"The London Underground is the dirtiest metro in the world with levels of pollution up to 15 times higher than at street level.

A study found that some deep-level Tube lines had a far higher concentration of fine particles than networks in Beijing, Los Angeles, New York, Seoul, Sydney and Barcelona.

The London Underground has some of the most polluted air in Britain, according to scientists who found levels of toxic particles to be 18 times higher in its train carriages than in the streets above.

The result is that commuters unwittingly inhale tens of millions of particles a minute, mostly iron-based dust from the brakes, wheels and rails plus microscopic fragments of clothing and dead skin cells shed by fellow passengers."

As I come from a country which is a developing country and London is way better in terms of a lot of factors, I cannot believe that the most used way of transportation is the worst part about the city. India has developed a great train/metro system and is much better than the London Underground. The Underground is unsafe in so many ways and air pollution is one of the reasons that people would not even know about. 

Graeme Paton, Transport Correspondent. 2020. Toxic Tube lines mean London Underground is world’s worst for air pollution | News | The Times. [ONLINE] Available at: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/toxic-tube-lines-mean-london-underground-is-worlds-worst-for-air-pollution-85jmqt3s7.

Anna Winston: I hear you have some exciting news?

Paul Priestman: It's great we can talk about it at last. It's a massive project, probably one of the largest orders for metros, and it's unique because of the size of the tunnel which everyone knows is tiny. If you compare the New Tube for London to the District Line trains they're much, much smaller because the tunnels are so old in the way that they were built.

Anna Winston: So this design is pretty unique compared to other things that you've worked on?

Paul Priestman: It's certainly a different requirement because of the size of the car, the diameter of the tube itself is quite small. But then that is just another part of the brief that we have to work around. Obviously you can't make all the tunnels bigger or the stations bigger, it is a replacement vehicle.

Anna Winston: So how big are the trains?

Paul Priestman: I'm not sure exactly of the diameter of the tube but it's amazing because we built a number of mock-ups and when you take it out of context it looks so tiny. You can barely stand up in the centre of the car, and you forget when you're in the tube train that you are in quite a small space. From a design point of view what we're trying to do is just use every possible design skill we have to make it feel as light and as big as possible.

Anna Winston: So tell me a little bit more about what the project involved.

Paul Priestman: We designed all of the interior and all of the exterior. The London Underground train is an icon in itself, it's a symbol of London. So we think very much about - I call it London-ness - I love a sense of a place. I'm also not great at retro either, so it's about taking some elements of London and building up a palette of details and colours and finishes and materials which we then use throughout the design. So each element will have a London-ness as we would call it, but is still very much part of the brand of the London Underground.

Anna Winston: What makes this particular design different from what's come before from other designers?

Paul Priestman: The client wanted something that was unique to London. My personal aim was to just get every square millimetre we can back to the passenger because over-crowding, and the amount of people using the network, is immense. We can't make the trains longer and we can't make them bigger, so the only thing we can do is make what we've got more efficiently.

Anna Winston: So are they one long unit?

Paul Pristeman: Yes they are.

Anna Winston: And that's a finite length?

Paul Priestman: It is yes because of the existing stations of course.

Anna Winston: How long are they?

Paul Priestman: They range from about 12 cars to 13 cars. One of the interesting things about the London Underground trains is that sticking air conditioning units in each car causes a problem, because the doors are actually open more than they're shut because the distance between each station is so close. So if you add air conditioning units all that that would do is push heat out onto the platform. Then when the doors open they'll suck that back in and all that does is add energy and heat to the whole system, the whole infrastructure. So one of the things we're trying to do is reduce the energy we put into the system as a whole, as in the whole infrastructure system. To reduce that, take the energy away and eventually that will reduce the temperature. There's ways of doing that.

Anna Winston: Has anyone done one long single unit train on the tube before?

Paul Priestman: Not on these particular tubes. They're the first, and we're trying to give the character and the feel to it and a familiarity to it so it doesn't feel just like a European train dumped onto the system – a real character of London, of modern London.

Anna Winston: Can you talk me through some of the individual design elements on the front of the train.

Paul Priestman: What we've got is something which is a recognisable face, a modern face, and you'll see that it's got a new lighting system which we've developed for the front, which is a distinctive shape and brings modernity to it. The face of the train is very important – it's the thing you see as it enters the station. The interesting thing about projects like this is that they will be running for forty to fifty years so you're designing something to last an immensely long time and they'll be used 24 hours a day because the tubes will now be operating 24 hours a day.

From a design point of view it's an incredibly rigorous area to work in. It's got to look beautiful but at the same time it's got to be practical because if something breaks and the train goes out of service we have some delay. Normally in product design you're designing something that will last a couple of years and someone will then buy another for a couple of years time, but this is completely different, which is what I love about designing for public transport.

