Live London Underground Trains

Live maps displaying the movements of planes, trains, and automobiles have been among my favorite mash-ups over the years, so it seems fitting to launch the third decade of Maps Mania with a beautiful illustration of a live, real-time transit map.

The Live Tube Map is a fully interactive, real-time 3D map that lets you watch underground trains move across London as they shuttle through tunnels, stations, and lines. It’s like the classic Tube map - but alive. Built by Ben James, the Live Tube Map uses real-time data from Transport for London (TfL) to visualize each train’s location, progress, and route. Each moving colored line you see gliding across the screen is a real train, updated in near real-time and placed on a highly stylized 3D map of London.

The choice of using moving colored polylines with transparent tails gives the map a beautiful and mesmeric aesthetic (although I think the blocky trains used by Mini Tokyo 3D are hard to beat). 

Under the hood, the map is powered by:

• MapLibre GL for rendering a high-performance, interactive map in WebGL
• TfL’s live feed to gather real-time train movements and trip plans
• MapTiler map tiles with 3D buildings

Hovering over a train on the map reveals a clean tooltip: line name, current status, journey progress (with a neat progress bar), and even upcoming stations. Beyond the sheer visual appeal, the Live Tube Map is a fascinating demo of what’s possible when you mix open data with open-source tech. It transforms a complex network of live infrastructure into something playful, transparent, and informative. 

It shows you moving trains on a map in real-time!