The London Transport Museum occupies the former flower market hall on the eastern side of Covent Garden Piazza in central London — a Victorian iron-and-glass building designed by William Rogers in 1871. The museum opened here on 28 March 1980, having previously housed its collection at Clapham (as part of the Museum of British Transport) and then at Syon Park, Brentford. It is owned by Transport for London and run as an education and heritage charity (registered charity no. 1123122).

The collection traces nearly two centuries of London's public transport, from horse-drawn omnibuses and trams to trolleybuses, Underground trains and the modern Tube. Its origins lie in the early 20th century, when the London General Omnibus Company began preserving retired buses; after the LGOC passed to the London Electric Railway, rail vehicles were added, and the collection continued to grow through the London Passenger Transport Board and its successors up to TfL. A landmark exhibit is a car from the City & South London Railway of 1890 — the world's first deep-level electric Tube railway — displayed alongside double-deck buses, trams, signage and the design archive.

A £22 million refurbishment by Bryan Avery of Avery Associates reopened the galleries on 22 November 2007, expanding the displays to reflect TfL's full remit. The bulk of the collection — more than 370,000 items, including a complete 1938 Stock Tube train — is conserved at the Museum Depot in Acton, west London, which opens for guided tours and a few open weekends each year.

The glazed roof of the former flower market floods the main hall with daylight, making the ground-floor line-up of buses and trams the strongest photographic subject, while the mezzanine balconies give elevated angles down onto the vehicles. The City & South London Railway 1890 Tube car and the heritage Underground vehicles reward close detail shots. Personal photography is permitted in the galleries; tripods, filming and commercial shoots require prior arrangement. For the largest locomotives and the 1938 Stock train, plan a visit to a Museum Depot open day in Acton.

For railfans the headline draws are the early Underground vehicles. The Covent Garden galleries display a car from the City & South London Railway (1890), the first electric deep-level Tube, while the Acton Depot holds the only surviving Metropolitan Railway steam locomotive of 1866 and Metropolitan Railway electric locomotive 'John Hampden', one of twenty built in 1922–23 that hauled Metro-land services until locomotive haulage on the Metropolitan line ended in 1961.

Beyond the rolling stock, the museum is the definitive home of London Transport design — the lineage of Harry Beck's diagrammatic Tube map, Edward Johnston's sans-serif typeface, the bar-and-circle roundel, and an archive of more than 5,000 posters and 700 original poster artworks. Visitors can also try cab simulators, including an Elizabeth line cab and a 1938 Stock simulator fitted with a working deadman's handle.

The setting is part of the appeal: a preserved Victorian market hall in the heart of Covent Garden, steps from the Royal Opera House and the Piazza's street performers.

Entry is through Covent Garden Piazza into the glass-roofed hall, where visitors move broadly chronologically across three levels — beginning upstairs with 19th-century horse trams and omnibuses, then descending through the growth of the Underground to the present day. Many vehicles can be boarded, and the line-up of around 80 restored vehicles ranges from a Victorian horse bus to red double-deckers and Tube cars.

Families are well served: the All Aboard play zone caters to under-7s, and interactive areas let children 'drive' a bus. The museum runs quieter early-opening sessions for visitors with autism, and offers step-free access throughout, a café, an indoor picnic room and an extensive shop. Most visitors spend two to three hours.

Galleries open every day from 10:00 to 18:00 (last entry 17:15) and are busiest on weekends and during school holidays; weekday afternoons in term time are the calmest.