ATLAS / PLATE 003
LONDON IS BIGGER AT MIDNIGHT
Measuring london by travel at different times rather than raw distance.
What shape is London when distance is measured in scheduled minutes?
- N.01
THE IDEA
I wanted to map London in the units a traveller actually feels. Geographic distance tells me where a place is. Scheduled journey time tells me how far away it behaves.
- N.02
INPUTS
The Plate uses 108 frozen TfL Journey Planner observations from King’s Cross St Pancras to 36 fixed destinations. The three departure states are 08:30, 13:00 and 23:30 on Tuesday 6 October 2026.
- N.03
HOW I BUILT IT
For each destination I keep the real geographic bearing from King’s Cross. I then replace the geographic radius with an effective radius derived from scheduled journey time using one global scale constant. The vector view connects the geographic and transformed positions.
- N.04
RESULT
At 23:30 the median effective radius is only 1.67% larger than at 13:00, but that median hides large local changes. Heathrow T2&3 moves from 40 to 58 minutes. Ealing Broadway and East Croydon each add eight minutes. The useful object is the uneven deformation of the city.
- N.05
CHOICES
I used King’s Cross St Pancras as a single recognisable origin and kept the geometry radial. That makes one rule visible throughout the Plate: bearing stays fixed while radius changes.
- N.06
CAVEATS
These are scheduled Journey Planner results for one origin, one locked destination set and three departure states. They do not model crowding, disruption, personal route preference or the full London network. The frontend uses frozen observations and makes no live TfL calls.
- N.07
FILES + SOURCES
SOURCE MATERIAL
Transport for London, Unified API / Journey Planner. Scheduled journeys for Tuesday 6 October 2026 from King's Cross St Pancras (940GZZLUKSX) to 36 fixed destinations, at three departure states (08:30, 13:00, 23:30): 108 frozen Journey Planner observations, retrieved 2026-10-04. Source values: resolved StopPoint id/name/latitude/longitude from TfL StopPoint search; Journey Planner duration; Journey Planner startDateTime and arrivalDateTime; leg durations, modes, route options and line names from the frozen response.
METHOD
Bearing from the origin is held fixed. Only radial distance changes. k is computed once from the 36 resolved destinations so that median effective radius at 13:00 equals median geographic radius. k = 0.431659 km-equivalent per scheduled minute, calibrated so the median 13:00 effective radius equals the median geographic radius (12.95 km).
TRANSFORMATIONS
Derived values: great-circle distance_km from King's Cross; initial bearing_deg from King's Cross; minutes_per_km; scale_k_km_equivalent_per_minute = median geographic distance_km / median 13:00 journey minutes; effective_radius_km_equivalent = scale_k * journey_minutes; relative_expansion = effective_radius_km_equivalent / geographic_distance_km; radial_displacement_km_equivalent = effective_radius_km_equivalent - geographic_distance_km; geographic x/y and time-space x/y from preserved bearing; median journey minutes and effective radius by departure state.
MEASURED VALUES
At 23:30 the median effective radius is only +1.7% larger than at 13:00, but individual destinations deform sharply in both directions. Median journey time: 08:30 30.5 min, 13:00 30.0 min, 23:30 30.5 min.
DATA LIMITS
Scheduled Journey Planner results, not live disruption data. Each destination uses one selected journey per departure state.
SCOPE
This is a single-origin scheduled time-distance representation, not a complete London network embedding and not live disruption data. It is not a full London network embedding. The frontend does not call TfL at runtime; all values are frozen.
- METHOD
- Transport/temporal geometry
- SOURCE
- TfL Unified API/Journey Planner
- PERIOD
- Tue 6 Oct 2026 · 08:30 / 13:00 / 23:30
- GEOGRAPHY
- London, from King's Cross St Pancras
- TYPE
- TIME-SPACE TRANSFORMATION
§ CONTACT
I AM THE ONE WHO KNOCKS.
JK, feel free to reach out below!
© 2026 RAYMOND AKOLA-EREWUNMI APENA
PHILOSOPHER | DATA DAWG