To Heathrow from Victoria? Journey Planner

1

Hi,
Imagine you are travelling with heavy bags to Heathrow.

My first attempt, I tried from Kent House and it suggested to Herne Hill change to Farringdon and then Elizabeth line.

Second, I tried starting from Victoria suggested routes:
a) to Oxford Circus > Bakerloo line to Paddington > Heathrow Express > Heathrow
b) circle line round to Paddington > Heathrow Express > Heathrow
c) to Oxford Circus > walk to Bond street (walk to Bond street?!) > Elizabeth line to Heathrow

Trying to force it to use the district line I changed the starting point to Sloane Square, result?
Sloane Square > Embankment (the opposite way!) > Tottenham Court Road > Elizabeth line > Heathrow.
In reality, easiest is
Victoria to either Baron’s Court or Hammersmith, walk across the platform to Picadilly line to Heathrow.

Are Heathrow Express and Elizabeth lines to Heathrow more expensive? Is that why they seem to be the default options?
Thank you
Rod
PS Thanks for the prompt replies

2

I suspect it was giving you the fastest journey.

The TfL journey planner takes account of the state of the service which can produce some odd results.

The Piccadilly line has had some shocking delays on the Heathrow branch recently which may have encouraged the planner to avoid it if you were planning your journey in real time.

If I try Victoria to Heathrow tomorrow then I do get the route you expect.

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1 Like
3

Thank you, that makes sense, you can see how it can be confusing.
Best Wishes
Rod

4

Hi, as netstruggler mentioned, Journey Planner accounts for any delays to services, so that could be what happened here. That said, we’d be grateful for any suggestions on how we can make it less confusing. :slight_smile:

5

Thanks Leon,
As an aside, trying to look at Kent House to Leagrave I’m getting combinations of buses and tube train.
When I change it to Herne Hill to try to ‘force’ the route, it now says “could not find any results to your search” but if I go to the Thameslink site it shows trains running.
The usual routes have Herne Hill to Luton airport at their core with, occasionally trains directly from Kent House to Leagrave (although admittedly that was some years ago).
Sorry if I’m being a pain and changing topics.
Rod

6

Sorry, planner had defaulted to tube only for “could not find any results” when I reticked every mode of transport it returned to a bizarre mix of bus and tube journeys.
(Again I’m imagining someone with heavy bags and doesn’t have Engliush as their first language)
Rod

7

One confusion is that the same journey request comes up with several different routes.

That’s fair enough but I think most people then choose one of the options and want to know the service frequency for that route. The only way to do that is to get down and dirty on the ‘Edit Preferences’ page. Perhaps there’s a way to click on one of the journeys to get “show me other times for this route” and hide all the unwanted bus routes.

I don’t find this box very useful.

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Mostly because it doesn’t say what options it’s using already but also because, even if I select ‘Least Walking’ it shows this:

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where the first option (changing at South Ken) has a lot more walking than the second option (changing at Hammersmith). I always go straight to the ‘Preferences Page’, though I can see that this page could be confusing to someone without a reasonable knowledge of London.

Showing the cost of each journey, like Network Rail do, would be helpful as well.

HTH

8

Yes, I also would like an option to switch off "cycling’ entirely. It’s irrelevent for people who have any difficulty walking, parents with children, workers with heavy bags/tool kits, etc. It feels like a hangover from de Pfeffle Johnson’s time as mayor but I guess that’s off topic.
Rod