WATCH / FIELD GUIDE

Reading London.

Why the light towers glow

These are transport disruption beacons. They make problems on the network visible above the city.

Amber — minor disruption.
Red — severe disruption, including some closures or suspensions.

The affected line pulses too. Beacons mark stations TfL lists as affected. If TfL provides no station list, they mark selected stations along that line; they do not identify an exact incident location.

Choose a line in Lines or Search to read the status and reason. Preview a disruption in City pulse simulates a Central line problem; Clear preview restores the reported status. Preview lights are not a live alert.

Pillar height and pulse size adjust with zoom for visibility. They do not measure delay minutes, passenger numbers or danger.

Find your way

Drag to pan, right-drag to orbit, and scroll or pinch to zoom. Use Search or the Area menu to jump across London. Select a station, train, landmark or aircraft for details. Cinematic tours the landmarks.

Switch on a layer

Buses reveals stops and available vehicle estimates; Bikes shows Santander docks and availability. Cameras opens available TfL traffic images, and Roads reveals disruptions. Rain adds rainfall and a time slider; Air shows air-quality haze and particles.

Listen and watch the light

Listen turns arrivals into notes: each line has its own instrument, western stations play lower notes, and eastern stations play higher ones. Disrupted lines change the harmony; the Thames hum follows the tide.

Real sun / Day / Night controls the lighting. Ordinary landmark lights brighten at night. The small embankment lamps shift from green toward amber as grid-carbon intensity increases—these are separate from disruption towers.

Live, modelled, or unavailable?

Live means a remote feed loaded; Sim means a model or fallback; No data means that feed is unavailable. Train and bus positions are estimates from arrivals, not exact GPS locations. Buildings and some movements are stylised. Weather and air-quality feeds include model estimates.

The Tide panel combines gauge readings, when available, with a fitted tide model. Check the source labels rather than assuming every moving object is live.

Make space for the city

Use each panel’s − control to hide it and its named chip to bring it back. Hide panels or H toggles the city instruments. Close this guide with ×, Escape, or the Legend tab above.

If 3D graphics are unavailable, a simpler 2D network view offers station search, line status and departure boards. The full city controls require WebGL.