PruHealth and Daley Thomson launch 'Walk the Tube' app

PruHealth, the UK's fourth-largest health insurer and provider of the Vitality wellness programme, the world's longest-standing incentive-based health improvement solution, has teamed up with Daley Thompson to launch a free 'Walk the Tube with Daley Thompson' app.

While the tube map app will enable commuters and tourists in London to avoid the crush of the London Underground during the particularly busy summer period, it more importantly provides an accessible and cost-effective mechanism for Londoners to make a longer-term commitment to their health by establishing a precedent of walking. This is particularly important when considered in light of the generally low physical activity levels in the capital, and the strong link that exists between walking and improvements in health.

While simple and intuitive, the app provides an array of information related to the journey, plus activity and behavioural motivators, including:

- Step-by-step walking routes with an at-a-glance tube map showing the number of steps between stations
- Built in pedometer that provides a real-time overview of the number of steps, length of time and calories burned on each journey
- Motivational messages from Daley Thompson throughout the journey
- An ability to save regular journeys and maintain a record of walking history to provide a summary of total distance covered, number of steps taken and calories burned
- Real-time alerts that provide updates on the tube service, and allow an assessment to be made on whether it will be quicker to walk or wait for the train.
- Enables users to share details via Facebook

Daley Thompson, a PruHealth Vitality Ambassador said: "It's a well-documented fact that overall levels of physical fitness do not tend to improve and people are not generally motivated by seeing amazing athletic accomplishments at the Games. This is a handy tool that can be easily incorporated into people's lives that could translate the current wave of national pride into personal action to make small changes to every day routines. Not only is it great exercise helping you tone up during the summer, but for visitors and Londoners alike it gives you the opportunity to try new walks, beat your own best times - all whilst discovering the capital's landmarks you would miss while stuck underground."

Neville Koopowitz, CEO at PruHealth added: "PruHealth launched the very first 'Walk the Tube' map seven years ago and this new app is the next logical step to meet the needs of how people now access and use information. Ideally we should all be walking 10,000 steps each day to keep ourselves healthy and we hope this app will show commuters how easy it is to do that at any time of the year and beat travel hotspots at the same time."

The app is available for both iPhone and Android phones and is free to download from the Apple App Store and Google Play Store.