Transport

Transport is one of the four main areas of policy administered by the Mayor of London, however the mayor's financial control does not extend to the longer distance rail network that enters London. In 2007 he assumed responsibility for some local lines, which now form the London Overground network, adding to the existing responsibility for the London Underground, trams and buses. The public transport network is administered by Transport for London (TfL).

The lines that formed the London Underground, as well as trams and buses, became part of an integrated transport system in 1933 when the London Passenger Transport Board or London Transport was created. Transport for London is now the statutory corporation responsible for most aspects of the transport system in Greater London, and is run by a board and a commissioner appointed by the Mayor of London.

Aviation

London is a major international air transport hub with the busiest city airspace in the world. Eight airports use the word London in their name, but most traffic passes through six of these. Additionally, various other airports also serve London, catering primarily to general aviation flights.

• London Heathrow Airport, in Hillingdon, West London, was for many years the busiest airport in the world for international traffic, and is the major hub of the nation's flag carrier, British Airways. In March 2008 its fifth terminal was opened. In 2014, Dubai gained from Heathrow the leading position in terms of international passenger traffic.
• London Gatwick Airport, south of London in West Sussex, handles flights to more destinations than any other UK airport and is the main base of easyJet, the UK's largest airline by number of passengers.
• London Stansted Airport, north-east of London in Essex, has flights that serve the greatest number of European destinations of any UK airport and is the main base of Ryanair, the world's largest international airline by number of international passengers.
• London Luton Airport, to the north of London in Bedfordshire, is used by several budget airlines for short-haul flights.
• London City Airport, the most central airport and the one with the shortest runway, in Newham, East London, is focused on business travellers, with a mixture of full-service short-haul scheduled flights and considerable business jet traffic.
• London Southend Airport, east of London in Essex, is a smaller, regional airport that caters for short-haul flights on a limited, though growing, number of airlines. In 2017, international passengers made up over 95% of the total at Southend, the highest proportion of any London airport.

Rail

Underground and DLR

The London Underground, commonly referred to as the Tube, is the oldest and third longest metro system in the world. The system serves 270 stations and was formed from several private companies, including the world's first underground electric line, the City and South London Railway. It dates from 1863.

Over four million journeys are made every day on the Underground network, over 1 billion each year. An investment programme is attempting to reduce congestion and improve reliability, including £6.5 billion (€7.7 billion) spent before the 2012 Summer Olympics. The Docklands Light Railway (DLR), which opened in 1987, is a second, more local metro system using smaller and lighter tram-type vehicles that serve the Docklands, Greenwich and Lewisham.

Suburban

There are more than 360 railway stations in the London Travelcard Zones on an extensive above-ground suburban railway network. South London, particularly, has a high concentration of railways as it has fewer Underground lines. Most rail lines terminate around the centre of London, running into eighteen terminal stations, with the exception of the Thameslink trains connecting Bedford in the north and Brighton in the south via Luton and Gatwick airports. London has Britain's busiest station by number of passengers – Waterloo, with over 184 million people using the interchange station complex (which includes Waterloo East station) each year. Clapham Junction is the busiest station in Europe by the number of trains passing.

With the need for more rail capacity in London, Crossrail is expected to open in 2021. It will be a new railway line running east to west through London and into the Home Counties with a branch to Heathrow Airport. It is Europe's biggest construction project, with a £15 billion projected cost.

Inter-city and international

London is the centre of the National Rail network, with 70 per cent of rail journeys starting or ending in London. Like suburban rail services, regional and inter-city trains depart from several termini around the city centre, linking London with the rest of Britain including Birmingham, Brighton, Bristol, Cambridge, Cardiff, Chester, Derby, Holyhead (for Dublin), Edinburgh, Exeter, Glasgow, Leeds, Liverpool, Nottingham, Manchester, Newcastle upon Tyne, Norwich, Reading, Sheffield, York.

Some international railway services to Continental Europe were operated during the 20th century as boat trains, such as the Admiraal de Ruijter to Amsterdam and the Night Ferry to Paris and Brussels. The opening of the Channel Tunnel in 1994 connected London directly to the continental rail network, allowing Eurostar services to begin. Since 2007, high-speed trains link St. Pancras International with Lille, Calais, Paris, Disneyland Paris, Brussels, Amsterdam and other European tourist destinations via the High Speed 1 rail link and the Channel Tunnel. The first high-speed domestic trains started in June 2009 linking Kent to London. There are plans for a second high speed line linking London to the Midlands, North West England, and Yorkshire.

