The London Underground is the world's oldest and second-longest rapid transit system

Cycling in London has enjoyed a renaissance since the turn of the Millennium. Cyclists enjoy a cheaper, and often quicker, way around town than those using public transport or cars, and the launch of the Barclays Cycle Hire scheme in July 2010 has been successful and generally well received.
Port
From being the largest port in the world, the Port of London is now only the second-largest in the United Kingdom, handling 45 million tonnes of cargo each year.[178] Most of this actually passes through the Port of Tilbury, outside the boundary of Greater London.
Rail


The London Underground is the world's oldest and second-longest rapid transit system
The London Underground — all of which is now commonly referred to as the Tube, though originally this designation referred only to the deep-level lines, as distinct from the sub-surface lines — is the oldest,[204] and second longest[36] metro system in the world, dating from 1863. The system serves 270 stations[205] and was formed from several private companies, including the world's first underground electric line, the City and South London Railway.[206]
Over three million journeys are made every day on the Underground network, over 1 billion each year.[207] An investment programme is attempting to address congestion and reliability problems, including £7 billion (€10 billion) of improvements planned for the 2012 Summer Olympics.[208] London has been commended as the city with the best public transport.[209] The Docklands Light Railway, which opened in 1987, is a second, more local metro system using smaller and lighter tram-type vehicles which serve Docklands and Greenwich.
There is an extensive above-ground suburban railway network, particularly in South London, which has fewer Underground lines. London houses Britain's busiest station – Waterloo, with over 184 million people using the interchange station complex (which includes Waterloo East station) each year. The stations have services to South East and South West London, and also parts of South East and South West England.[210][211] Most rail lines terminate around the centre of London, running into eighteen terminal stations with the exception of the Thameslink trains connecting Bedford in the north and Brighton in the south via Luton and Gatwick airports.[212]
Since 2007 high-speed Eurostar trains link St. Pancras International with Lille, Paris, and Brussels. Journey times to Paris and Brussels of two-and-a-quarter hours and one hour 50 minutes respectively make London closer to continental Europe than the rest of Britain by virtue of the High Speed 1 rail link to the Channel Tunnel[213] while the first high speed domestic trains started in June 2009 linking Kent to London


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London is a major centre of higher education teaching and research and its 43 universities form the largest concentration of higher education in Europe.[24] In 2008/09 it had a higher education student population of around 412,000 (approximately 17 per cent of the UK total), of whom around 287,000 were registered for undergraduate degrees and 118,000 were studying at postgraduate level.[222] In 2008/09 there were around 97,150 international students in London, approximately 25 per cent of all international students in the UK.[222]
A number of world-leading education institutions are based in London. In the 2012 QS World University Rankings, University College London (UCL) is ranked 4th in the world, Imperial College London 6th, and King's College London 26th.[223] The London School of Economics has been described as the world's leading social science institution for both teaching and research.[224] The London Business School is considered one of the world's leading business schools and in 2010 its MBA programme was ranked best in the world by the Financial Times.[225]
With 125,000 students, the federal University of London is the largest contact teaching university in Europe.[226] It includes four large multi-faculty universities – King's College London, Queen Mary, Royal Holloway and UCL – and a number of smaller and more specialised institutions including Birkbeck, the Courtauld Institute of Art, Goldsmiths, Guildhall School of Music and Drama, the Institute of Education, the London Business School, the London School of Economics, the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, the Royal Academy of Music, the Central School of Speech and Drama, the Royal Veterinary College and the School of Oriental and African Studies.[227] Members of the University of London have their own admissions procedures, and some award their own degrees.
There are a number of universities in London which are outside of the University of London system, including Brunel University, City University London, Imperial College London, Kingston University, London Metropolitan University (with over 34,000 students, the largest unitary university in London),[228] London South Bank University, Middlesex University, University of the Arts London (the largest university of art, design, fashion, communication and the performing arts in Europe),[229] University of East London, the University of West London and the University of Westminster. In addition there are three international universities in London – Regent's College, Richmond University and Schiller International University.


The front façade of the Royal College of Music
London is home to five major medical schools – Barts and The London School of Medicine and Dentistry (part of Queen Mary), King's College London School of Medicine (the largest medical school in Europe), Imperial College School of Medicine, UCL Medical School and St George's, University of London – and has a large number of affiliated teaching hospitals. It is also a major centre for biomedical research, and three of the UK's five academic health science centres are based in the city – Imperial College Healthcare, King's Health Partners and UCL Partners (the largest such centre in Europe).[230]
There are a number of business schools in London,

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