Making Sense of Tube Statistics - London Transport Museum Infographic Posters

Some wonderful posters go on display at London Transport Museum from Friday 6th January 2012 as part of their Sense & The City exhibition. In a display called Painting by Numbers it's interesting to see how "infographics" were used in the 1920's and 1930's as "propaganda to tell the public about the excellence of the public transport services being provided". Perhaps something that TfL could currently learn from, as we face New Year's fare increases.


The poster above "What It Takes to Move the Passengers - Problems of the Underground" by Irene Fawkes, reminded passengers about the resources needed to make their journey.

London Transport Musuem said "Often thought of as a 21st century phenomenon, data visualisation – the presentation of information abstracted into a visual form – has been in use since the 2nd century when Egyptian people used tables to organise astronomical information. It was not until the 1920s that the importance and power of data visualisation for examining and making sense of data and information became more widely used".


20 posters will be on display including work by Hans Schleger, Misha Black & David Langdon, Theyre Lee-Elliott, and James Fitton.  You can also buy reproductions of some of the posters online.  I really love the one above by Charles Shepard.  


Passengers in 1938 were just as concerned by fare increases as we are today and "What happens to every £1 of your fares, by Zero (Hans Schleger)", was an attempt to justify those increases.

The poster display complements the Museum’s current temporary exhibition Sense and the City: smart, connected and on the move which explores how emerging technologies are transforming the way we live, work and play in our cities. "As well as looking at modern day and future data visualisation, it poses questions about mobility, society and work in the Capital over the next decade, and compares this with past visions of the future. The exhibition closes on 18 March 2012".

I'll be popping along the Museum over the weekend to see the rest of the posters of this new "Painting by Numbers" collection as I'm intrigued to see which others are included.

Tickets for London Transport Museum are Adults £13:50; Concessions £10 give you  unlimited admission to the museum for a 12 month period from date of purchase (probably worth the ticket price alone to see the Sinclair C5 in the flesh too).

Update - I went along on Sunday 8th January and it was good to see the posters in the flesh. Of the ones that haven't been published online, I really liked this section of a 1920's poster of two characters called Zip & Pep who were also trying to explain why fares were increased.


John Citizen is also fairly exasperated on other parts of this poster as Zip & Pep "helpfullly" point out why the fares are good value for money.

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Slow Tube Ticket Machine Upgrades & why we Love Queuing

Frustrated reader Julie S sent me a picture referring to the ticket machines waiting to be upgraded at Piccadilly Circus London Underground. She said "There were long queues at the machines that were working, though bizarrely no queue for the ticket window served by an actual person. Any idea why this will take almost TWO weeks to upgrade 13 ticket machines? Are they building them from scratch?"


I agree and since TfL have known about the price increases for months, why is it so hard to program the new prices in from the start?

Also it's a bit weird how we've become so used (or trained) to using machines rather than going to a window with real people.


Are we just getting used to the fact that there will soon be so few ticket office staff, that we're getting into practise for the day that happens?

Is it the British fascination or love of queuing that means when we see a queue we feel duty bound to join it, even though there may be faster options around a corner?

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New Year Fares Rise leads to Mayoral Leafleting

New Year, New Fares, New leafleting campaign from Ken Livingstone.


Joel Taylor took the above picture and said "Ken Livingstone's people out leafleting today, taking advantage of commuters' dismay at fare rises".

At least Ken's quick off the mark. Expect to see more leafleting wars this year when the mayoral election campaign begins in earnest.

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Going Underground's Most Visited Posts in 2011

I've been blogging for nine years. 2012 sees this blog going into its tenth year, which surprises me as much as anyone else. So, here's my second year of looking at which blog posts received the most views.

Yet again posts on Max Roberts' great curvy Tube map from previous years made it into the top 10 - his original post from June 2007 and a post where he revisited the map in February 2008.


If I take those posts out, here are the most visited posts, written in 2011, in reverse order.

10. Guess Where Tube 13 - Tube Mouse - Win a copy of Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere

With big thanks to Neil Gaiman for Tweeting & ReTweeting about this, my end of year "Guess Where Tube" post, where I asked people to guess where the picture of this Tube mouse was taken, got into the top 10 (which isn't bad for something I only wrote in December - shows the power of a celebrity Tweet & ReTweet - Neil has over 1.6 million followers on Twitter). Amazingly, after all the traffic and guesses, no one got the answer right. It was Holborn!


9. Bob, Angel Tube Cat, gets Book Deal

It's my favourite Tube story of last year and got a lot of publicity from sites like Catster sort of like Facebook for cats. His book is published in March this year, look out for some posts on that.

8. Old Tube Stations could be re-opened


My interview with Ajit Chambers about his plans to re-open disused London Underground Stations.  It was one of the first longer interviews with Ajit about his plans. Lots of people Tweeted about it and consequently it got publicity in the wider press, becoming a hugely popular topic which the vast majority of people would like to see realised. Look out for more on Ajit's meetings with TfL and the Mayor this coming year.

7. Old Street Tube in Whiteboard Message Wars

Old Street Tube enter the "battle" between Tube stations to  see who has the best messages on white boards.  Old Street gave up pretty quickly, so Angel Tube, Caledonian Road, Warwick Avenue, Oval & Shoreditch London Overground can carry on knowing that it was probably just a bit too popularist for a hip station like Old Street to continue.

6. Do Not try to Smoke on the Tube

A cautionary & grisly tale about someone who was smoking on the Tube.  A London Undergrond passenger was decapitated when he fell while standing between two carriages trying to have a cigarette.

5. London Underground Map for 2015 and 2019

TfL do some star gazing and attempt to show us London's Tube & Rail Network Map for 2015 and 2019.

4. Limited edition Royal Wedding Oyster cards


As much as we would have liked the Royal Wedding Oyster card to have looked like the above mock up, it didn't.

3. Next planned Tube Strike - June 2011

Sadly Tube Strikes or the threat of them dominate my top three - largely due to a shedload of people searching for news of them. My post on a late June Tube strike was third most visited.

2. Tube Strikes Dates Announced for May and June

My post announcing the May & June Tube strikes


1. Tube Strike Dates Announced for June and July

After all of the air time & strike action in June, the strikes for July were called off.

That's it. Thanks to all the comments, tweets, follows & ReTweets over the year. Thanks to everyone who keeps visiting the blog and has been doing so for the last nine years. And a special thanks to all those who send me fun (and not so fun) London Underground stories, pictures, mash-ups, app news and videos. Please keep them coming. Here's hoping that 2012 will bring as many varied Tube stories. I imagine that posts on the Tube related to the Olympics and the Mayoral elections will feature strongly in the coming year.

Thoughts of Angel Happy New Year Messages

Didn't have to use the Tube over the New Year but good to see that the guys and gals at Angel London Underground station decided to open up their whiteboard to everyone travelling through the station, where Thought of the Day was changed to New Year Wishes


The board was a lot more successful than the staff thought it would be with people sometimes queuing up to write messages.



Here's a few photos and you can see the rest at Thoughts of Angel's site


Look seeing to more of their own thoughts throughout 2012 and you can follow @ThoughtsofAngel on Twitter for their daily message.

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