Anna Winston: Are those lights LED strips?

Paul Priestman: They are yes. They're continual light which illuminates round the side, and then when it's in reverse then these glow red rather than white, so it gives the correct illumination but also gives this character and a feeling for London, really.

Anna Winston: At the front are those driver's carriages or do they just lead into the carriage like the DLR?

Paul Priestman: There's a door down the centre which allows people to evacuate through the front of the vehicle if necessary, in an emergency, and it's designed to future proof all developments in cab…

Anna Winston: Boris Johnson has been talking about automating the tube eventually, so theoretically these are driverless cabs?

Paul Priestman: It's future proof for that, yes. As a design team we have to allow the thing to evolve through its life. These things are not really going to go into service until 2020, and will run for another thirty or forty years after that so you have to think about every eventuality that might happen. In the interiors we were thinking about screens - dynamic screens rather than advertisements, which allow you to then put information to a lot of people. Should you be on the tube when you go into a packed station and you don't know which station you're at, the displays will change to give you information so that you can find out where you are.

Anna Winston: Are they actually designed for drivers at all?

Paul Priestman: They're adaptable. I can't say too much on the subject but yes… it's future proofed.

Anna Winston: You talked about screens, and they're in the spaces where you would normally have the normal paper adverts?

Paul Priestman: That's right yes, they change the advertisement but then all of the screens can change to tell you which station you're in. In different modes and emergencies it can illuminate or give more light and more information. It's more much connected. One of the big discussions we're involved in in train design, because we design trains around the world, is that the windows themselves can be LED displays so that you can add information on every surface. Even in the last five to ten years on public transport everybody is looking at their phones but not really looking around them. So it's a big discussion whether you beam information to those devices, and again this is all to do with future proofing and how these things will work in years to come, because things will change rapidly and people's user patterns will be very different.

Anna Winston: So they'll be Wi-Fi enabled?

Paul Priestman: Yes. People will be using that much more and guiding themselves through the network on their PDAs telling them to get off at this station, go left, go right, and that's something we have to think about for the future.

Anna Winston: What else in the design makes it different from an existing tube train?

Paul Priestman: The main thing is the lighting, which is much more characterful. It hasn't got the linear lines that just endlessly run down the train. It's obviously got hardware and surfaces, but the thing that people will notice the most is that it is cool and it feels very much a part of London.

One of the big pushes is to reduce energy consumption and trying to make it very much more efficient. One of the things that will be happening in the lifetime of this train will be platform doors, which you can already see on the Jubilee Line, and those will be rolled out in the coming years. So on this particular train we've been able to make the doors bigger. On the old existing trains you get the big double doors and then you get the single doors, those have actually gone and now they're all double doors but they're exactly regularly spaced along the train.

Anna Winston: Does that improve the passenger flow?

Paul Priestman: Yes. One of the thing we've been working on very closely is how we can get what we've got to be more efficient. Getting people on and off more quickly allows more trains to operate and then we can get more capacity, so it's absolutely critical to get that right because if you get one train that's moving slowly then the system clogs up. What we're trying to do is work with the limitations we've got to make them as efficient as possible, but also enjoyable and characterful for Londoners.

Anna Winston: Can you talk me through some of the materials that you're using for the shell and the interior?

Paul Priestman: Incredibly hardwearing. Non-slip surfaces. Obviously you have to think about wear and the fire issues. But also then trying to get some of the quality feel to it. We design an awful lot of air crafts and we're using materials that we've learned from other industries, so a lot of surfaces are foiled. It's not just a paint finish, so they're very resistant to wear, scratches, even vandalism. It's trying to create something which has got a higher quality feel but is at the same time very durable.

We were talking recently with the New York metro, and it's really fascinating that in New York they have to have seats that are stainless steel or hard materials because of vandalism issues, and they look at London and say 'well how can you have fabric seats? It wouldn't last five minutes in New York'. Why is that? In some cities there are some things that are affected by cultures, and soft fabric seats – it's quite interesting that it's something for London.

Anna Winston: How long have you been working on this?

Paul Priestman: Quite a long time. It's about three years.

Anna Winston: Are they being manufactured in the UK?

Paul Priestman: I'm not sure - it's going to tender… But something that we've been doing with a number of cities round the world is to create a design vision before it goes to tender. Then the tender is not just to submit a technical cost answer, but also trying to meet the aspiration of the design already agreed. That does save an awful lot of time in the process further on, and it also allows more interesting and more culturally correct vehicles in different cities and countries. In China it's a requirement that you have boiling water in each vestibule, because everyone wants tea on high-speed trains. We've been working on trains in New Zealand where there has to be surfboard storage rather than bike storage, so there's lots of different things that you have to think about. More people are taking bikes on trains now, and how does that work and how does that affect capacity and how does that affect spaces?

