Someone I know wants to go tomorrow (Sunday) from Luton Airport Parkway
station to Deptford. Trains to Deptford go from Cannon Street calling
at London Bridge. So this is a pretty simple journey, really, and there
seem to be three reasonable routes:

(1) LTN to West Hampstead, then Jubilee line to London Bridge.

(2) LTN to St. Pancras, then Northern Line to London Bridge.

(3) LTN to Blackfriars, then Circle/District line to Cannon Street.

Without checking lots of timetables I was not sure which would be
fastest, so I thought I would try the two main online journey planners.

The National Rail planner suggested (for a return journey) using a
Super-off-peak Zone 1-6 London One-day Travelcard [such a snappy name]
so I selected that. But its suggestions for nearly all departure times
were to go to Blackfriars and then take a 20-minute *walk* to London
Bridge, which is ridiculous, especially for anyone who might have
luggage. For one departure time out of half-a-dozen it suggested
"TRANSFER" to Cannon Street (without actually mentioning how to do the
transfer, i.e. using terms like "tube" or "Circle Line" or anything).
But it helpfully pointed out that most tickets would include
cross-London travel. Two objections here (1) I think *all* tickets from
LTN to Deptford would include cross-London travel, and (2) I had already
selected the use of a Travelcard which indisputably would include it.
I could not find an option that would prompt it to take me via
St.Pancras or West Hampstead and then take a tube. Naive users might
easily conclude that walking along the Thames for 20 minutes was
generally the fastest route, which I simply do not believe. If this had
been sensible it would also be useful to suggest leaving Blackfriars by
the southern exits, but it failed to do that, so naive users might
easily cross the river twice.

The TfL journey planner was extremely slow this morning, I have no idea
why. I had made the mistake of entering the starting point as "London
Luton Airport Parkway" which I thought was its not-very obvious required
description. But it said there were several matching departure points
and then listed all of them, though there turned out only to be one (so
why didn't it select it?). So I had to waste more timing clicking on
"London, Luton Airport Parkway". See the difference there - a comma in
an pointless position - such top-quality programming!

Then its suggestions for all departure times were to change at West
Hampstead and use the Jubilee Line to get to London Bridge. From
detailed study of timetables I think this might sometimes be the fastest
route, but not if you can get an EMT train to St.Pancras which takes
around 20 minutes, when the Northern Line route would be faster, as the
long walk through St.Pancras is not much longer than the walk at West
Hampstead between stations. However for anyone with luggage or say
difficulties with long sets of steps the West Hampstead transfer, which
also involves crossing two main roads, would be much less pleasant. But
I could not find a way to get a change at St.Pancras or at Blackfriars
suggested no matter what the departure time was or what options I chose.

So for this rather simple cross-London journey both main journey
planners failed badly, in my opinion. None of them gave any indication
of alternative routes that might be nearly as fast, or that one might
take in case of travel disruptions. Long experience has taught me to
make a note of all options, since travel disruptions are so frequent.
And none of the planners gave me any indication of which section of
London Bridge to use, useful information in this complex station.

I appreciate that journey planning is a complex job, but it seems to me
that the current examples do a rather poor job even in fairly simple
cases. Does anyone know of any better journey planners out there?


--
Clive Page