Principal Transport Planner - Modelling

Location: Southwark, London, Surface Transport Corp

Company: TfL, GLA or OPDC

Salary: £60-70k

Grade: Band 3

Contract type: TfL

Reference: 3992

All offers of employment are subject to satisfactory right‑to‑work checks. Candidates must be able to demonstrate their right to work in the UK. At the present time TfL is unable to offer visa sponsorship for this role.

Hybrid working within this role enables a balance of time split between the office, site and home with a maximum of 50 per cent working at over a 4-week period. Hybrid working arrangements can evolve subject to business requirements.

Help provide London with better public transport using modelling. London is a world-class city that’s home to 8.6 million people and visited every year by millions more. Keeping it working, moving and growing is a huge challenge, but one that TfL rises to every day.

The Transport Modelling team within Public Transport Service Planning drives the development of Bus, Underground, DLR, Elizabeth line, Trams, London Overground and National Rail services in London. We help ensure TfL’s plans support London’s growth and meet the objectives laid out in the Mayor’s Transport Strategy.

To deliver a transport system that meets these objectives, TfL is committed to investing millions of pounds in upgrading its train and stations infrastructure as well as optimising its services across the network. Transport Modelling plays a part in our success, by optimising customer priorities including journey times for nearly 9 million public transport trips per day in London.

Your challenge will be to lead your team of transport modellers as you provide analysis and insight to enable senior business leaders to resolve complex strategic and operational problems with our services and stations. Owning and maintaining a suite of models that are up to date, validated, calibrated and fit for purpose. You’ll use these to provide modelling that is technically proficient, understandable and actionable, and influences business and operational decisions while ensuring our customers are at the heart of that decision making.

We’ll also expect you to develop new and innovative approaches to improve the quality and efficiency of modelling, and analysis to provide results for strategy and service development decisions. One of the key early responsibilities of this role is to deliver the next major update of the underlying database used to calculate Lost Customer Hours (LCH) values. LCH is a fundamental metric used throughout London Underground to support such investment decisions and monitor the performance of the operational railway. The measure ensures key business and operating decisions are taken considering the impact on the customer.

This role is an opportunity to make your mark on the way we run London’s transport system, and will include delivering results and recommendations, procurement, research and development programmes to keep tools and models fit for purpose and meet the growing needs of our business. You’ll be using all your skills as you provide authoritative advice that informs TfL’s contractual involvement in major, multi-million-pound transport programmes, and provide input to reporting on impacts such as increased congestion from the combination of planned closures and events.

We’ll also expect you to project manage your team’s contributions to a wide range of projects as well as develop their capabilities, ensure objectives are set, training and coaching is provided, and longer-term development is achieved.

To succeed in this role you’ll have a degree in a highly numerate discipline and extensive relevant experience. It’s important that you have excellent computer modelling skills and detailed knowledge of some of the software we use: strategic demand assignment (e.g. RailPlan in EMME OpenPaths) & spreadsheet models, and knowledge of forecasting plus train or pedestrian simulations or agent-based models. You would also ideally have a well-developed knowledge of transport planning principles, public transport services and reliability issues, and service performance metrics including Journey Time.

We’ll also expect you to have knowledge of forecasting of demand, analysis for supporting business cases, economic appraisals (e.g. DfT’s TAG) including revenue. In addition, skills to analyse multiple data sets using tools such as Excel, Power BI, or skills to code in one of Python, VBA or R, etc plus basic experience in GIS software packages would be an advantage.

We are looking for someone with experience of working with clients across TfL and partner organisations to scope requirements for modelling and analysis; and then presenting results and aiding clients to use outputs to appropriately inform design work, business case analysis etc.

Application Process: Please apply using your CV and covering letter – at a maximum of 2 pages each. Think carefully about the skills, knowledge and experience in the advert and cover this in your CV and cover letter. PDF format preferred and do not include any photographs or images.

Equality, diversity and inclusion: We are committed to equality, diversity and inclusion. We want to represent the city we serve, which will help us become a more innovative and efficient organisation. Our goal is to make our recruitment as inclusive as possible. We are a disability confident employer who guarantee an interview to any disabled candidate who meets all of the essential criteria. We also use anonymising software that removes identifying information from CVs and cover letters to make the process fair.

Benefits: In return for your commitment and expertise, you will enjoy excellent benefits and scope to grow. Rewards vary according to the level of role but mostly include the below:

• Final salary pension scheme
• Free travel for you on the TfL network
• Reimbursement of 75% of the cost of a standard class Ticket for National Rail travel from home
• 30 days annual leave plus public and bank holidays
• TfL is committed to work-life balance, operating a hybrid working approach where business and role requirements allow
• Private healthcare discounted scheme (optional)
• Tax-efficient cycle-to-work and electric car programme
• Retail, health, leisure and travel offers
• Discounted Eurostar travel

We will make every effort to give you as much notice as possible, however some interviews/assessments could be organised at short notice.

Vetting Process: At Transport for London, safety, trust and fairness sit at the heart of how we recruit. Our Vetting Charter explains the checks we carry out before you join us, helping ensure we create a safe, inclusive and reliable network for everyone who depends on our services. We simply ask that the information you provide is honest and accurate so we can progress your application smoothly. If something doesn’t match or can’t be verified, we may not be able to move forward with your application, but we’ll always treat you with transparency, respect, and clear communication throughout. We may close this advert early if we receive a high volume of suitable applications.