As cities across the world grapple with growth, congestion and ageing infrastructure, few networks face the scale of challenge that Transport for London manages every day. In this episode, Dr. Kaan Yildizgoz speaks with Andy Lord, Commissioner of Transport for London, at TfL's headquarters at Palestra.

Andy shares how TfL brings buses, rail, the Underground, cycling and road networks together under one roof, and explains the thinking behind major investments such as new rolling stock, the DLR extension to Thamesmead, and TfL's growing use of AI. He also sets out the real reasoning behind congestion charging and the Ultra Low Emission Zone.

Whether you're leading a transport authority, planning a city's mobility strategy, or simply curious about what makes London's network work, this conversation offers a candid look inside one of the world's most complex transport systems.

Chapters

00:00 – Welcome and Introduction

02:11 – Integration, Growth and Economic Impact

05:38 – TfL's New Business Plan: Funding, Renewals and Upgrades

08:21 – Accessibility, Technology and Long-Term Growth Projects

10:08 – Inside London's Bus Franchise Model

14:33 – Rail Reliability and the Renewals Challenge

16:43 – Congestion Charging and Ultra Low Emission Zones

20:08 – Cycling, Active Travel and Autonomous Vehicles

24:01 – AI at TfL: Opportunities and Where It Won't Go

27:19 – Advice for Cities Around the World

28:11 – London's Transport Network in 10 to 15 Years

30:16 – Closing Remarks

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Host: Dr. Kaan Yildizgoz

Producer: Mike Cartmel

Executive Producer: Darren Turpin

Special thanks to:

Brand design: Tina Olagundoye

Digital Media: Belén Iturrioz Campo

Marketing content and Mobility Redefined newsletter: Mike Cartmel

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Thank you for listening to Mobility Redefined, brought to you by Modaxo. For more insights and information, please visit mobilityredefined.com, that is mobilityredefined.com.

Welcome to Mobility Redefined. Today we are in London. We are hosted by Transport for London right here at their headquarters at Palestra. And our guest is Andy Lord, Commissioner for Transport for London.

Andy, thank you so much for accepting to join Mobility Redefined today.

Pleasure, Kaan, I'm delighted to be here.

Thank you, Andy, and also thanks to your colleagues who are organising and arranging this interview with Mobility Redefined.

London is a city where public transport isn't just a side story, it is the story. And Transport for London, you are managing a very busy network of transportation and covering multiple modes in terms of the buses, rail, underground, cycling, roads with your congestion charging and ultra low emission zones, and as well you are organising all the data about mobility under a single roof. That makes the London experience very unique for us, and I'm sure that our conversation today will be very interesting for all our followers.

I hope so, and I'm hugely honoured and privileged to lead TfL. I think it's fantastic, probably the best job in transport, but I'm probably slightly biased in that way. But as you rightly say, we're arguably the largest integrated public transport authority in the world. The breadth of what we're responsible for and cover is really significant. And on top of all the elements that you listed, we also have planning responsibility as well. We're accountable for leading the Mayor's Transport Strategy.

TfL, and Transport for London, has really been the key enabler of growth of the city, and London is going to have a population of ten million soon. It will be Europe's first megacity, and TfL is right at the heart of that.

And then, I mean, when we look at TfL's experience, especially in the last years, I know many cities, many authorities are asking me questions to learn more about what TfL has done. And if you look at these questions, what makes the TfL experience unique here in London, and what can other cities learn from the London model?

So I think, partly what I've just said, we are fully integrated. There are still elements of National Rail that are separate, but we work very closely with the operators there. That's obviously now coming under government control. But everything is planned and operated in an integrated fashion so that for our passengers and our customers, there's a fully integrated ticketing system. We made some changes three or four years ago, so we now have a single operation. Claire Mann, our COO, is solely accountable for all our operational services. We've restructured so that we are very clear on accountability and responsibility at executive level.

On top of that, we have demonstrated that investing in transport actually leads to significant economic benefit, not just to the city, through things like the Northern Line extension, which has led to the whole redevelopment of the Nine Elms and Battersea Power Station area, or the Overground to Barking Riverside, where there's now twenty thousand homes with permission to be built. And of course, the one we always refer to, the Elizabeth line, which has delivered huge numbers of homes and jobs across its length, but at the same time created new passenger journeys and real economic growth in those areas of London.

