for £40 and save a few minutes of battery?
I charge my phone each night, I haven't turned WiFi off since I bought it in May, only when I've been doing really daft things like playing games or watching video all day does it not last until I climb the wooden hill to Bedfordshire. What you're saying may have been true 7 years ago, but I think the way idle WiFi is handled now seems much more battery-friendly.
"27 per cent used a completely different line and went through Green Park (to our mind the smartest route)."
Oxford Circus is one of the few Underground stations that has different tube lines on adjacent platforms. To change from the southbound Victoria line to the southbound Bakerloo, you just get off the train and walk 20 yards from one platform to the other. No steps, no escalators and little congestion. Takes about 20 seconds
To do the same at Green Park you have to go up stairs, through tunnels and down an escalator - takes about 5 mins and does congest the station.
Seems unsurprising that the wisdom of crowds over hundreds of thousands of journeys, correctly selects the 'smartest route'.
What is odd how many people actually do go via Green Park. The speed of the trains and the number of stops between start and end stations is usually far outweighed by the interchange time or how long it takes to get up and down from the platforms. Changing at Oxford Circus is therefore 5-10 mins quicker.
However the tube map makes it look like they ought to be about the same distance only with fewer stops via Green Park, so going on the map alone, Green Park perhaps feels like it ought to be faster.
If I can I avoid changing lines at Green Park. There is far too much walking to do.
Oxford Circus is an interchange I use a lot (B to V lines generally) but I find that the signage in the station absolutely awful when using the Central line (or trying to get out).
For me (I don't go into the city very much so I'm not counting those stations) the worst pinch point is the tunnel from the Paddington station side ticket hall to the D&C platforms - particularly the westbound platform. When the Heathrow Express was planned they should have given some thought to the plight of foreign visitors with all their luggage struggling up a (invariably blocked) narrow staircase and then down another.
It will only get worse once Crossrail is runnung.
Actually Crossrail could make it *easier*, certainly for those who have to use the Jubilee, Bakerloo, Central, Northern and the southern half of the Circle and District lines, mostly because you can get to those lines by staying on the Liz Line to Bond Street (Jubilee, Central), Tottenham Court Road (Northen, Central), Farringdon and Liverpool Street stations. The speed on the Liz should make transfers easier than sitting on the Tube.
If you have to change at Green Park it's quicker to go up to the booking hall and back down again than to follow the signs through the labyrinth.
If you need to change from the Northern line southbound at Euston to Victoria Line do it on the City branch as it's only 50 metres at most - no stairs or anything.
UK public body gets it right for once. I am amazed that they got someone in who knows about ICO guidelines and data security.
Equally creditable was that there was someone in house who knew that would be a smart move and who managed to convince others of the fact.
Equally creditable was that there was someone in house who knew that would be a smart move and who managed to convince others of the fact.
Absolutely. I hold most public sector organisations in very low regard, but TfL are being very innovative, and have done some brilliant tech stuff, like Oyster, like extending the Oyster functionality to any contactless payment cards and devices, like driverless operation on the DLR. I recall they also did a trial to see if they could reduce congestion by stopping people walking up the escalators (which it did, but changing people's habits is seen as too difficult).
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