Anna Winston: Given that you're working on all these projects what's the one thing that makes this one particularly different from the others?

Paul Priestman: The character of London. We're trying to keep it contemporary and modern and moving it forward. If you made it look like the train cars on the street today then it will be out of date in five years time.

Anna Winston: Do you know what the material specifications are for the floor?

Paul Priestman: It's a single sheet material which is printed and then debossed as well. It has to be non-slip and one of the requirements right now is to have a different colour where the doors are so you can detect where the doors are from a distance. One of the things we tried to do with the shape of the flooring is to try and encourage people to move down the cars and to lead you through but then also to give you some way finding so where the entrances are are lights which then draw you to the entrance.

The edges of the doors will actually change colours depending on their status so that they go green when the doors open and then they start to change colours when the doors are about to close. The idea is it might persuade people from doing a last minute dash because they know that they're not going to get to the door. Also when the lights start changing people start moving from the door and it speeds up that process. We're trying everything we can to get people on and off trains as quickly as possible.

Dezeen. 2020. Priestmangoode's driverless tube train designs for London Underground. [ONLINE] Available at: https://www.dezeen.com/2014/10/09/priestmangoode-driverless-tube-trains-london-underground/

The rush hour in London is a very hard time to travel for people as there is a lot of rush in the underground tube systems. I myself have travelled in the rush hour a lot and I find that there are a lot of factors which are very irritating and annoying and which should be resolved to make the underground journey more comfortable. 

Everyone is in a rush so there is a lot of pushing which can be dangerous as well because of obvious reasons. As there are so many people travelling from here and there, there is no space in the trains to even stand sometimes. The trains are usually smelling at this point as well. There are cases of theft which have been reported in the rush hour. People don't notice so much as there is always a lot of pushing and touching so thus they do not realise when they have been pick pocketed. 

Some stations are not very easily accessible for old people, people on wheelchairs but some stations are. I would like to design something which could remove some problems and thus have a better experience for people who travel during the rush hour. 

"Each of the shoes incorporates sensors that prompt motors to tighten the elastic laces in reaction to pressure.

The laces can also be adjusted using buttons just inside the tops. Another control turns the lights in the soles on and off, which also indicate how much life is left in the wirelessly rechargeable batteries.", says Dezeen.

I am in absolute awe of this shoe. It isn't just beautiful but can tighten and loosen the shoe automatically. In London, as it is cold outside, I usually wear shoes and not slippers and because of the fact that I have to tie the shoes again and again as I go out, it becomes an irritating task. 

Dezeen. 2020. Nike raffles Mag self-lacing shoes from Back to the Future II. [ONLINE] Available at: https://www.dezeen.com/2016/10/04/nike-releases-mag-self-lacing-shoes-back-to-the-future-ii-raffle-parkinsons/.

"London has never been so congested. The morning rush ‘hour’ starts at about 5.30am on major roads and lasts for up to three hours. In some parts of London, journey times are so slow, traffic moves at around one mile per hour. No wonder people are choosing to cycle in more and more numbers.

Health officials and the London Major’s office will find a way to improve the roads for both cyclist and motorist. The recent tragic deaths can only be truly honoured with a legacy of a smart London road system which ensures nobody dies on it’s roads.

As always with facing such drastic measures, the debate between cyclists and motorists has once again erupted. Sadly both the cyclists and motorists are missing the most tragic point; it isn’t their riding or driving ability thats the danger on the roads, it’s their anger level once they sit on the saddle or behind the wheel. The danger on the roads isn’t our riding or driving ability, its our anger."

Road rage in London is quite less compared to what goes on in India. I think that people get angry when the traffic is so bad that even walking is better than driving. I have been in ubers in the rush hour and it is actually very annoying. People take 30 minutes to reach a distance of 2 miles. Thats why people are slowly shifting to cycling to office, taking the tube to office. These alternatives seem better than driving or taking a cab. 

road rage | Stress Experts, Stress Management & Anger Management Services. 2020. road rage | Stress Experts, Stress Management & Anger Management Services. [ONLINE] Available at: http://stressexperts.co.uk/tag/road-rage/. 

The London Underground has design which makes the use of the tube easy for all kinds of people. The above photos clearly show how the underground has actually designed for different types of users. A lot of stations nowadays have step free access which gives people in wheelchairs ease in travelling. I think this shows a lot of care for the people. 

Ovenden, M., 2013. London Underground By Design. Particular Books.

The Oyster card is the card used for transport in London. As I am a student, I got a discount of around 30% on my monthly travel card. I now pay about 95 pounds for the whole month for travelling in zone 1 and 2. I can use the tube as well as the buses. The cost of my travel card is great as I can now travel as many times in zone 1 and 2 without thinking about the expense. I would say that the travel card has come in handy as without it, I would have ended up spending nearly 150 on a normal Oyster card. 

