Will NYC subway have as much CCTV as the Tube?

Today Boris Johnson is showing Mayor Bloomberg from New York City round the London Underground in an effort to display how he's tackling crime.


No urinating on the Tube photo by futureshape
Apparently Bloomberg "is particularly interested in London's use of CCTV" and more so in the 12,000 cameras on the Tube (which will soon be rising to 14,000).

The Mayor's office said "This will ultimately mean that no one will be able to enter the Underground network without their face being recorded by CCTV - a development which has aroused considerable interest in New York."

I'm all for safety on the Tube, but I'm not sure how Boris is able to balance this with the Conservative party's election manifesto. One of the points states that it will be "curtailing the surveillance powers that allow some councils to use anti-terrorism laws to spy on people making trivial mistakes or minor breaches of the rules".

Video surveillance to tackle real crime is great. But low level nuisance like people having a wee in Tube corridors - is that really an offence for the police? Will that be extended to people who are sick in Tube passageways too?

A month or so ago I had lunch with Chief Inspector Paul Wilson who runs Neighbourhood Policing for the British Transport Police. It's possible to see what crime levels are like at individual London Underground stations.

He stressed to me that it's possible to report low level crime and nuisances on the Tube, such as unruly kids, rowdy drunks and the like to their local Neighbourhood Policing Teams. This seems more sensible to me than putting up a CCTV camera with the aim to catch someone urinating!

Anyway, Chief Inspector Wilson would be very keen to hear your views of crime on the Tube. Do you have any specific questions for him? Did you know about the Neighbourhood Policing System? Have you ever reported a crime on the Tube? Do you feel we have another police visibly patrolling stations, What do you think of the levels of CCTV on the network?

Tube Strike Threat as PPP ends

It didn't take long for the RMT to start talking about London Underground strikes as Public Private Partnership (PPP) was brought to an end on Friday. Transport for London, bought out the shareholders of contractor Tube Lines for 310 million pounds, ending the much maligned public-private partnership.


You would think that Bob Crow would be happy that the Tube was now (or at least from June) back in state control. But no! He fears that a number of maintenance jobs could be at risk and said:

"We still want concrete assurances on jobs and conditions and we are preparing to ballot our members for industrial action."

So on the one hand it's a "a welcome development and would kill off the privatisation disaster on the tube once and for all." according to his comments on Friday. Yet on the other a perfect excuse to go on strike.

In a press statement just released he said "We have made it clear again today that unless we get assurances that staff will not be expected to pay the price for the collapse of Tube Lines and the last knockings of the failed tube privatisation experiment we will push on with plans for action and our ballot of members will go ahead."

Shouldn't there at least be a chance for the ink to dry on Friday's announcement, before Crow rushes in all gun ho with a ballot for a strike?

Brown & Cameron Tube Pole Dancing

What would you do if you saw two girls dressed as Gordon Brown & David Cameron pole dancing on the London Underground? Nothing much. In typical Tube style, the commuters in the video seem pretty non plussed.


Maybe if Cameron & Brown actually travelled on the Tube, there'd be more eyebrows raised.

Thanks to @Bash for finding the video and to @Utku who was one of the bewildered people in the Tube while it was going on.

Oyster Card Error Messages

There seemed to be a malfunction with the Oyster Card reader at my London Underground station this morning. I have an annual Oyster Card, so the strange reading didn't bother me, but I wonder what happened to others with Pre Pay on going through the gate. Would they have got a free journey? Would have been charged several times? Would they have a problem making a return journey?


This led me to wonder whether there was listing of Oyster Card codes and whether it was worth knowing what they meant.

Naturally, someone (@markylon) has come up with a listing of Oyster Card codes that looks pretty comprehensive. There's almost a hundred codes covering a variety of things that can happen when you pass through the gates at a Tube station.

Some of my favourites are "82 - Illogical use of ticket" - the mind boggles as to what that would be. "33 - Illogical interchange through gates", also got the person who published the listing thinking. But he elaborated. An illogical journey is not taking the Tube from Covent Garden to Leicester Square (why would you want to do that?), but "is when, say you exit through Monument station and re-enter at Tower Hill"!!!!

There are also error message 61 - 63 which are for spending too long at an interchange, on a journey and on a platform. Just how long is too long to spend at a station? How many hours? What if you'd had a long day & fell asleep?

Error message 41 was also puzzling. "Zig Zag through gates". Does this mean something like going through and then immediately coming back through the same gate? Would you even have long enough to do this before the barrier closed behind you?

If you know of any other messages which are not on the list, let us know. Or if you can think of any activities or behaviour such as "Taking too long to go through gates" or "Trying to take a huge amount of luggage through the standard gates", of which there should be error codes for.

Tube Pic of the Week - Red Bull

A case where Red Bull doesn't give you wings. Kate R spotted a sleepy London Underground commuter, trying but failing to stay awake with the assistance of a can of Red Bull.


She said "It was almost like an ad for Red Bull in that he was holding it perfectly upright with the logo facing out."

Kate didn't stay on the Tube long enough to see where he got off, but wouldn't be surprised if he'd missed his stop.

One of my most embarrassing Tube sleeps was waking up just as I pulled into my station, but then stupidly standing on the wrong side of the train waiting for the doors to open. I've seen a number of other people do this, so know that I'm not alone in this disorientation. However, a sleepy woman in Zurich managed to delay a number of trains in her dozy state. She leapt off her train after falling asleep and jumped off before it had pulled into the station.

She said "I didn’t notice we weren’t in the station because I’d been napping. I thought it was a long drop down."