But on top of that, we are also responsible for economic growth across the whole country. We spend about six billion pounds a year across our supply chain. We're accountable for twenty-eight thousand colleagues who are directly employed by TfL, twenty-five thousand bus drivers on top of that, and another five thousand or so with our rail concessions.

You might be one of the biggest employers in London as well.

Arguably, yes. But one hundred thousand jobs across the whole UK - if TfL didn't spend that money, those jobs would not exist, which then benefits the wider country, both economically, but also in terms of talent, skills and capability, so that other parts of the country can then benefit for their transport networks and systems as well. That, I think, is the unique element of what we do.

Again, taking that leadership role to pull together all the different elements across the city is really, really vital. And that's what TfL does, and I think that is really the key to our success - on top of, of course, the incredible colleagues that we have working across our network twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, fifty-two weeks a year.

Fantastic. And you recently launched a new business plan for TfL, and while you were talking in the initial question, you were already giving some examples from the main parts of TfL's new business plan. Can you give us some other priorities mentioned in the new business plan? I wonder especially how you are balancing long-term investment needs against the pressure coming from day-to-day operational needs.

Yeah, I mean, it's always a balance, isn't it, for any major transport operator. So our business plan was launched on the back of securing a long-term capital funding settlement with the UK government - two point two billion pounds over four years. It's the highest-valued, longest-term capital settlement TfL's had for more than ten years, desperately needed.

To enable us to both invest in new elements for the network, but also enable us to grow through our own funding, our renewals programme. We are still operating infrastructure that the Victorians built, that did an incredible job, but those assets need constant maintenance and renewing, both on rail and road.

And that new rolling stock will also come with customer enhancements - real-time information, improved accessibility, air conditioning. So, for the first time ever - we're sitting here on another thirty-degree day in London, it's the longest heatwave, I think, on record now in London - we have to look at how we can upgrade the fleets we have, which is going to take time, to make them suitable for the climate we're now operating in.

And then, on top of that, we've got a lot of ambitious plans around step-free access, so improving accessibility on our network. A couple of big station upgrades - South Kensington, which is right in the heart of London's Museum District and also serves two specialist major hospitals. It's our busiest non-step-free station. It's a huge programme of work to increase capacity and make that step-free, and up to another forty stations we're doing feasibility studies on to make accessible across the Tube - that would get us very close to having half of the Tube network accessible, if we were able to get the funds to complete that.

And then, on top of that, a number of other enhancements around technology - TfL Go, which is our free app for customers to use for travel planning and disruption management. We're completing the rollout of 4G, 5G underground across the network. So there's a lot of enhancements there for customers that will benefit.

And then, long term, we have approval now from government for the DLR extension to Thamesmead - a really significant two-station extension north and south of the river, including a tunnel under the Thames, that will unlock thirty thousand homes and ten thousand new jobs. We continue to make the case for some other growth schemes over the course of the next few years. So there's a lot to be really optimistic about, and a lot of exciting things to come.

Looking forward to seeing, in one year, how this business plan will be impacting the infrastructure of public transport in London. Let's talk a little more about different areas and modes of public transport, and wider urban mobility in London. Maybe I can start by talking about buses. London has a unique bus model that you have developed here - it's called the bus franchise model, where the authority works together with operators, contracting bus services with them. How does this model mainly work, and how does the authority, as TfL, you are sharing the role with operators in this model?

Yeah, we're hugely proud of the bus model and the network that we operate. We have the largest fleet of buses in Europe. We've just taken delivery of our three-thousandth zero-emission bus, so we have more electric buses in London than any other area of the UK has as an entire bus fleet.

And as part of our business plan, we're reimagining our bus networks - how do we make them fit for purpose for the years to come. The model works really well. We have a huge number of routes. Each route is procured, usually on a seven-year term. Operators all compete for that. They have to maintain, and are incentivised to maintain, good operational and customer standards, and it's worked really well for us.

We're looking at whether there are some changes we can make going forward. In Manchester, with the creation of the Bee Network, we've helped support the creation of that because we see the benefits of their model. We'll see what more can be done to refine that across London. But, of course, the service planning is all done by us - we're responsible for the network plan, we're responsible for frequency of service.

