The Viability of Sponsored Transport Schemes

This is the Budget and Performance Committee's second report into Transport for London's (TfL), and the Mayor’s, pursuit of commercial sponsorship of parts of London’s transport services.

It seeks to better understand, and to help TfL to develop, thinking in this area.

Our investigation included the Cycle Hire Scheme (CHS) and the Thames Cable Car (TCC), it also looked into TfL’s support for the Garden Bridge proposal as another example of public-private funding for a non-essential transport scheme.

Sponsorship brings in relatively small sums of money when set against TfL’s huge budget. But it is, by its nature, highly visible. It is important that TfL takes care in selecting the right sponsorship partners that help develop transport schemes and attract more users.

The report makes a number of recommendations, including:

For the next sponsorship deal on the Cycle Hire Scheme (CHS), TfL should weight its selection process towards the potential sponsor’s plans and ability to promote the scheme and grow its ridership.

TfL should bring the CHS fully into its regular ticketing and payment systems when the next operator contract starts in 2017 (or before, if technically and financially feasible).

TfL’s formal funding agreement with the Garden Bridge Trust should ensure that, in return for its £30 million investment, free public access and other public benefits from the bridge are guaranteed in perpetuity.

TfL should set out its policy in terms of the requirements it places on external organisations receiving investment funding from TFL to act in a transparent manner and disclose information to the public.

The report, and responses to it from TfL, the Mayor of London Boris Johnson and the Chair of the IIPAG David James, are attached below.