London Underground geographic maps

A series of geographic maps of the London Underground in the LU house-style have been made by ed g2s • talk and James F.. These images are based solely on GPS data, which is in the public domain, and they are available under the GFDL.

Creation process

A PHP script processes the line definitions to create list of stations on the line, calculates coordinates of the control points for bézier curve, and then outputs the graphic as an SVG file. The SVG files are then fine tuned in an SVG editor (text placement, mostly) and rendered as PNGs.

more detail to come

Resultant maps

Category:London Underground lines

Individual lines

• 
  Bakerloo (SVG)
• 
  Central (SVG)
• 
  Circle (SVG)
• 
  District (SVG)
• 
  Docklands Light Railway Incomplete, excludes Woolwich Extension (SVG)
• 
  East London (SVG)
• 
  Hammersmith & City (SVG)
• 
  Jubilee (SVG)
• 
  Metropolitan (SVG)
• 
  Northern (SVG)
• 
  Piccadilly (SVG)
• 
  Victoria (SVG)
• 
  Waterloo & City (SVG)

Overall maps

• 
  Full map (SVG)
• 
  Zone 1
• 
  Zone 1 (outdated. SVG)
• 
  Zone 2 (SVG)

Derivatives

Category:London Underground map derivatives

• 
  7 July 2005 London bombings (SVG)
• 
  21 July 2005 London bombings (SVG)
• 
  Northern Line Explosions and Shooting (SVG)
• 
  Zone 1 with street map

Inner London Tube Map also showing Overground, Thameslink, DLR and Northern line extension as well as National Rail stations throughout Zone 1 and 2.

To do

Bakerloo

• Extend to Watford Junction (when the planned extension occurs at currently unspecified date)

Metropolitan

• Add Croxley link to Watford Junction if it opens

Circle

• Extend to Hammersmith al la Hammersmith & City Line

Northern

• Create map including the abandoned extensions from the New Works Programme and Sutton extension.
• Presumably Mornington Crescent is on the Charing Cross branch (Left-hand branch) of the line, rather than the Bank branch (Right-hand branch) as the map suggests? See talk page.

Other lines

• London Overground (en:Northern City Line, en:North London Line, ...) and lines-to-be (en:Crossrail, ...)
• Non-LU mid-London lines (Thameslink, ...)
• Remove East London Line for 2008; re-add with extension, without Shoreditch, in 2009. Not necessary

General design

• Integrate with Google Maps Will entail copyright issues so OpenStreetMap (open source) would be better
• Suggest adding M25 to "London Underground Full map" to improve context. Also to demonstrate inherent northernwards bias of tube line distribution.
• Add mid-station control points - i.e. the Piccadilly line should bend sharply twice between Knightsbridge and South Kensington, the Jubilee line takes a significant eastward curve between Baker Street and Bond Street, and the Northern and Bakerloo lines don't actually share track as they cross the river. The 'find location' map browser of the journey planner on the TfL website shows the underground line routes as dotted lines (http://journeyplanner.tfl.gov.uk/)
• Put station markers where the platforms are rather than the surface entrances? There are big differences for some stations. The maps could show platform locations, with little blobs-on-sticks showing the associated entrance(s).
• Perhaps include closed lines in overall map, represented by semi-transparent lines.
• Include distances.

Templates

• Template:London Underground geographic map
• Template:London Underground geographic map derivative

Planned changes

2008:

• Piccadilly line: Heathrow Terminal 5 extension.
• Hammersmith & City line: new station at Wood Lane and Shepherd's Bush re-named to Shepherd's Bush Market.

2009:

• DLR: Woolwich Arsenal extension
• Circle line: line extended onto the Hammersmith & City line

2010:

• East London line/London Overground extension to Dalston Junction, Crystal Palace and West Croydon.
• DLR: Stratford International extension

2011:

• London Overground northern extension from Dalston Junction to Highbury & Islington.

2012:

• London Overground western extension from Surrey Quays to Clapham Junction

Source data

The source data is available as an SQL dump, as a CSV file, and as readable HTML tables.

Source code

Here is the script used to generate the rough maps. It generates Bezier curves that smoothly fit the points, and station markers on both sides (when not a dot), so each map will require a manual clean-up.

External links

• PD tube stations GPS data from Open Street Map
• Inner London Tube Map also showing Overground, DLR and Northern line extensions and National Rail stations in Zone 1-2.