We've done some really exciting things around the creation of the Superloop, which is our express bus network around the whole of Greater London - that's been hugely successful. We need to encourage more ridership, certainly - we've seen a slight decline over the last few years. We want to get people focusing again on the advantages that buses deliver. They're the most affordable form of transport in London - we have the cheapest bus fares in the country. They're the most accessible mode for people with accessibility needs, and, of course, they serve a lot of areas where there isn't rail provision.

So we're very proud of the bus network. The model has worked really well. We're working through some changes that I think will deliver even bigger benefits, and at the same time, looking at how we can reimagine the network and put more bus capacity where it's needed, and make some tweaks elsewhere.

I see many cities around the world are also trying to learn from and implement this experience. We were talking earlier about Singapore, and I know that their model was benchmarked a lot against the model here in London, and they took a lot of examples for themselves. In the bus franchise model, the role of technology is very important. What are the lessons from a technology perspective, as an authority, for you to better manage the bus franchise model in London?

Yeah, I mean, probably the biggest lesson I'd say is we need to invest earlier in the next generation of bus technology, particularly around our iBus system - customer information and operational deployment. That is quite old now. We're working with our supplier to upgrade to the next system. I think a number of other cities have overtaken us in terms of how the bus network is communicated to customers, but TfL Go is a really good opportunity now, where people can see and get real-time information about their bus journeys and bus networks.

The big focus is how do we enable our bus customers to think about buses as a network of services. Traditionally in London, people get very focused on their individual route number. What we want to do now is get them to think about it more like the Tube network - how you use one route to connect with another to get you where you want to go, rather than thinking you can only use route X or route Y - which, I think, will encourage more ridership and more connectivity.

Giving people real-time information when there's disruption is a real priority for us. Improving bus journey times is a real priority for us, because if people know that the bus network is going to be reliable and have a real turn-up-and-go service, it proves far more popular. So the technology, the capability for customers to see that and use it, is really important.

You've already talked about your approach to investment in the rail system. I wonder how you're also keeping up the reliability of the rail network and its efficiency.

Well, key to that is having a really good renewals plan, certainly. And we have not spent as much on renewals as we would like to, because of the challenges of the pandemic in particular. We're increasing our renewals to close to nine hundred million pounds a year going forward. That's significant, but ideally we need to be delivering over a billion pounds a year.

So it's a combination of how we make sure we're replacing key assets. We've obviously enhanced maintenance inspections where we need to, where we know we've got assets that are degrading with age. We spend a huge amount of time on our asset strategy and asset management plan - fantastic work, where, again, we've used technology and data to improve our knowledge of our assets and enable us to prioritise in a much more effective way. So that's really key.

And then the next part is how you replace, at scale, the key elements - rolling stock, signalling. We'll be completing what we call the Four Lines Modernisation, so the digital signalling of the District line and the Metropolitan line, over the course of this business plan. We need to make the case for resignalling the Piccadilly line, because signalling and rolling stock are the two most expensive elements. So that's a real focus for us. And at the same time, we'll need the money to upgrade the infrastructure to deal with those new systems as well.

So a combination of really robust maintenance, focused renewals on the critical assets, delivering a reliable service. Safety comes first - that's our absolute priority. So if we have any concerns over assets, we will put restrictions in place, or even stop service if we have to. But clearly our priority is to try to minimise and reduce the impact of that, and then make the case to government to fund that major infrastructure and rolling stock replacement over time.

I see the plan in mind, and in your business plan it's very clear, and I can see the dedication to follow and implement it. One interesting topic being discussed all around the world at the moment is how to manage car traffic in city centres. In London, many years ago, you developed the congestion charging approach, and recently you also launched ultra low emission zones. What are the key lessons you've learned from both congestion charging and low emission zones in London, and what would be your advice to other cities considering the same approach for better management of car traffic in their city centres?

I mean, I think, you know, London has led the way, there's no doubt about that, and a number of cities have followed, starting with the congestion charge. I wasn't in this role, or active, the whole time, but it was clear that London had a real problem with congestion in the centre, and the congestion charge has absolutely delivered a step change improvement. It was not an easy political decision - both for the congestion charge and for the low emission and ultra low emission zones. I was here for the ULEZ expansion.

