Could the days of buying the wrong ticket, getting caught in the rush hour and making the wrong connection be over? Only, perhaps, in Paris.

London Transport
London Transport does a good job of explaining the complexities of ticketing (in 16 languages) and reporting delays on the network.

Newly-launched www.thetube.com does have an impressive journey planner for the Underground, but Netscape users may have problems with it.

Subway Navigator
Type in your starting-point and destination stations to plan the journey and estimate the length of time needed to complete it. Sixty cities are included, including Tokyo, Budapest and St Petersburg.

New York City Transit Subway
A ticket to any subway station costs $1.50 in NY, unless you buy a MetroCard - but while the fares are easy to understand, the lines can seem complex. All the maps and running times can be downloaded and printed off, and the site links to local bus and railroad information.

RATP
The Paris metro and bus site doesn't just calculate journeys between stations. Admirably, it will work out the best route between addresses and famous buildings, too.

The Noctambus night bus network is also available - particularly useful given the dearth of taxis in the city.

BVG.de
A rather impenetrable effort from Berlin's transport network. The BVG movies are notably unenlightening and only the "tariff overview" (ticket prices) is likely to be of much help to the visitor.

Barcelona
A useful route planner and details of the memorably named Nitbus nocturnal service are the best features of Barcelona's site.

Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transport Authority
An impressive attempt to simplify LA transport, MTA is aimed at locals rather than tourists.

Moscow Metro
The Moscow metro doesn't have its own site, but this one goes a little way towards explaining the system. The map here uses the English rather than Cyrillic script for station and line names, and translates a few common signs.