London Transportation : Tubes & Buses

London transport. Okay guys to get around London you’ve got heaps of choice and it’s actually quite easy. London isn’t that big even though people think it is. You’ve got the underground. You’ve got London buses. Otherwise everyone walks when it’s not raining or freezing or cabbits.

Okay now the first thing you’re going to do is hit the London underground. Get off your plane at Heathrow. London underground is going to bring you into town so I’m going to go ahead and explain the tube map and just how easy it is to get around London.

Alright for the fundamentals of catching a tube. Obviously you need a destination. You need to know what color line you’re getting on to go to your destination. A few hot tips. London is divided into zones, which is going to apply to your ticketing. So one being the center and most expensive and zone six where you come from meaning Heathrow. So London is divided into north, south, east and west and your trains go northbound, southbound, eastbound, or westbound. Now this is what you need to know to catch your train in the right direction to the right destination. That’s why knowing your destination is definitely a helping point in where you’re catching the tube.

Okay there’s some tube etiquette that you need to know before you get on the tube. Fist of all, no one talks unless you’re Australian, South African or New Zealand. Make sure you let people get off before you get on otherwise you’ll get bowled over and if you can get a seat, very good thing.

Tickets for the tube. Guys it’s not really that hard to understand. Now you’ll first be coming in from Heathrow so just grab a single fare into zone 1. Now once you’re in zone 1, you’ll probably want to check out London. The best thing you can do is grab a day pass. Now this is one fare and it cover zone 1 and zone 2 and you can go on any tube at any time of the day, anywhere as long as it’s in those two zones. Now if you’re traveling anywhere else or you are traveling frequently, best thing you can do is grab an oyster card. You can top up with just any amount that you want or you can get your weekly travel passes on here or your monthly or your yearly but a weekly is probably going to cover you because that does zone 1 and zone 2 and that’s probably where you’ll be working.

So I’ve just explained ticketing and I told you to go and get an oyster card and top up but what is an oyster card. Well according to the TFL, transport for London, it is London’s travelers smart card. So basically it is a reusable ticket that you can top up with any amount that you want. So where do you get these oyster cards? There’s a few ways. You can grab an oyster card at a tube stop and you just have to pay a deposit of 3 pounds for the actual card. You get that back when you hand in your oyster card or you can go online to www.tfl.gov.uk and just go into the oyster card section there and you can actually buy one on-line and register it in case it ever gets stolen with the transport of London. So how do you top up the infamous oyster card? It’s really easy. Just go to any tube stop and they have what’s called a recharge machine where you can swipe your oyster card and top up with any amount that you want.

So let’s give you an example of how to top up with a weekly on your oyster card. Go to the ticket machine. Make sure you swipe your oyster card on the big yellow button. It’s going to ask you to buy or renew a ticket. Once you’ve punched that button in it’s going to get you to choose your weekly, your 7 day travel card, then it’s going to ask you what zones you’re going to be traveling in with that 7 day weekly, probably 1 and 2 if you’re having a look around for jobs or just sightseeing. So once you’ve chosen your zone, it’s going to ask you for payment. Then you can pay with any bankcard, sol card, switch card or MasterCard and you can pay with cash. So once you’ve done that make sure you re-swipe your oyster card. That will top up what it is you just paid and you’ll have your 7 day weekly. It’s really that simple and if you don’t know just ask one of the friendly TFL staff that are on hand at any point in time.

Now if you don’t want to grab an oyster card, don’t worry, you can still get a day pass for the best values in money. You can travel in zone 1 and 2 or zone 3, 4, 5, and 6 whichever you choose all day up until about 4:30 am. So to grab a day card you can also go to these big recharge machines because they’re ticketing machines as well and it’s really easy. Just make sure you choose what language you want the display in. Then select day travel pass, select the zones you want to travel in, it’s going to tell you the price and you can pay with cash or bankcard. Just the same as you can if you’re topping up your oyster card and it’ll give you a ticket.

Okay so you think the tubes are too expensive and you don’t want to get stuck on a hot carriage or you just want to see a little bit of London and get your bearings, the buses are the best way to do that. Now they are a lot cheaper than the tubes, they get you to your destination, the only thing is the system over here to catch a bus is so confusing compared to home so I’m going to try and talk you through it so you can actually get on a bus and save yourself some money and see a bit of London. Okay so this is the dreaded bus map. Now to catch a bus there are a few fundamentals. You need the destination obviously. You need to find out what your bus number is. You need to find our where your bus stop is and you need to find out what direction your bus is going. Now to do this you refer to your destination finder. So your destination you’re going to find listed in alphabetical order on your destination finder. So let’s take a look. F for Fulham. On the destination finder you will also find the information for your bus number and the letter of the bus stop your bus number will be going from. Alright so you’ve got the letter of your bus stop. Refer to the bus map. This tells you in which situation on the street your bus letter E. Go to your bus letter and that’s where you’re going to catch your bus from.

Alright for the confusing bit if you didn’t think this was confusing enough is which direction is your bus headed in? Now I’m going to go show you a little hot tip that everyone should know before they even land here to get on the right bus going in the right direction. And here is the big secret in how to catch a bus in the right direction. Now these signs are on every sign post at every bus stop, mostly around the city. What you need to look for is this tiny little line that has arrows on it. If the arrows are pointing the way you want to go, then you are on the right side of the street. Also you need to look out for the black bits because that is where the bus is going to go. If it isn’t black then that means the bus has already been there. So if you want to go to a stop that is in the clear section, that means you have to get on the other side of the road with arrows pointing that way.