Now, use Hindi, Bengali, Tamil to buy tickets on London Tube

The next time you buy tickets to travel on the London Underground, you will be able to follow instructions on the ticket machines in Bengali, Hindi, Punjabi, Tamil and Urdu.

LU authorities have upgraded touch-screen ticket machines at its stations to feature 17 languages, making life easier for the capital's Tube travellers.

Some machines already had six languages -- English, French, German, Italian, Japanese and Spanish.

Now, as part of Transport for London's investment programme, the upgrade means all touch screen machines in every station will also offer Arabic, Bengali, Chinese, Greek, Gujarati, Hindi, Polish, Punjabi, Tamil, Turkish and Urdu.

Wayne Trevor, LU's accessibility and inclusion manager, said, "Although many of our staff speak foreign languages, we have increased language translations on our ticket machines to make it easier and quicker for tourists, and those from London's diverse communities whose first language isn't English, to travel on the Tube."

He added, "By increasing the number of language translations, more customers will be able to travel with confidence by using our ticket machines."

More than 300 languages are spoken in London and LU is now one of the world's leaders in providing a large range of language translations.

Welcoming the move, Jane Collis, director of Regional Language Network, London, said, "As we look ahead to the 2012 Games, RLN London is delighted to see LU taking the initiative to make sure that it is easy for people to use and understand their network."