"It's a new way to listen to music," Renaud Defrancesco told Dezeen. "You are bathed in music without being isolated like with normal headphones, which can be dangerous because you don't hear what's around you."

This is one of the coolest inventions I've ever come across. The glass is the path through which the music flows. What an awesome idea. I'm only worried about the fact that if they are comfortable or not. It says that comfortable pads can be put on the glass structure but I think that's just giving the look away. 

Dezeen. 2020. Headphones by Renaud Defrancesco transmit music through plastic band. [ONLINE] Available at: https://www.dezeen.com/2014/02/27/headphones-by-renaud-defrancesco-transmit-music-through-clear-plastic-band/. [Accessed 22 February 2020].

This is an incredible smartwatch which allows the users to directly answer calls through their fingers. Calls can be answered by putting their fingers on their ear. 

"When paired with the user's phone via Bluetooth, the wristband uses Body Conduction Unit (BCU) technology to send vibrations down the user's wrist, before converting them into amplified sound. The user then only needs to touch the tragus of their ear with their fingertip to hear the caller on the other end of the line." , says Dezeen.

I think this is a great innovation as it removes the use of the earplug in the ear. The person doesn't need to carry an earpiece in their ear because the calls can be answered by the finger itself. The microphone in the watch allows the person to talk back to the caller. This product simplifies a task by reducing the number of devices needed/gestures needed and thus makes a good product. 

Dezeen. 2020. Sgnl watch strap lets you receive phone calls through your fingertips. [ONLINE] Available at: https://www.dezeen.com/2018/01/10/sgnl-smart-watch-strap-lets-you-receive-calls-through-your-fingertips-ces-technology/. [Accessed 21 February 2020].

Driverless: Who is in Control? (2019) [Exhibition]. The Science Museum, London. 12 June 2019 – 6 September 2020

Top Secret: From Ciphers to Cyber Security (2019) [Exhibition]. The Science Museum, London. 10 July 2019 – 23 February 2020

This is a photograph of the oldest steam locomotive of the world. After looking at this, I learnt that in olden times we used to waste so many materials and use processes that are of no use today. The amount of coal this locomotive would use can not even be imagined. The pollution this locomotive would produce would be so harmful. 

Making The Modern World (xx-xx) [Exhibition]. The Science Museum, London. Permanent Exhibition. 

These photos show the evolution of the communication devices. Communication of ideas and feelings is also related with transportation of ideas and feelings which is very interesting. By looking at this, I feel that nowadays through technology, so much more information is being transported everyday than it could be before. This also results in damage to society as it effects the behaviour of people (people being less interactive face to face), it causes a lot more damage to the planet as more toxins and more energy is used. It is interesting to think that the technology which brings us closer is actually going to result in killing the planet one day. 

Designer User Maker (2016-xx) [Exhibition]. The Design Museum, London. Permanent Exhibition.

"Gwen gage developed the roll of plastic mesh, called VeloMed, to fit over boxes of medication that are then rolled to secure the units together so that many boxes can be transported together." says dezeen. 

In a world where we want sustainability, we forget to realise that car and truck emissions are a big cause of the planet dying. Bicycles should be used to transport things for short distances. This is a product designed for such a scenario. The product is a mesh which allows boxes to fit into it. They can then be easily transported on the back of a bicycle. 

The product is made for some other country but it is as useful over there as over here. 

Delivery of food is a very trending thing today and people often complain that they get their food all smudged and mixed and crumbled. Maybe a product like this could help. 

Dezeen. 2020. VeloMed plastic mesh helps volunteers transport seven times as many medicine boxes. [ONLINE] Available at: https://www.dezeen.com/2018/10/18/velomed-transport-medicine-boxes-gwen-gage-dezeen-awards-design/. [Accessed 18 February 2020].

This is a very cool concept by Elena Larriba. In some years, when there will be too many skyscrapers, there will be no space left to actually have a lot of lifts and stairs Put in the building. This concept will be economical and useful then. Lifts use a lot of electricity as well so this concept will also save a lot of time. The beneficial part of this piece is that the person gets the exercise as well. The 'Vycyle' will also be a very useful product while construction of buildings. People could go up and down with the help of this product when the lifts wouldn't have been installed. 

"In densely populated and rapidly growing cities such as those in China, where it is estimated that by 2025 the country will have built 50,000 new skyscrapers, Vycle could be used in new buildings where space is at a premium or where there is no space for a full-sized lift shaft."

Dezeen. 2020. Vertical transportation concept allows city dwellers to cycle up skyscrapers. [ONLINE] Available at: https://www.dezeen.com/2017/07/04/vertical-transportation-system-allows-city-dwellers-cycle-up-skyscrapers-royal-college-art-design-graduates/. [Accessed 18 February 2020]