tubechallenge.com

Right folks - as mentioned in another thread, I've collected together all the spider maps (bus maps in a simplified style, almost like a tube-map) off TfL's website and compiled them into a zip file for your perusal.

If anyone's wondering how I did it, I went onto the spider maps page, and for each of the 33 London Boroughs I copied and pasted the links into Excel, and by use of a magic Excel Macro I nicked off that there internet, I made a text file full of weblinks to all of the individual files, and got some clever little freeware program to download everything in that list. Except it missed out a few, so I painstakingly went through them working out which ones it hadn't done and manually downloaded them.

My point is, that I'm a really nice person for doing this, and if at some point in the future anyone who's downloaded the zip file feels like buying me a pint, it'd be much appreciated

It's an 85MB zip file, which shouldn't take *too* long to download using a broadband connection (around 12 minutes with a 1MB connection, faster with a faster connection). But it'll take me until around 11:15am or so until it's finished uploading (which is much slower than downloading), so I'll post the link then, when I've tested that it works ok.

In the mean time - fans of Geoff's website / TfL copyright fiasco can peruse my own mirror of his renowned "sillymaps" page, at http://www.whatthefuck.tv/sillymaps.

Update - my free hosting can't fit this file, so I'm actually in the process of setting up proper paid-for hosting (as all the free options seem a bit shite and restrictive) and that's not properly sorted out (teething problems), so bear with me.

Your sillymaps link doesn't work, even after removing the full stop!

Nice idea, and I'd be interested to see the result when you're done. Don't know about the pint though.

Root wrote:Your sillymaps link doesn't work, even after removing the full stop!

That'll be because I changed the web forwarding settings for that domain, as a result of having bought some hosting which I was going to transfer everything across to. Except that's not working, thanks to 123-reg not recognising the nameservers, even though they've been going a good 4 years or so. And 123-reg haven't yet responded to my emails. Will change the web forwarding settings back when I can be bothered....

Root wrote:Nice idea, and I'd be interested to see the result when you're done. Don't know about the pint though.

Heh - well the "result" is basically nothing all that fancy other than an 85MB zip file containing all of the spider maps that anyone could copy off the TfL website themselves, but there's no real quick way for the average person to get them, other than by right-clicking them one by one, and that still involves clicking through either all the letters of the alphabet (well, most) or all 33 London boroughs.

It's basically pretty time-consuming unless you get a bit fancy with Excel and find a program that can download lists of files at http addresses like I did, but it still missed off a whole load, which I manually had to eliminate from a list, and then manually download them. Still, once I've got hosting sorted (ntl limits me to 50MB) it should be quite handy. Mine's just simply one file to download. Ok it's quite big, but it should take less than 12 minutes with a 1MB connection. Less time with a quicker connection.

I've even done an Excel file as a "manual", or readme-type thing, if you like.

In the meantime - could anyone recommend me a free hosting supplier that isn't crap, and won't have a 10 bytes / day transfer limit? 100MB space will do as the file's 85MB.

Freewebs? Just speak to the owner and you'll be sorted.

The problem is that bus routes change regularly and any downloaded maps will quickly become out of date - eg the 129 which only started yesterday!

In the meantime - could anyone recommend me a free hosting supplier that isn't crap, and won't have a 10 bytes / day transfer limit? 100MB space will do as the file's 85MB.

I could offer you some of my own webspace until you get everything sorted out. If you're interested, just send me a PM.

greatkingrat wrote:The problem is that bus routes change regularly and any downloaded maps will quickly become out of date - eg the 129 which only started yesterday!

Indeed, this is a problem. One does one's best, anyway!

My Spider maps were downloaded on the evening of the 27th May 2006, mostly between 18:05 and 18:18, but a few latecomers between 20:46 and 21:06, later on that evening.

So any new bus routes added since then won't be on there.

But......

I've compilled a Readme file in the form of an Excel Spreadsheet, which contains a list sortable by London Borough or Stop/Station/Area name, and this also contains links to the .pdf files on the TfL website, so it's dead simple to check if something is up to date. Though for planning purposes, I'd assume they were correct, and then if it's a serious attempt, go online to check that nothing's changed. Mind you, it's sod's law that they won't have updated the spider maps to include the latest routes anyway!

It's not perfect, but I reckon it's a dead handy resource to have all there, on one's computer, rather than having to constantly click around the web to look bits up.

And a massive thanks to Beary for providing the hosting

Final file size is now 90.3MB, and should be ready not all that much after 14:00 BST.

It includes the following:

- The four quadrant bus maps (NW/NE/SW/SE) plus the Central London one, which are based on road maps
- All the Spider Maps, with Night Bus spider maps included in a separate folder
- The London Underground Tube map, in pdf, bmp and gif form (raster formats mean it's handy to chuck it into Windows Paint and erase bits to help plan your route. I find that handy, anyway.
- London Connections map (pdf).

As we're on the subject of buses, I tend to use the Greater London Bus Map for my bus needs ...

tubeguru wrote:As we're on the subject of buses, I tend to use the Greater London Bus Map for my bus needs ...

Is that something vaguely road-map based, like the "Central London and quadrant maps" on this page?

http://www.tfl.gov.uk/tfl/bus_maps.shtml

tubeguru wrote:http://www.busmap.org/

That's a bit dead good, that. Though the ones off the TfL website (basically the whole Greater London thing split into 4) are potentially more userfriendly as they're quite resource-intensive. Though having said that, the one on busmap.org seems more thorough - but only to the point of including a bit more colour, and some buses that basically do the local school run and long distance buses.

Also, I prefer the ones off the TfL website for the fact that the roads are less prominent, but still there, with the tube lines being shown in their appropriate colours, and much clearer in terms of seeing things relative to tube stations.

http://www.busmap.org does have *much* easier to navigate timetables than TfL.gov.uk though, it must be said.

Anyway, I'll start a new thread about the spider maps zip file - it's all ready now....

I've managed to pick up the Bus Guides for North-West, North-East, South-West and Central London, but I've never seen the South-East one. There aren't really any tube stations in the South-East, and I don't ever use the DLR! The guides, made by TFL, are quity hefty fold-outs but are very easy to use and detailed.

tubeguru wrote:http://www.busmap.org/

*downloads*

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhh....

That is WELL Jackson! EVERY-SINGLE-ROUTE... oh yes!