Ralph Applebaum Associates

The London Transport Museum spans 200 years of London history from the perspective of its public transportation and conveys the complexity of transporting two and a half million Londoners around town every day. The museum also shows how transport has shaped cities all over the world and engages audiences in discussions about making public transportation sustainable.

RAA was commissioned to explain the chronology of London’s ever-growing transportation needs and the increasingly sophisticated technological advances that met them. Set in a Victorian glass-and-cast-iron building that is the centerpiece of Covent Garden, this museum is organized on three levels through media and the display of full-scale trams, trolleys, buses, and taxies. Materials throughout the museum use the vocabulary of metropolitan transport and the urban built environment.

Complex Connections is a 25-foot-high real-time digital map showing transportation activity throughout the city. London volunteers use lightweight cameras to capture their daily journeys, which are projected onto the wall.

Filmmakers use Facebook and YouTube to capture the experience of travel in urban settings all over the world and to show how indispensable public transportation is to the life of a modern city. The Design for Travel gallery celebrates the design heritage of London’s transport system through films that run the length of the gallery floor and end wall.

Since opening in 2007, the museum has reported record visitor numbers almost fifty percent higher than those of the previous decade and increased public engagement both on-site and online. The London Transport Museum has become one of city’s premier tourist attractions.