Tourists do a few things that irritate on tubes, one they talk, two they get off and just stand in front of the doorway looking left and right, three they stand on both sides of the esculator, four don't have their tickets ready at the gate, five spend forever and eternity at the ticket machines, other than that you wouldn't know they were there.

La Senora and I were once on a tube platform, might have been at The Angel, and a young couple with South East accents asked if we knew how to get to the Oxo Tower.
I was able to give them exact directions by tube and street, for which they thanked me.
The young chap must have clocked my slight Northern accent because he then asked me "You here for the weekend then?".
It was only later that I thought how odd that was.

Oh trust me, it's not just tourists that do those things.

Let's say you went on the tube 5 days a week, twice a day. Call it 500 trips a year. Let's say on average you encountered 1,000 other passengers a trip, which is probably highly conservative. That would be getting on for a million people, in round figures.

Unless you followed them all from start to finish, and asked each of them how easily they found their way around the system, then you couldn't know, by looking at them, how easily they were finding their way around the system. And that is even ignoring the fact that the vast majority of people you would see would be regular commuters, and so irrelevant to the issue.

I am assuming that you did not do this. So, yes, I "know" you "witnessed" no such thing as you claimed. It was a silly claim that you hadn't thought through. You have no data to go on to make any judgment how hard or easy anybody you failed to question had found their journey. Maybe 99% of them you observed either sat or stood in a tube, or moving along corridors or using escalators. Does a person who is finding a journey not straightforward look different going up an escalator than anyone else?
And most cases you "observed" in passing were not relevant anyway.


... but nobody was arguing the map is "useless".

... BG is regularly to be found blocking the doors while spitting and cursing at his tube map

Exactly what I was going to say.

In terms of London (and increasingly, other places) if you want an app – Hailo for cabs is highly recommended.

First, what behaviour? What is it about a person stood next to you on a platform, or in a train, that validly would allow you to claim that "[iI have seen at first hand how easy this person finds their way round the system[/i"

Second, we started off addressing not how the great majority of seasoned tube travellers make their progress ( and of course NONE of them ever use a map simply cos they know where they are going) but rather the case of a person who is unfamiliar with the system.

Are you saying that BG, or anyone, really has noticed a statistically significant number of people KNOWN to be unfamiliar with the system, and also KNOWN to be finding their way easy around it? I really want to know (a) how you decide, without asking them, whether this "number" do or do not fall within the relevant category, and (b) how you decide, without asking them, whether they are finding their way easy around the system.

No lets not, you don't have the first idea where I went what I saw and what I was doing, you are making assumptions from a handful of trips to London and what you have gleaned from other places.

You are blustering and muddying the water again, same as you always do when someone challenges you

The difference between a seasoned Tube rider and a novice, is the seasoned person look at the big map in the station and goes, (this example i'll use my station at High barnet) in their head they'll say "Straight down to kings x, change to Met Line up to Finchley Road"

You plan before in your head, work out your interchanges and just do it, then you stare at the line map on the wall of the train 'occasionally' until you get your station, and then look for the maroon arrows.

The newbie doesn't, they pick their map up at the station, scan it, look over it, over and over again, jump on at platform 3 because the train is there even though 1&2 leave first, they sit there going over the map again, get going, stare at the line map on the carriage, station by station counting them down. Off they get left and right not knowing which way to go, then just follow the exit sign or speak to station staff asking the way, finally get to the Met line, ask people if they are going in the right direction, accidentally get on a circle line train, get off at Baker St, change on the right train, count down the stations again on the line map.

In short, you can usually spot them a mile off

A young gentleman asked an older more experienced chap how to go about taking his present beau up The Oxo Tower.



And this was your answer?

I was surprised about the conversation. I know where the Oxo Tower is roughly, but I wouldn't be able to offer any suggestions how to get their by tube.

I guess my absolute rubbishness at giving suggestions, and the way he was able to give them perfectly surprised me slightly.

But not for one second did it go through my mind what you are suggesting. I cried laughing at that.