[hereonout2]

It's because phones speakers aren't loud enough to be audible over the sound of the tube itself!

It is noticeable on buses and overground when people play things out load, but to be honest quite rare in the grand scheme of things.

[LightBug1]

That's true. I made several complaints about that to TFL before capitulating and just settling for noise-cancelling headphones.

Never been happier.

The clincher was noticing that the drivers themselves had access to ear defenders ... TFL said that that's because they're down there for extended periods of time. Sounds reasonable but I'm not buying that as a way out of not fixing the issue and exposing my ears to the worst bits of the tube.

Also has the ancillary benefits of blocking out those rare times (for me) when people do have their phone on speaker or are having a chat I'm uninterested in.

[fennecbutt]

Welcome to the UK where citizens are so apathetic they don't care about aging infrastructure or government money being siphoned away.