With billions of passenger journeys each year, Transport for London (TfL) operates at a scale where safety is non-negotiable. Among the many factors that influence safe and effective operations, fatigue stands out as both a persistent challenge and a critical risk.
TfL’s organisation-wide fatigue management programme, which supports around 29,000 directly employed colleagues, sets clear standards across training, culture and support. But like many large, operationally complex organisations, TfL faced a familiar challenge: how to ensure those standards translated into meaningful engagement across the entire workforce – particularly among shift workers and frontline teams who are often hardest to reach.
Recognising this gap, TfL sought a more targeted, experience-led approach to fatigue education – one that could resonate with employees working in varied roles, environments and schedules.
Bringing sleep science to the frontline
Following earlier collaboration through an innovation challenge and a subsequent competitive tender, Night Club was commissioned to deliver a tailored programme of sleep expert-led training and engagement.
The approach was designed with flexibility at its core, adapting to the realities of different roles and locations across the network.
For desk-based control centre teams, sessions took place in the ‘Flex’ – Night Club’s immersive sleep exhibition and learning space at TfL’s headquarters. For overnight maintenance teams, the ‘Max’ – a repurposed shipping container – brought the experience directly to depot sites, creating an accessible, on-location learning environment. Meanwhile, Dial-a-Ride drivers and managers engaged through the ‘Mini’, a portable version of the experience that toured multiple depots.
Alongside these environments, a Sleep Champions initiative introduced a peer-to-peer model, helping embed knowledge and encourage ongoing behavioural change within teams. This was supported by a strengthened programme of insights and evaluation, combining feedback, interviews and expert observation to better understand the lived experience of shift work across TfL.
Driving engagement – and measurable change
Between 2023 and 2024, 450 colleagues were directly supported through the programme, with many more reached indirectly through internal communications and peer networks.
The results point to both immediate impact and sustained change. The vast majority of participants – 92% – reported learning something new about how to improve their sleep. More significantly, follow-up data collected three to six months later showed that over 60% of participants had improved both the quality and quantity of their sleep, while 70% reported improved mood across shifts.
Beyond individual outcomes, the programme also generated valuable organisational insight. Feedback and research were described internally as providing “rich and practical new insight” into the challenges faced by shift workers.
Crucially, this translated into wider engagement with TfL’s fatigue management efforts. As one senior representative noted, there had been ‘a real increase in engagement with the fatigue programme as a whole […] because of the engagement we’ve had.’
Building on momentum
The success of the initial programme has led to further collaboration. In 2024, Night Club was commissioned to extend its work to over 800 London bus drivers across six garages – expanding the reach of fatigue education deeper into frontline operations.
A model for operational wellbeing
TfL’s approach highlights an important shift in how organisations think about fatigue management. Rather than relying solely on policy and training frameworks, it demonstrates the value of meeting employees where they are – physically, culturally and operationally.
By combining expert insight with tailored, on-the-ground engagement, TfL has not only improved sleep outcomes for its workforce but also strengthened participation in a critical safety programme.
In complex, 24/7 environments, supporting shift workers sits at the heart of safe and effective operations, not on the periphery of wellbeing.
You might also like:
