Transport for LondonCustomer information
Skip to navigationTravel Information Centres continue to provide passengers and potential passengers with impartial advice about every aspect of travelling around London.
In 2003/04, new Travel Information Centres opened in Twickenham and at Heathrow Airport. The Travel Information Call Centre saw a significant increase in demand for information with nearly four million calls received in total, a 73 per cent increase compared to 2002/03. Service quality also improved, with a 60 per cent decrease in the average time to answer a call, and a 21.6 per cent decrease in the number of calls abandoned.
The responsibility of managing one of the world's largest integrated transport authorities means that the role of our website is unique. TfL has to ensure that visitors to the site receive an integrated travel information service that balances the needs of various customers.
Now visitors to the site can get not only real-time traffic and travel information, pay the congestion charge and look up cycle or walking routes in their neighbourhood, but also find out about consultations, download interactive maps or view live traffic cameras. With overseas visitors accounting for 24 per cent of TfL's website traffic, all travel information, including the purchase of a range of tickets, has to be readily available online to visitors accessing the site from outside the UK.
In March 2004, more than 4.5 million pages were viewed by almost 0.5 million unique visitors to the TfL website (excluding the Tube and Journey Planner).
During the month, 400,000 maps, leaflets and documents were downloaded from the website and there were more than 560,000 visits to TfL's Journey Planner service, which uses information from across all modes of travel to create detailed journey plans for customers.
To make it easier to access information on the move, Journey Planner has been rolled out to 500 BT internet kiosks located onstreet and at Tube and major rail stations. Furthermore, a number of mobile travel information services, including Travelalerts, the TfL WAP site and WAP/SMS derivatives of Journey Planner have all been made available via mobile phones. Drivers in central London can also use BT internet kiosks or SMS to pay for the congestion charge as well as the more traditional methods such as by post, over the phone or online.
An innovative agreement with mobile phone operator Orange means that Orange mobile phone users can now use their Wap-enabled phones to access TfL's online service via the "Orange World" portal rather than navigating to the TfL website. The agreement with Orange is non-exclusive which leaves TfL free to establish partnerships with other mobile phone operators over the coming year. As more people get mobile, it is hoped that this and other agreements will improve the delivery of timely and accurate travel information to travellers in London on the move.
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