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Interurban / 79 metros / London

England · EuropeOSM land-use zones

London

The oldest underground in the world, a green belt, and a fare system that has been a political football for a century.

Steam · Mac · Windows. Not a browser.

Play London Full edition
Existing transit 14 lines · 353 stops · Transport for London
London: the 14 transit lines and 260 stations the pack starts with, over the metro's water and major roadsEmirates Air LineDLRTramBakerlooCentralCircleDistrictHammersmith CityJubileeMetropolitanNorthernPiccadillyVictoriaWaterloo City10 km
  • Emirates Air Line
  • DLR 1987
  • Tram 2000
  • Bakerloo 1906
  • Central 1900
  • Circle 1884
  • District 1868
  • Hammersmith City 1864
  • Jubilee 1979
  • Metropolitan 1863
  • Northern 1890
  • Piccadilly 1906
  • Victoria 1968
  • Waterloo City 1898

Streetcar, Light rail, Metro — lines, stops and colours from the operating agency's published GTFS, opening years where the feed or the record gives one. Water and roads: OpenStreetMap (ODbL), Overpass extract of the playable core. 4,885,364 residents in 228 zones, pack 2020.

#Facts, figures, history

London, as the pack records it.

Population by decade, a sourced metro series scaled to the 2020 pack.
YearPopulation
19504,390,125
19604,303,446
19703,943,049
19803,544,928
19903,567,613
20003,818,822
20104,223,982
20204,885,366

The pack's sourced population series runs from 4,390,125 residents in 1950 to 4,885,366 in 2020.

The zones cover 1,490 km², about 3,279 residents per km², with 2,247,269 jobs at the workplace.

The pack seeds 14 playable rail/BRT/ferry lines. Metropolitan opened in 1863; Tram opened in 2000.

Difficulty is Forgiving.

✓What winning here takes

Six ways to win London, each set by London.

There is no score to beat. Each condition is computed from the metro as you inherit it, with the engine's own arithmetic; these are the bars the game will set on day one in London, in 2025. The blue tick is where the city stands today; the red band is where it has to get to. The run continues after you win.

  1. Transit Capitalheld for a year

    1.5%today · published share; the game uses day one
    1.5%needed · hold the inherited share, for a year

    The region's existing system carries about 1.5% of all trips. The operating rail is in the model; in the game the bar is what that system carries on day one, held for a year.

  2. Roads Unclogged

    0%today · relief before you build
    10%needed · cut in peak congestion

    Against what the region would have without your network, not against the day you started — the region grows, and holding congestion flat through growth is the harder achievement.

  3. Carbon Cut

    0ttoday · net tonnes avoided today
    97,707tneeded · net tonnes of CO₂ a year

    Scaled to this metro's 4,885,364 residents at 0.02 tonnes each — roughly what moving a few percent of the region's driving onto rail saves, after the trains are charged for their own power.

  4. Held the Lineheld for a year

    0%today · on time, before a train runs
    80%needed · on time · 65% satisfied · a year in surplus

    All three at once. The cheapest route to a surplus is cutting the service that produces the other two, so this is the condition that cannot be bought.

  5. Within Reach

    0%today · within a walk of your stops
    10%needed · of the metro within a kilometre of a stop

    The operating rail is already in the model, so coverage does not start at nothing. The bar is a tenth of the metro within a walk, or 60% more than you inherit, whichever is higher.

  6. Ten Minutes Back

    0%today · cut so far
    10%needed · off the average regional commute

    Measured on every resident, including the people who never board a train — a network that takes cars off the road shortens the drive for everyone left on it. The day-one average is the model’s first solve.

Carbon Cut's bar is 0.02 net tonnes a year for each resident, floored at 20,000. Transit Capital, coverage and the commute are taken from the network you inherit: where the pack seeds operating rail, from that system's first solve; where it does not, Transit Capital uses the model's default present-day share (floored at 1% and capped at 6%) and coverage starts from nothing. The gauges' Transit Capital tick is that default either way.

What you are given

What you are given

Every one of London's 228 zones arrives with derived numbers attached: resident population from OSM land-use shares of a sourced 2020 metro series, jobs allocated from the land-use mix, and a gravity-model home-to-work matrix. These are not US Census tracts and not LODES commute pairs — the pack says so on its provenance string.

Work trips are a gravity model from those land-use shares, labelled DERIVED, not a census commuting matrix. The streets, water and operating lines are still observed: OpenStreetMap and the agency's published GTFS.

London's operating rail — 14 lines, 353 stops — is seeded into the playable network from the agency's published GTFS: the lines run, they cost money to operate, and riders board them. Local bus stays decoration. A 1920 start inherits the dated streetcar, elevated and interurban map from OpenHistoricalMap, not today's GTFS with the year filed off.

What makes it hard

What makes London hard

Forgiving. Dense, centred, and already used to transit — the model has something to work with on day one. You are inheriting a system, which means you inherit its shape and its operating cost as well as its riders.

And the decade changes the problem, not the vehicle list. London in 1960 is a different city from London in 2025: the pack's sourced population series (UN World Urbanization Prospects and national census) is scaled onto the 2020 zone map, so the rivers and the rail yards stay where they are. The inherited map for that decade is the archival alignment that was open then — OpenHistoricalMap — not a modern line that had not been built.

London is in the full edition. The free game rotates through thirteen metros so you can check the model on a city you know before taking anyone's word about the other sixty-six. The full edition, $25 once, opens all seventy-nine. Buy Mac or Windows direct and an extra 30% — Valve's cut on Steam — goes to pro-urban organisations.

Play London Full edition

Sources

How the model turns these into riders, with every mechanic named →