Building Real-Time Dashboards That Connect to Delivery Teams

(No Bus Left Behind!)

Why London Buses Matter

London’s bus network is the largest and most complex in the world. 

🚍 Over 8,000 buses operate across London’s transport network.

📍 700+ routes, covering nearly every part of the city.

👥 6 million passengers per day, making it one of the busiest transit systems in the world.

🔧 Multiple bus operators, dozens of suppliers, and over 78 garages work together to keep the fleet running smoothly.

Bus safety and reliability are non-negotiable 

Launched in 2018, the Bus Safety Standard (BSS) covers safety requirements on all new buses in London.

Approximately 17% of  vehicles meet the full BSS requirements for the year they entered service, and thanks to TFL’s Bus Safety Programme approximately 47% of the fleet has at least some of the main features.

A well-maintained fleet means fewer delays, fewer accidents, and better passenger experience.

The Challenge

🚍 6 different operators – each managing their own fleet.
⚙️ 5 safety technologies – installed across thousands of buses.
10 suppliers, 78 garages – retrofitting happening day and night.
👥 Only 5 people managing it all.

So what? Well that’s ….

📌 5,000+ buses × 5 technologies = 25,000 installations.


📜 Each requiring 10+ certifications → 250,000+ documents to track.

What TfL Buses and SymTerra did

  • We built our surveys and forms on SymTerra to streamline communication between on and off-site teams, ensuring it worked as an easy and quick reporting tool.

  • We then focused on automating our reporting, with a daily summary email of what's happened as well as connecting to our project management dashboards.

  • We then brought in our Assets and Activities so teams could easily log photos & videos, reports and updates against them. 

  • We didn’t forget our Operators and SymTerra had to work for them to.

Benefits

We are working with greater visibility and have fast, easy and flexible real-time reporting

Client benefits:

  • Delivery teams spend less time doing admin. 

  • See updates and issues in real-time.  

  • A connected workforce rather than one of multiple fragmented silos, streamlining communication and reducing risk.  

  • Evidence and history record established. 

Operator / Contractor benefits:

  • Faster reporting to client. Both can easily see the work teams have undertaken. 

  • Both can raise issues faster for better transparency. 

  • Commercial defensibility. We did it. 

We have a full audit trail for better compliance and reporting

Client benefits:

  • Accurate and transparent reporting.

  • Centralised communication provides a full audit trail. 

Operator / Contractor benefits:

  • The platform acts as the communication bridge between the night shift workers and the day shift managers.

  • Commercial defensibility.

Key Metrics

In less than 12 months, we went from 1 pilot project to rolling out across all

Outputs:

  • Over 5,436 updates from our delivery teams

  • Over 16,060 photos and videos

  • Over 3,000 what3words locations

  • 15 operators and contractors onboarded and using

  • Over 150 users

  • 45 different surveys and forms built and utilised

Outcomes:

  • 10% increase in productivity

  • 15% reduction in subcontractor costs by avoiding rework & revisits

  • 20% reduction in admin time with real-time asset reporting

  • 35% boost in work completion rates through enhanced planning

  • 60% improvement in worksite visibility and reporting accuracy

Shaun Raymond

Assistant Project Manager

“The introduction of SymTerra to support our various retrofit projects has been a game changer across our supply chain and has helped reduce time spent on administrative tasks and the use of paper based systems which in turn has helped to reduce our carbon footprint by taking opportunities to automate and digitise a wide range of processes, tasks and reporting requirements.

Utilising SymTerra has assisted with proactive problem solving and issue management which has led to cost savings across various projects through having access to up to date information on works carried out.

 We have been able to develop a robust digital ecosystem across our supply chain and introduced new ways of working which has reduced the reliance on Excel Spreadsheets and labour-intensive tasks which in turn has increased visibility, accountability, productivity, assurance and collaboration across all stakeholders.

SymTerra is quickly becoming our one true source of knowledge for our bus fleet data.”

Want to see how SymTerra can transform your site communication and project reporting?

Project teams of all sizes are using SymTerra to change their projects for the better. And we have the case studies to prove it.

“It's the speed and simplicity of it all, which just makes life a lot easier.“

Tony Bowman, Rescue 2

“With previous systems, we took photos on one platform and allocated the activity to the engineer on another for comments from site. We would then have to merge the data on to a word document copying text and adding photos to share with the client or other teams. This was time consuming and meant we'd have to limit or loose data, photos or miss information.

With SymTerra, all info/photos are in one place to view/document making data sharing simple without having to transfer from multiple systems.”

Joe Taylor, Operations Manager, Lanes Group

Hear it straight from the horse's mouth

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