From the collection of
London’s Screen Archives is a network of over 50 organisations with a collective vision – to preserve and share London’s history on film. The network is managed by Film London and we work with our partners to digitise, preserve, and offer access to their moving image collections.
London Underground Broadcast Library Tape on the introduction of the Congestion Charge.
This Broadcast Library Tape from Transport for London offers a peek behind-the-scenes at the construction of regional and national news. Tapes like this one were created by Transport for London to give broadcasters the necessary information and video content to create a news item on a particular story or issue. This particular selection of clips, interviews and graphics is about the introduction of the Congestion Charge in February 2003. Road charging was a campaign promise by the first Mayor of London Ken Livingstone to reduce traffic congestion in central London, which had become so bad that traffic speeds were slower than at the turn of the twentieth century. The tape offers stunning aerial shots of the capital, the now familiar red C's freshly painted on London's roads, and futuristic graphics explaining the zones and technology of charging. The tape also introduces "London's improved buses", the new articulated buses that were introduced simultaneously with the Congestion Charge to offer more public transport options to Londoners. These buses, informally known as "bendy buses", didn't last long - plagued by fires, accidents, and increased fare evasion, they were withdrawn in 2008 by Livingstone's successor to the Mayor of London, Boris Johnson.
Go behind the scenes of 50 years of London transport with this selection from the London Transport Museum's video collection.