Annabel Smyth wrote:
Tom Anderson wrote to uk.transport.london on Wed, 1 Sep 2004:

I find labelling by terminus completely unhelpful - unless you know
the network well enough to know the terminus of every line (which
most Londoners probably do, but visitors certainly don't), it means
you need a map to interpret the signs.

Oh no, it's much easier! As a young adult, I lived in Paris before I
lived in London, and had enormous difficulty working out how the
London system worked, compared to the extraordinarily easy Paris
system, which labels by terminus. Doesn't help that I have enormous
difficulty
knowing my left from my right, or my east from my west.... I can just
about manage north and south, but that's it!

If you know the city (whichever it is) it probably is easier. But how about
people who have just got off a plane at Heathrow and there are two trains
sitting there, one with Cockfosters and the other with Arnos Grove on the
front and you want to get to Morden (say)?