Graham Hardy

Civil Engineer, Surface Transport.
Joined September 2007

Keeping London's streets up to scratch

My current placement revolves around the asset management of the TLRN (Transport for London Road Network). We maintain, improve and replace the roads, tunnels, bridges and all other aspects of the network. Currently I work within Road Network and Asset Management and at the moment I'm specifically working within tunnels. Day-to-day I look at the implication on the network of changes in laws or policies, plan live exercises with the emergency services to make sure we're ready when accidents happen and project manage the resurfacing of a worn out road.

Getting real experience with consultants and contractors

I'm now coming to the end of my second placement; my first was within Policy and Procedures. Both my placements so far have been quite desk-based, but this has been recognised and my next placement will be an Area Placement - which will see me working on site. I'll be overseeing the delivery of small projects, like the installation of new streetlights. It'll be really exciting. It's also compulsory to do a contractor's secondment within the TfL grad scheme so next year I'll get a lot more hands-on, site experience. From a graduate's perspective we're in a really good position - TfL work with some of the best consultants and contractors in the country, and we get to work with them.

Leading the way with new streetlights in London

The most interesting project I've worked on so far was project managing the testing of LED footway lights. We were trialling new initiatives for the network - looking for new systems that would do the job better than the current systems in place. My main role was in site selection - we needed to find suitable places to trial the lights that were safe and effective. We had 24 lamps in three different locations, and were testing their effectiveness in a real life environment. I liaised with the supplier in Holland as well as our finance department and our contractors.

Running a project and learning from it

We removed the existing lights, replaced them with the new ones, and then revisited them to see if they were working, measure light output, etc. We also interviewed the public to get their reactions. It was a really interesting hands-on project. Unfortunately it didn't work out. The lights were very expensive and only at the early stage of development - they actually weren't bright enough and didn't last long enough. Even so I still view the whole project as a success. I think it's part of TfL's responsibility to invest time in new initiatives like this, and therefore drive improvement. Plus it was a very interesting project for me.