How will pedestrianisation of UK’s most famous shopping street work in practice?

The ban on private vehicles will be extended to 24 hours a day seven days a week and cover buses, black cabs and bikes too. Photograph: Isabel Infantes/Reuters

Much of Britain’s most famous shopping street will be closed to traffic from Monday as the long-awaited pedestrianisation of London’s Oxford Street begins.

About half of the 1.2 mile street will initially be vehicle-free, after decades of planning and dispute over how to best use the street, an important transport thoroughfare and the home for flagship stores for big shopping chains.