Given the political scrum developing over London’s finances, funding and fares – let alone the ultra-low emission zone (Ulez) – mayor Sadiq Khan may well have wanted to pick a solid prop forward to quietly drive the capital on.
Andy Lord, confirmed as commissioner of Transport for London (TfL) in June, was a big rugby player back in the day, he says, even if he is now awaiting a hip replacement: the legacy of an ill-judged Covid-era training regime. It was six months straight of daily 5km runs, “and then I woke up three months later in agony, with all my cartilage gone”.
TfL only needed to scratch out a few letters on the commissioner’s nameplate when Lord took over from his departing boss Andy Byford, suggesting a continuity candidate but perhaps without quite the intensity or direct experience. But while this Andy may have come later to urban transport, his brief tenure at the tube and what the mayor called his “dedication to rebuilding TfL’s finances” convinced Khan to install him at the top.
An engineer by training rather than an accountant, Lord has had to focus on the bottom line after Covid, and declares himself “proud of the fact that this year we will achieve an operating surplus – the first time in TfL’s history that’s happened”.
He is now in talks with the government for £500m more next year to maintain planned investment in Piccadilly line and Docklands Light Railway trains. “There’s been a lot of talk around London-style funding arrangements for other cities across the country. We need a London-style funding deal going forward, because we don’t have certainty beyond 31 March.
“Yet we’re the biggest public transport authority in the world, vital to the success of London and, equally, absolutely critical to the economic growth and success in the wider country through the supply chain and investment that we have.”
The Covid era produced a series of grudging, 11th-hour settlements from government to TfL to keep the capital moving – even as national rail services were bailed out. Lord is measured: “I wouldn’t say we were unfairly treated … I would say that the conditions that were put on us were quite harsh and challenging.”
Now, he says, “the working relationship is much better on both sides”.
Lord has cut costs, as demanded, with another £600m to be shaved off over the next three years, while staving off the worst of threatened industrial action from unions crying foul at staffing reductions and pension reviews. Lord says he has a “good relationship, open and honest, with both Micks [Whelan of Aslef and Lynch of the RMT], we’re able to pick up the phone to each other when we need to”. Privately, union sources recognise TfL “making the best of a bad deal”.
Yet funding London transport is a national investment, Lord argues – according to research for TfL, 93% of its £6.5bn spending last year went to UK suppliers, and about half to small and medium-sized companies. “If the government invest in TfL, it has significant economic benefits – over 100,000 jobs [supported] across the UK – there are more people in the rest of England delivering for TfL than we directly employ.”
Lord spent his own formative years further north. Brought up by a single mother with her parents’ support, he was sent to boarding school from the age of 10. Unhappy at first – a place with “ice on the windows, in the Peak District” – he then moved and found friends at Repton on the rugby pitch, while dreaming of becoming a pilot.
Pursuing a career in aviation, he was in effect employed by British Airways from his first day at university, studying engineering under its undergraduate sponsorship scheme.
Eventually rising to become BA’s operations director, he was hired (via a brief stint at Menzies Aviation) as managing director of London Underground in 2019. The roles in different industries had more in common than people might think, he says: “A lot of similar safety-critical practices, people leadership, supply chain management, heavily unionised, customer-focused.”
The big difference, apart from the geography, he says, is the speed of decision-making. “If you think about the Victoria line, it’s the highest frequency train service in the world – there are more trains in the tunnels than there are platforms. If there is any disruption, our service control have about 15 to 20 seconds to make a decision. At British Airways, our team at Heathrow would probably have 15 to 30 minutes. But we have some of the very best people in the world.”
TfL may be acknowledged as a world-class transport service, but it has also become, with Khan, part of the current government’s useful political punchbag, most evidently with the Ulez expansion.
Unlike his predecessor, Lord does have a car, but says he rarely drives it, and he lives just inside the new Ulez in Teddington. Lord says he had no doubts about pushing the initiative: “The air quality and health benefits are clear – I think the mayor has made a really great decision.”
The first fines have now been sent out to drivers of noncompliant vehicles, after a month of warning letters, yet the initial vandalism of cameras has reduced, Lord says. TfL is working with the Metropolitan police to tackle more violent incidents “and I hope those people are brought to justice soon”.
“But they’re not going to stop the scheme and they’re certainly not having an impact in terms of the operation. The reality is the system’s in, it’s working, I’m confident that it will have the desired impact in terms of air quality. ”
London was also singled out politically by the prime minister when he announced the scrapping of HS2 beyond Birmingham. Rishi Sunak, in his Tory conference speech, said that the affected regions would get the same spending or more, but the £6.5bn needed for the scheme to reach “mismanaged” Euston would be taken away and given to the rest of the country, with the capital told to raise private finance instead.
In the context of Lord’s straight-batting, his response is as close as he comes to calling Sunak’s plan, involving 10,000 new homes at Euston, as completely implausible. “I think we’re still trying to fully understand the implications … I can’t really see a scenario where the private sector is going to pay for the tunnelling from Old Oak Common to Euston. And Old Oak Common as a terminus station, for even a short period of time, is not going to be ideal for customer experience and certainly for journey times. So we need to understand that.”
CV
Age 53
Family Married with three adult children
Education Boarded at Repton school, studied mechanical engineering at Manchester University
Pay £395,000
Last holiday Watching the rugby world cup in Marseille with his son.
Best advice he’s been given “Be yourself, don’t try to be something you’re not.”
Biggest career mistake Going from BA to Menzies - “with hindsight, probably not the best move”.
Phrase he overuses “I’m not an expert, but...”
How he relaxes Spending time with family, watching Harlequins and playing golf.
