Glynn Barton has been named incoming Director of Buses by Transport for London (TfL). He will take up the post in late March 2024 and succeeds Louise Cheeseman, who is to retire on 15 December.
Mr Barton is currently Interim Chief Operations Officer with TfL, a position he has held since October 2022. His move to lead the development, planning and delivery of the capital’s bus services will coincide with the arrival of Claire Mann as TfL Chief Operating Officer in March next year.
Ms Mann will rejoin TfL from FirstGroup subsidiary South Western Railway (SWR), where she is currently Managing Director. She is a former Director of Bus Operations with TfL, a job she held between 2017 and 2021.
Speaking about the appointments, Transport Commissioner Andy Lord says that Mr Barton “has done a fantastic job of running our operations on an interim basis,” noting that he will now be in overall charge of Europe’s largest bus network “during a time that we are working to adapt our offering to further raise ridership and support growth in outer London.”
Adds Mr Lord: “Glynn is an outstanding operational leader with a wealth of experience. I am hugely grateful for the leadership he has shown, and will continue to show in his new role leading such a vital part of TfL’s offer.”
Ms Mann has over two decades’ experience in the transport sector. She will return to TfL after around three years with SWR, where she leads a business with an annual turnover of £770 million and 5,500 employees. Mr Lord describes her as “an outstanding transport professional with deep experience of improving customer service.”
Ms Cheeseman joined TfL in August 2021, arriving from FirstGroup subsidiary Hull Trains. Her transport career began as a guard with that open access operator in 2001. She succeeded Ms Mann as having overall charge of the capital’s bus network.
In addition to his work with TfL, Glynn Barton is also a board member of Intelligent Transport Systems UK, an organisation that says it is the voice of the transport technology industry.