Freight

Although rail freight levels are far down compared to their height, significant quantities of cargo are also carried into and out of London by rail; chiefly building materials and landfill waste. As a major hub of the British railway network, London's tracks also carry large amounts of freight for the other regions, such as container freight from the Channel Tunnel and English Channel ports, and nuclear waste for reprocessing at Sellafield.

Buses, coaches and trams

London's bus network runs 24 hours a day, with about 8,500 buses, more than 700 bus routes and around 19,500 bus stops.better source needed In 2013, the network had more than 2 billion commuter trips per year, more than the Underground.better source needed Around £850 million is taken in revenue each year.citation needed London has the largest wheelchair-accessible network in the world and, from the third quarter of 2007, became more accessible to hearing and visually impaired passengers as audio-visual announcements were introduced.citation needed

London's coach hub is Victoria Coach Station, an Art Deco building opened in 1932. The coach station was initially run by a group of coach companies under the name of London Coastal Coaches; however, in 1970 the service and station were included in the nationalisation of the country's coach services, becoming part of the National Bus Company. In 1988, the coach station was purchased by London Transport which then became Transport for London. Victoria Coach Station has weekly passenger numbers of over 200,000 and provides services across the UK and Europe.

London has a modern tram network, known as Tramlink, centred on Croydon in South London. The network has 39 stops and four routes, and carried 28 million people in 2013.better source needed Since June 2008, Transport for London has completely owned Tramlink.better source needed

Cable car

London's first and to date only cable car is the Emirates Air Line, which opened in June 2012. The cable car crosses the River Thames, and links Greenwich Peninsula and the Royal Docks in the east of the city. It is integrated with London's Oyster Card ticketing system, although special fares are charged.citation needed It cost £60 million to build and carries more than 3,500 passengers every day. Similar to the Santander Cycles bike hire scheme, the cable car is sponsored in a 10-year deal by the airline Emirates.

Cycling

In the Greater London Area, around 650,000 people use a bike everyday.better source needed But out of a total population of around 8.8 million, this means that just around 7% of Greater London's population use a bike on an average day. This relatively low percentage of bicycle users may be due to the poor investments for cycling in London of about £110 million per year, equating to around £12 per person, which can be compared to £22 in the Netherlands.

Cycling has become an increasingly popular way to get around London.citation needed The launch of a cycle hire scheme in July 2010 was successful and generally well received.citation needed

Port and river boats

The Port of London, once the largest in the world, is now only the second-largest in the United Kingdom, handling 45 million tonnes of cargo each year as of 2009. Most of this cargo passes through the Port of Tilbury, outside the boundary of Greater London.

London has river boat services on the Thames known as Thames Clippers, which offers both commuter and tourist boat services. These run every 20 minutes between Embankment Pier and North Greenwich Pier.citation needed The Woolwich Ferry, with 2.5 million passengers every year, is a frequent service linking the North and South Circular Roads.

Roads

Although the majority of journeys in central London are made by public transport, car travel is common in the suburbs. The inner ring road (around the city centre), the North and South Circular roads (just within the suburbs), and the outer orbital motorway (the M25, just outside the built-up area in most places) encircle the city and are intersected by a number of busy radial routes—but very few motorways penetrate into inner London. A plan for a comprehensive network of motorways throughout the city (the Ringways Plan) was prepared in the 1960s but was mostly cancelled in the early 1970s. The M25 is the second-longest ring-road motorway in Europe at 117 mi (188 km) long. The A1 and M1 connect London to Leeds, and Newcastle and Edinburgh.

London is notorious for its traffic congestion; in 2009, the average speed of a car in the rush hour was recorded at 10.6 mph (17.1 km/h).

In 2003, a congestion charge was introduced to reduce traffic volumes in the city centre. With a few exceptions, motorists are required to pay to drive within a defined zone encompassing much of central London. Motorists who are residents of the defined zone can buy a greatly reduced season pass. The London government initially expected the Congestion Charge Zone to increase daily peak period Underground and bus users, reduce road traffic, increase traffic speeds, and reduce queues; however, the increase in private for hire vehicles has affected these expectations. Over the course of several years, the average number of cars entering the centre of London on a weekday was reduced from 195,000 to 125,000 cars – a 35-per-cent reduction of vehicles driven per day.