I think, firstly, you need political leadership who are absolutely clear on the purpose and what the benefits are. We're very fortunate in having a mayor who was absolutely clear on why it was the right thing to do, despite significant opposition.

The thing people need to understand about ULEZ is that none of these were done as financial growth schemes. They were done because there was a significant benefit to the city. The congestion charge, to reduce traffic levels and enable better bus speeds and journey times. ULEZ, to improve the air quality of the city - and it's had an unbelievable impact in terms of improving London's air quality. And that's what it was done for.

Over the years, that will deliver huge benefits to both older and younger generations - improvements and benefits to our health service. London's air quality - the mayor was told it would take two hundred years to get below legal limits, but he's achieved it within the last year. That is remarkable, and shows the benefits of what we've done.

So it's about having a clear case for what the reasons are and what the benefits are, and being really clear that, while there may be financial benefits in terms of income - which all get reinvested back into the transport network, into buses or rail - that wasn't the reason for doing it. It was done because there was a health challenge that needed to be tackled - an air quality challenge - and it's very hard to argue against that, whoever you are, in my view.

So having a clear purpose, and not being driven by financial opportunity, is the advice I would give to anyone considering it.

That's fantastic advice. Cities shouldn't see this as a revenue generation technique, but mainly as a way to better manage their road space - of course, there could be some financial returns to reinvest in more sustainable modes of transport in their cities. One of the most important sustainable modes of transport we're discussing today is e-mobility, cycling, and bike sharing. Every time I come to London, I see more and more people cycling around the streets, which makes me very happy, and I've noticed this in some other pioneering cities as well. I wonder what your view is on the future of bike sharing and cycling in London. And while we're talking about new mobility, I'd also like to ask your opinion on autonomous vehicles - how TfL sees autonomous mobility, and how you're planning to partner with autonomous mobility players in the future.

We're really proud of our focus on active travel, as we call it. Again, in the Mayor's Transport Strategy, we want eighty per cent of everybody in London - visitors or residents - either using public transport, walking or cycling, by 2041. That's really critical.

We've seen a huge proliferation of cycling, especially since the pandemic. Some of that has been enabled because we've actively worked with London boroughs to put in segregated cycle lanes. We now have over 440 kilometres of cycle lanes across London - technically more kilometres than the Tube network. So, again, making people think of it as a cycle network is really key.

There's clearly been a proliferation of e-bike dockless schemes - we have our own fantastic Santander scheme as well. So it's about articulating the benefits to people - both the health benefits, but also particularly the last-mile benefits - and using that as an integrated transport solution. We are continuing to focus on how we can improve safety for cyclists, particularly those who are less regular users - that's a big focus.

Active travel - scooters, official scooters through trials, and bikes - are really, really important. And, of course, a huge number of people cycle on their own bikes, so giving them the infrastructure to do that is really key.

In terms of autonomous vehicles, we're still very much in the early days of that in London. There are discussions between us and government around the regulations that are required. We're very clear about what London's role should be in that. There are also already autonomous cars out on the roads mapping, and some of those organisations are using it. We're working with them and City Hall to see what's the best way for them to be deployed.

There are a lot of positives around safety and various other things, but we also need to make sure we don't create a further congestion problem. We also have to be conscious of the fact that a number of these may be planned for use as private hire vehicles - what are the implications of that for existing private hire drivers? So we're very alive to that fact.

I expect it will grow significantly over the coming months and years, and it will be a key player. And, of course, we are the regulator and licensee when it comes to taxis and private hire, so any vehicles and operators would have to comply with those regulations.

That's fantastic, especially on the taxi side. I had the pleasure of one of my taxi books were launched in this building in 2018, if I'm not mistaken - there was a conference there - so I know TfL's experience is leading the world in this area too.

When we talk about new mobility, these new mobility modes rely a lot on software and data, as much as on the vehicles themselves. So this brings us to a discussion about AI, artificial intelligence. I wonder what TfL's plans and strategy are regarding AI for the future.

So I think AI is a massive opportunity. I think AI means different things to different people. A lot of people think of AI in the context of computers speeding up processes and that sort of thing. We are clearly doing some of that to help improve efficiency - dealing with customer complaints and issues of that nature, and there are opportunities to improve our processing time for procurement processes and that sort of thing.

