How to ride public transportation in London

London’s public transportation network is enormous — the Tube, buses, an overground rail network, a driverless light railway, and more — but it’s built around one simple idea: tap a card or your phone, and the system works out the cheapest fare for you. There’s no need to figure out zones or ticket types before you travel.

The basics

Transport for London (TfL) runs almost everything you’ll use day to day:

• The Tube — the London Underground, 11 lines identified by name and colour (Central, Circle, District, Bakerloo, Northern, Piccadilly, Victoria, Jubilee, Metropolitan, Hammersmith & City, and Waterloo & City), the backbone of the network.
• The Elizabeth line — a fast, modern cross-London railway (built as Crossrail) running from Heathrow and Reading in the west through central London out to Essex in the east.
• London Overground — orbital and suburban rail routes around the city, split into six named lines: Liberty, Lioness, Mildmay, Suffragette, Weaver, and Windrush.
• DLR (Docklands Light Railway) — driverless light rail serving Canary Wharf, Greenwich, and London City Airport.
• Buses — the famous red double-deckers, covering nearly every street.
• Trams — in south London, around Croydon.
• River buses and the IFS Cloud Cable Car — a Thames ferry service and a cable car over the river near the O2 Arena.

On top of this, National Rail companies (Southern, Thameslink, Great Northern, Greater Anglia, South Western Railway, and others) run mainline trains through Greater London — and the same contactless/Oyster pay-as-you-go fares work on their services within London’s zones too.

How to pay

You don’t need to buy a ticket before you travel. Just tap and go:

1. Contactless bank card or phone/watch (Apple Pay, Google Pay, and others) — tap the yellow reader at the start of your journey and again at the end (touch in only on buses and trams). Most non-UK cards work, though your bank may charge an overseas transaction fee.
2. Oyster card — a rechargeable smartcard, £10.50 to buy (non-refundable if bought on or after 4 September 2022), then loaded with pay-as-you-go credit.
3. Visitor Oyster card — pre-loaded with credit and ordered online before you arrive; handy if you’d rather not queue for a card on landing. Up to £10 of unused credit is refundable when you’re done.

Always use the same card or device for an entire journey — tapping in with your phone and out with a bank card charges you as if you never touched out, and you’ll be charged a maximum fare. Children under 5 travel free with a fare-paying adult; under-11s travel free on the Tube, DLR, Overground, Elizabeth line, buses, and trams when with an adult using pay as you go or a valid ticket.

Fares

Fares depend on which zones you travel through and the mode you use, but capping means you never have to work it out in advance — pay as you go automatically stops charging you once you hit the cap for the day or week (Monday–Sunday), on the same card or device.

Tube, DLR, Overground, Elizabeth line, and National Rail (adult pay as you go caps):

Fares are higher at peak times — Monday to Friday, 6:30–9:30am and 4–7pm — and lower off-peak. Night Tube and night Overground fares are always charged at the off-peak rate.

Buses and trams run on a flat Hopper fare: £1.75 per tap, and it’s genuinely unlimited — any further bus or tram journeys within one hour of your first touch-in are free, as long as you use the same card or device. The adult daily cap is £5.25, and the weekly cap is £24.70.

A 2026 anniversary promotion: to mark 10 years of the Hopper fare, a Weekend Hopper is running from 25 July to 31 August 2026 (including the August Bank Holiday Monday) — unlimited bus and tram travel on Saturdays and Sundays for the price of one single fare each day.

Getting from the airport

London has several airports, each with its own rail link.

Heathrow (LHR) — the main options:

• Elizabeth line — part of the normal TfL network, so your regular contactless or Oyster fare applies. Reaches Paddington in 28 minutes (not counting walking or interchange time), running every 15 minutes to Terminals 2&3 and 4, and every 30 minutes to Terminal 5.
• Piccadilly line (Tube) — cheaper, slower: about 50 minutes into central London on ordinary Tube fares.
• Heathrow Express — a separate, premium non-stop service to Paddington in 15 minutes, running every 15 minutes. It’s not covered by TfL pay as you go: a single costs £26 on the day, or from £10 booked at least 30 days ahead.

All Heathrow Tube and Elizabeth line trips that start, end, or pass through Zone 1 are charged at the peak fare, whatever time you travel.

Gatwick (LGW) — Gatwick Express or Southern Railway run direct to London Victoria (Gatwick Express takes as little as 31 minutes); Thameslink runs to London Bridge, City Thameslink, Farringdon, and King’s Cross St Pancras. Contactless and Oyster pay as you go work on all of these.

Stansted (STN) — the Stansted Express runs to Liverpool Street; you can also change onto the Tube at Tottenham Hale.

Luton (LTN) — a shuttle (the Luton DART, taking just under 4 minutes) connects the airport terminal to Luton Airport Parkway station, where Thameslink and East Midlands Railway trains run into central London (from 24 minutes to Luton Airport Parkway). Book your train ticket all the way to “Luton Airport” and the DART leg is included automatically — otherwise the DART is a separate £4.90 adult single.

London City (LCY) — the closest airport to central London, served directly by the DLR, part of the normal TfL network: 18 minutes from Canary Wharf, 22 minutes from Bank, every 10 minutes.

Apps to download

• TfL Go — the official app: a live Tube map, journey planning, and a way to top up or manage an Oyster card.
• Citymapper — started in London and still a local favourite for door-to-door, multi-modal directions.
• Google Maps or Apple Maps also work well for journey planning with live TfL data.

When it runs

Most of the network runs from around 5am to just after midnight, seven days a week (Sunday tends to start a little later and finish a little earlier). On Friday and Saturday nights, the Night Tube keeps the Central, Jubilee, Northern, Piccadilly, and Victoria lines running through the night.

Accessibility

Step-free access is improving but incomplete: around a third of Tube stations, half of Overground stations, and all DLR stations and tram stops are step-free. The Tube map marks which stations are step-free from street to platform versus street to train. If a lift is out of service when you arrive, TfL staff will help plan an alternative route — and if there’s no reasonable step-free option, they’ll book and pay for an accessible taxi to your destination or the next step-free station. Buses are all low-floor with a wheelchair space and ramp.

Etiquette & local quirks

• Stand on the right on escalators — Londoners walk up the left side, and blocking it is a fast way to get pointedly sighed at.
• Touch in and touch out with the same card, every time — even a single missed touch-out can charge you a maximum fare.
• Let people off the train before you board.
• On the Tube, it’s normal to stay quiet — busy commuter lines aren’t the place for a loud phone call.
• Carry a backup way to pay: if your phone battery dies mid-journey, you can’t tap out, and you’ll be charged (or fined).

Good to know

• Fare evasion is taken seriously. Touching in without enough credit, or not touching in and out correctly, can mean a £100 penalty fare (reduced to £50 if you pay within 21 days) — and repeat fare evasion is a criminal offence.
• Card clash: keep your Oyster and contactless cards separate when tapping — if a reader can see two cards at once, it may charge the wrong one.
• Six London Overground lines were given distinct names and colours in 2024 (Liberty, Lioness, Mildmay, Suffragette, Weaver, Windrush) instead of one undifferentiated orange line, so signage and apps now refer to them individually.