The Tube is owned by London Transport, a government agency, who also run the famous, red doubledecker buses.
The first underground railway line in the world was laid in London on the 10th January 1863. Today there are 275 stations and over 408 km of active lines, with 3 million passenger journeys made each day (927 million journeys made 1999-2000).
Lines on the Underground can be separated into two types: Sub-surface (Cut-and-cover method) and deep-level "tube" lines (Bored using a [Tunnelling shield]?) running about 20 metres below the surface (although this varies). The table below describes each of the lines, giving the colour used to represent the line on the maps, the date of opening and the type of tunnelling used.
| Line Name | Colour | Date of Opening | Type | Notes |
| Bakerloo | brown | 1906 | Deep level | |
| Central | red | 1900 | Deep level | |
| Circle | yellow | 1884 | Sub-surface | 1 |
| District | green | 1868 | Sub-surface | 2 |
| East London | orange | 1869 | Sub-surface | |
| Hammersmith & City | pink | 1864 | Sub-surface | 3 |
| Jubilee | grey | 1979 | Deep level | |
| Metropolitan | purple | 1863 | Sub-surface | |
| Northern | black | 1907 (part) | Deep level | 4 |
| Piccadilly | dark blue | 1906 | Deep level | |
| Victoria | light blue | 1969 | Sub-surface | |
| Waterloo & City | teal | Deep level | 5 |
Interchange is possible with the Docklands Light Railway (DLR) at several stations, including Bank, Canary Wharf and Stratford, while access to the Croydon Tramlink system is also possible on the southern reaches of some lines.
For fares LT use a zone system where zone 1 is the most central, with a boundary just outside the Circle Line. Travel through zone 1 is more expensive than in other zones. The zone system works well because most of the stations where lines cross are in zone 1, which means that journeys where multiple routes are possible almost all go through this zone, hence all the routes cost the same, which might not be true otherwise. There are ticket machines that will accept coins and fresh paper money. They also give change. LT have recently introduced credit card ticket machines across the network. LT also sell weekly, monthly, and annual "LT cards", allowing unlimited rides in one or more zones; these are a good deal for commuters and anyone else who rides the trains daily. The more zones you need to travel through, the higher the fare (whether a single ticket or a daily, weekly, or longer "LT card").
Note that not all Underground stations are accessible by people with mobility problems. Many have some of the 408 escalators and 112 lifts (elevators), but not all of them.
The escalators in London Underground stations are both an asset and a liability. They are among the longest escalators in Europe and all are bespoke (custom-built). Because of the enormous amount of use that they see, they tend to break down, causing long delays at stations. Older escalators with wooden treads are being phased out after a fire at King's Cross station in 1987. Thirty-one people died in the King's Cross fire, which also caused the prohibition of smoking throughout the system.
The London Underground is in a state of flux at the moment. Currently midway through part-privatisation, the system's maintenance is being taken over by a number of Infraco's (Infrastructure Companies). The aim of this "Public-Private Partnership" is to accelerate investment in the sadly neglected aspects of the London Underground.
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