Commercial consulting & international operations

We partner with cities, regions, consultancies and transport operators around the world to deploy our unique, specialist expertise and develop sustainable answers to transport challenges.

Transport for London operates transport in one of the world's truly great cities, facilitating tens of millions of journeys across the capital every day. We also plan, design and implement the safest, most efficient, advanced and cost-effective transport solutions in the world.

While we're keeping London moving, we also work with transport authorities, governments, and transport operators, locally and globally, so others can learn, and benefit, from our experience.

Our experience

We innovate. We have made ageing assets and infrastructure fit for today's modern, 24-hour capital. We are one of the world's largest users of contactless technology, and the most Integrated Transport Authority of any global city. We are leaders in a wide variety of fields from Healthy Streets and air quality improvements to bus and metro operation, maintenance, and strategy.

Our consultants have a diverse range of skills and experience honed during their time at TfL. We are unlike other consultancies - our staff have direct experience of planning, delivering and operating transport in a global city. We help cities improve transport for their communities by drawing on these world-leading skills to help clients tackle the most complex transport challenges.

We advise clients on projects at all stages, from concept and feasibility, through procurement and project management, to commissioning, operational planning and delivery. A project could be a bus interchange or a mega project like the multi-billion pound Crossrail scheme.

What we offer

We work directly with clients and in partnership with other companies and government organisations across three key areas:

Advisory - sharing our unique perspective and the lessons we've learned in delivering innovative, world-class urban mobility solutions, by connecting experts from across the business to apply our knowledge to other cities.

Skill-share - our experts share their skills and knowledge with counterparts in other cities, through courses, seminars, workshops and site visits.

Intellectual Property and Licensing - we've developed tools, systems and solutions that we can tailor to help improve the efficiency and customer experience of other cities' transport systems .

The story so far

Dublin Metrolink

MetroLink is a proposed high-capacity, high-frequency new rail line being promoted by the National Transport Authority and Transport Infrastructure Ireland (TII). MetroLink is a key infrastructure scheme in the Greater Dublin Area Transport Strategy 2016-2035. The line will greatly improve public transport capacity and connectivity and bring new development opportunities to the City and wider region.

TfL Consulting is assisting TII in a range of advisory roles to support the delivery of the MetroLink scheme, including operational property, commercial development, funding and financing the scheme, scheme design and the business case. As well as deploying dedicated subject matter experts into TII on a long-term basis, we provide access to a wide range of TfL experts to support these areas as required. Our colleagues have worked on similar high-profile megaprojects such as Crossrail and the Northern Line Extension, which greatly benefits TII's advancement towards successfully delivering MetroLink.

TfL Masterclasses

Our experts deliver masterclasses to showcase TfL's unique knowledge, skills and experience. Sessions range from a few hours to multi-day and are delivered by subject matter experts via a combination of presentations and interactive activities. The masterclasses have been designed so they can be delivered fully online, in person or using a hybrid approach.

Our masterclass on the role and functions of an Integrated Transport Authority (ITA) draws on our experience as one of the largest ITAs in the world. We share TfL's experience, distinctive journey and expertise covering all aspects of running a successful ITA.

National Bus Strategy for India

We were at the heart of a World Bank-led project exploring the potential for applying London's bus operating model in India to accommodate urbanisation-led growth. The project encompassed Bus Contracting, Intelligent Transport Systems and Public Transport Strategy through skill-shares and knowledge-transfer.

Our core focus developed options to move from directly operating buses, to a bus contracting model with the customer at its core enabled by state-of-the-art Intelligent Transport Systems. TfL's experts contributed their unique knowledge and experience to assess the current state-of-play through in-depth analysis and developed tailored and realistic next steps to build improvements across contracts, Intelligent Transport Systems, customer focus and operations.

The success of the project led to significant profile-raising of the potential for buses to rise to the challenge of Indian urbanisation and supported the Government of India's proposal for a National Bus Rejuvenation Programme of funding and change.

Our team

The TfL Consulting team is led by Ben Johnson. Ben has more that 20 years experience in the transport industry in public and private sector roles. He has won and delivered major projects in the UK and internationally providing insight and technical solutions to clients, and the growth and development of his team.

Why not get in touch to talk more about what we can offer?