IRIS and Transport for London
bring big data into classrooms

Some 24 million journeys happen every single day on our capital’s public transport system.

Transport for London (TfL)’s analytics team has the job of studying the resulting data to make people’s journeys better. TfL already works with leading universities across the world, including MIT and Imperial College to transfer academic research into business improvements, and has now linked up with the Institute for Research in Schools to bring real life data research into the classroom.

TfL has the most contactless payments of any retailer in Europe, which means there is plenty of data for students to work with. IRIS and TfL’s Big Data team will be holding Continuous Professional Development sessions in July to introduce teachers to their data and show how it can be used in schools.

TfL also offers STEM teachers opportunities through its Teacher Industrial Partnership Scheme (TIPS), under which they can spend a week at TfL to gain an insight into the industry and the real-world application of their subjects, supported by face-to-face and online CPD delivered by the National STEM Learning Centre and Network.