But actually, the real key for us is how we can use it to really solve a challenging operational issue. For example, we're using some AI technology to trial improving safety at the train-and-platform interface on the Central line and the DLR. One of the biggest risks that any rail operator has, particularly older ones with older infrastructure, is the risk of somebody slipping between the train and the platform, or somebody jumping down onto the track without authority because they've dropped their mobile phone. So we're trialling technology that can give us an alert when somebody has unauthorised access to the track. That could save a huge amount of disruption, but more importantly, make a real difference to safety in terms of reducing the risk of somebody being seriously injured, or worse. That's one real example.

We're also using it on our road networks, with our traffic signals, to improve bus journey times. We've now got new technology on over three thousand sets of traffic signals in London that can identify vehicles and work out which ones to prioritise going forward. So, lots of opportunities. The key is targeting it at the business solutions that we need, rather than just spending a load of money on AI and wondering what it can come up with. It's going to develop, isn't it - ten years ago, half of us had never heard of it, and here we are now, actively using it in a number of areas.

One interesting question I have - are there any areas where TfL has decided that AI should not be used?

That's a really good question. I'm not aware of anything we've explicitly ruled out, but the one thing I will say is that we want to use it as a complementary tool for our colleagues, to help them do their jobs better, to free up their time to focus on things that are more value-adding. A lot of organisations are using AI specifically to replace human beings - that is not our core strategy or rationale for AI. It's about making sure that our colleagues have more efficiency to deliver things that really make a difference and add real value to the travelling public, and to the city, going forward.

Thank you, Andy. We're coming close to the end of our discussion, and I'd like to ask you one more question. What would be your most important piece of advice to the different cities around the world listening to this interview, as a key piece of advice for overcoming their challenges?

Every city is different. Every city is coming from a different starting position. But my key advice is to stay in touch with your frontline operational colleagues - very important. Build a strong network with advisory groups, whether business, accessibility, customer groups, or government officials, so that you're constantly listening to feedback about what's going well, what needs fixing, and what could be improved, and stay open to those opportunities going forward.

So, listen more than you talk, but also make sure you understand what your own customers are experiencing - because if you don't, how can you know that what you're delivering is right? Frontline touch is very important.

Maybe one last question from me. If you look ten or fifteen years ahead from now, how do you see London's transport network? Maybe one or two major changes we can expect over the next ten to fifteen years?

Well, I hope we will have delivered some of the major schemes we're pushing for at the moment. I would expect the DLR extension to Thamesmead to be finished. I hope the West London Orbital on the Overground will have been approved and delivered. The Bakerloo line extension, hopefully, will certainly be approved and in construction. So many things - who knows where we may be with Crossrail 2, we still need to push for that.

I hope we'll have got the overall network into a better state of repair. And who knows, from a technology perspective? In ten or fifteen years' time, I expect we'll be communicating with our customers and colleagues in a very different way. Whether or not drones may be part of it - drones are already coming to be part of our experience, both from a security and a maintenance perspective - but who knows, with flying taxis or all those sorts of things? Not that I'm actively looking into it, but in ten or fifteen years' time, the way technology moves and the opportunities that could be created, it could be quite different.

But fundamentally, TfL will still be doing its same core role - keeping our fantastic capital city moving safely and efficiently, and enabling economic growth, both for London and for the United Kingdom.

Thank you so much, Andy. Thank you for being a guest on Mobility Redefined for this special episode, and thanks to you and all your colleagues at TfL for doing such excellent work in London, and also for showing a good example for the rest of the world - other cities can look to London as an example. And listening to you, I can once again say that governance is not the boring part of sustainable mobility - maybe it's the most important part of sustainable mobility in our cities. Thank you once again for joining us on Mobility Redefined.

Thank you for the opportunity, and equally, thank you to other cities and colleagues who are willing to share what they're doing, because we don't know it all in London. We like to think we're very good, but there's always more we can do to be better, and we're keen to learn from your listeners and everybody else too. So thank you for the opportunity.

That's great. Thank you, Andy. All the best.

Thank you for listening to Mobility Redefined, brought to you by Modaxo. For more insights, visit our website at mobilityredefined.com, or follow us on LinkedIn. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast on your favourite app to stay updated with our latest episodes. Thank you for tuning in, and we hope you enjoyed the conversation.